r/politics • u/RB_Reich Robert Reich • Sep 26 '19

Let’s talk about impeachment! I'm Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor, author, professor, and co-founder of Inequality Media. AMA. AMA-Finished

I'm Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor for President Clinton and Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. I also co-founded Inequality Media in 2014.

Earlier this year, we made a video on the impeachment process: The Impeachment Process Explained

Please have a look and subscribe to our channel for weekly videos. (My colleagues are telling me I should say, “Smash that subscribe button,” but that sounds rather violent to me.)

Let’s talk about impeachment, the primaries, or anything else you want to discuss.

Proof: https://i.imgur.com/tiGP0tL.jpg

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155

u/Jwoom0818 Ohio Sep 26 '19

How much does public opinion factor into an impeachment process?

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u/RB_Reich Robert Reich Sep 26 '19

A great deal. Impeachment is less a legal process than it is a political one. If most Americans find Trump's behavior to be outrageous, and decide he should no longer be in office, even Senate Republicans could come around.

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u/neverdoneneverready Sep 26 '19

Is this what happened to Nixon?

63

u/msfeatherbottom Sep 26 '19

Yes-when Nixon resigned his approval rating was about 23%, with over 60% of the population actively disapproving of him.

15

u/Anti-Anti-Paladin I voted Sep 26 '19

It's also worth noting that up until the House Judiciary committee recommended impeachment, only 38% of the country thought he should be removed from office. 51% thought he shouldn't, the rest undecided.

Once they recommended impeachment however, that number skyrocketed to 57% thinking he should be removed. With a high percentage saying he shouldn't even have gotten a pardon.

People were defending Nixon and calling the entire thing a witch hunt and a desperate smear campaign motivated by partisan hacks right until the bitter end.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/08/08/how-the-watergate-crisis-eroded-public-support-for-richard-nixon/

3

u/Dont_Say_No_to_Panda California Sep 26 '19

The pardon IMO is what really set us on this dark path. Will we make the same mistake again?

10

u/rolfraikou Sep 26 '19

Trump's constant approval rating makes me very nervous about this.

Also, our insecure elections also make this a different ballgame.

15

u/Stupid_question_bot Canada Sep 26 '19

im of the opinion that about 30% of any given population are just absolutely horrible people.

the only people left who support trump are idiots who actually believe hes doing good things, racists, and rich people who dont care about racism.. so more racists

3

u/rolfraikou Sep 26 '19

The number worries me because post watergate if I recall it was 20% or low 20s. Which was very helpful to making it actually happen, to actually getting him out.

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u/Stupid_question_bot Canada Sep 26 '19

yea well in the 70s issues like abortion and gay rights werent in the political sphere really, so there werent as many single issue voters.

Plus Nixon didnt run on a blatantly racist platform or appeal so boldly to white supremacists.

finally I think the internet has created a lot of really really really stupid people who have found validation by congregating with other really really really stupid people, which creates a feedback loop of stupidity

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u/[deleted] Sep 26 '19

[deleted]

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u/Stupid_question_bot Canada Sep 26 '19

and?

what does my latitude and longitude have to do with my ability to make assessments about the human condition?

-9

u/[deleted] Sep 26 '19

[deleted]

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u/Stupid_question_bot Canada Sep 26 '19

I’m just making observations, people can draw their own conclusions

If I’m influencing you to not support him, that’s on you.

5

u/starmartyr Colorado Sep 26 '19

Too late. I was a huge Trump supporter until I read that guys comment. Now I'm going to sell all my guns and donate the money to planned parenthood.

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u/msfeatherbottom Sep 26 '19

I think it really depends on how deep this Ukrainian scandal goes. If we ever get a hold of those actual transcripts they're keeping locked up and he literally said "Help me get reelected and I'll give you money/aid/whatever" I think even the talking heads and Republican Senators will start to turn, and that will influence public opinion. Despite various grassroots movements over the years much of the population still gets their opinions on politics from the powers-that-be. If they start to condemn Trump, his approval will go down.

5

u/disgr4ce Sep 26 '19

it really depends on how deep this Ukrainian scandal goes

Oh it goes to the top, man, this scandal goes all the way to the president! You gotta believe me!

2

u/zombie_overlord Sep 26 '19

These days, it would be harder to believe it didn't.

29

u/[deleted] Sep 26 '19 edited Nov 03 '19

[deleted]

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u/msfeatherbottom Sep 26 '19 edited Sep 26 '19

For sure. It's funny how after he got inaugurated in 1973 his approval ratings began to drop immediately too. Dude went from 67% to 40% in like six months. This website has a lot of great info about Nixon's approval ratings and how they coincided with his various scandals. https://historyinpieces.com/research/nixon-approval-ratings

8

u/thephotoman Sep 26 '19

Yes. They went to him and said, straight up, that they couldn't support him in the Senate. Too many senators would have lost their jobs protecting him.

3

u/katrina1215 Idaho Sep 26 '19

But will that be the case this time around? Trump's base is loyal if nothing else.

6

u/thephotoman Sep 26 '19

The question is whether the base is enough to hold onto power when the rest of the country is livid.

6

u/katrina1215 Idaho Sep 26 '19

Here's hoping they're just a loud minority.

3

u/disgr4ce Sep 26 '19

This is the central question to me. The vast majority of these senate republicans have stuck fast through already-monumental amounts of bullshit, and their trump-rabid constituents could not possibly care less what Trump does.

3

u/kdttocs Sep 26 '19

No, Nixon resigned before he could be impeached. Not resigning would have caused serious party line issues. Vote to impeach and you cross party lines. Vote to not impeach and you lose your voters.

Resigning was the safest route for everyone who had a lot to lose.

7

u/djzenmastak Texas Sep 26 '19

the point is still valid. at the time nixon resigned, the senate was quite likely to vote to remove him from office and was a large reason of why nixon resigned.

2

u/kdttocs Sep 26 '19

Yes definitely. But by resigning, no vote happened which avoided Rep party drama.

2

u/mutemutiny Sep 27 '19

Sort of. Public pressure did get to that point, but Republicans didn't want to go through the process and have to vote against him. They would have if they had to, but they figured another way out that was better for everyone - which was him just resigning. It saved them from having to crucify one of their own publicly, and it made it a lot easier for Ford to pardon him.

1

u/LeMot-Juste Sep 26 '19

Nixon resigned.

4

u/ItchyElderberry Georgia Sep 26 '19

Because he knew he has lost all support.

8

u/SilentR0b Massachusetts Sep 26 '19

If most Americans find Trump's behavior to be outrageous, and decide he should no longer be in office, even Senate Republicans could come around.

It's really shocking to think we're not even there yet while it's taken this long already.

5

u/kkidd333 Sep 26 '19

I read a story yesterday that said if a vote of the Senate was held privately... Meaning we the people don't know who voted for what... That at least 30 Senate Republicans would vote to impeach. I think we are there... Just the base of Republicans holding on for dear life. My thought when I read about the 30... Was WTF? How do we end up with such pussies running this damn country.

2

u/oregondete81 Texas Sep 26 '19

How dare you talk about the party of integrity, moral fortitude, and personal responsibility like that! /s

26

u/DonCantAvoidObstChrg Sep 26 '19

Which is why pelosi handled all of this masterfully and her haters owe her an apology.

14

u/overthereoverhere2 Sep 26 '19

I reserve my right to dislike her greatly and still think she handled the gravity of impeachment proceedings appropriately

5

u/ViolaNguyen California Sep 26 '19

Most of them are bad faith right wing actors, so I wouldn't get my hopes up there.

10

u/littorina_of_time Sep 26 '19

That’s some revisionism; Mueller already gave her Trump‘s head on a plate. She kept stalling because of opinion polls or some silly excuse. Opinion polls are always going to follow reality not vice versa.

0

u/DonCantAvoidObstChrg Sep 26 '19

Sack up and eat crow buddy. Mueller did not give her trumps head on a plate, the report was far from what dems wanted, and on top of that it was incredibly complex and wishy washy and hard to explain to the public. And your assertion that the public would have gotten on board with it is entirely baseless, pretty much every political analyst agrees that this scandal is preferable in every way to initiate proceedings with.

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u/KevinCarbonara Sep 26 '19

Pelosi handled this terribly and put herself over this country's future. We owe her a pink slip.

2

u/DonCantAvoidObstChrg Sep 26 '19

If you were in control you would have failed to impeach trump and given trump a second term I absolutely guarantee it.

0

u/KevinCarbonara Sep 26 '19

If literally anyone but Pelosi were in control, Democrats would have impeached after the Mueller report. Only someone with Pelosi's decades of experience could have protected Trump that well for so long.

4

u/DonCantAvoidObstChrg Sep 26 '19

Support for impeachment was less than 37% then lol. It was an impossible scandal to sum up to joe public and it would have been gradually ripped apart as a witch hunt. Literally robert reich himself agrees.

" How much does public opinion factor into an impeachment process? "

" A great deal. Impeachment is less a legal process than it is a political one. "-robert.

Impeachment is as much a PR exercise as anything and the mueller report did not cut it out side of progressive circles. Joe public was not on board with impeachment with that scandal. Period.

protected Trump

Just absolutely vile smh. One day a giant crow the size of intercontinental container ship is going to fly down out of the sky and you are going to be forced to choke down the entire thing as one solid mass until your body is just a giant stretched skin blimp. That's the level of crow ou are going to be eating, that is after apologising to pelosi.

1

u/KevinCarbonara Sep 26 '19

Support for impeachment was less than 37% then lol.

Yes, and you have the progressives to thank for changing that. Pelosi did her best to sabotage the push for impeachment.

1

u/DonCantAvoidObstChrg Sep 26 '19

and you have the progressives to thank for changing that

Actually it was almost entirely stagnant until this scandal came out, it didnt budge at all until now where it jumped up 7%

The simple fact of the matter is that the people who were on the fence about impeachment needed this scandal to believe impeachment is viable. It had pretty much nothing to do with progressives, especially because those who were unsure about impeachment most certainly werent progressive or even close to that idealogy.

​

Pelosi did her best to sabotage the push for impeachment.

Lie.

1

u/ElolvastamEzt Sep 27 '19

I’m actually curious about what you do, that you feel so much more qualified to craft political strategy for a corrupt situation which has never before occurred in US history than a person who you state has decades of experience in government.