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“AMERICA’S FUTURE IS blazing bright,” according to US President Donald Trump in his State of the Union address on Tuesday evening.
Of course, if you were to ask him, the only way it has and will continue to blaze bright is his occupation of the Oval Office. For America to prosper, he must be at the helm. When he is acting, he is acting in America’s best interests.
And that’s exactly the argument made by his lawyers at the damp squib that was the Senate impeachment trial – from which Trump was formally acquitted last night.
One of Trump’s lawyers – Alan Dershowitz – said that every politician conflated their own interest with the public interest.
In this case, Trump targeting a rival and asking for the help of the Ukrainian president to investigate that rival’s son is fair game, according to Dershowitz, because the president believes his re-election is the “public interest”.
The Republicans have the majority in the Senate. The partisanship of US politics is such that it was always going to be very unlikely for Trump to be removed from office.
Despite the defection of Mitt Romney to vote against the Republican party, the outcome was never close to being changed. The White House claimed his acquittal represents the “full vindication and exoneration” of the president.
Democrats were dismayed, calling it “madness” and the “normalisation of lawlessness”. It doesn’t matter. Nobody was listening.
But, with the primaries to choose the Democratic nomination under way and the State of the Union also happening this week, the American people who soon be paying attention according to assistant professor in political theory and human rights at UCD Graham Finlay.
He told TheJournal.ie: “We won’t know until November the extent to which people have made up their minds about Trump. He’s spoiling for a fight and has all the advantages of incumbency while the Democrat field is busy attacking each other.”
After Trump’s acquittal from impeachment, all eyes will turn now to whether he can be re-elected for a second term in November – and who’ll be facing him.
A disaster in Iowa
If the caucus in Iowa to determine who that State wants to be the next Democratic nomination for the presidency was a chance for the party to put its best foot forward after its failure to make headway in the impeachment trial, it was more a case of two steps back.
Iowa has usually been the first in the nation to return results. It would set a tone for the primaries to come as the Democrats sought to wrest the control of the narrative from Trump.
The results from Iowa were supposed to land at 3am Irish time in the early hours of Tuesday morning. They didn’t.
A new app distributed to party officials around the State was supposed to help them report results more quickly. The app failed, only delivering partial results.
“It’s clear the Democrat party screwed up,” Finlay said. “They used an app they knew had issues.”
When the partial results were published, it was moderate 38-year-old Pete Buttigieg who had a surprising lead over frontrunner Bernie Sanders.
Where the primaries will be a formality for Trump, they’ll be fought tooth and nail by the likes of Buttigieg, Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden for the chance to battle Trump in November.
Biden had expected to be in the mix for top spot at the Iowa caucus but was trailing in fourth behind his rivals.
He was implicated in the impeachment proceedings as Trump was seeking to have the affairs of son looked into by Ukrainian officials. His third bid for the presidency is certainly stumbling at present.
Another presidential hopeful hoping to make a mark is billionaire Michael Bloomberg. The former New York mayor doesn’t have to fundraise as he’s bankrolling his candidacy himself.
Bloomberg is the “wildcare” according to Finlay, spending an incredible amount of money on adverts nationally to try to woo delegates to give him the nomination.
Buttigieg’s strong showing in Iowa could be an outlier against the more fancied Sanders and Warren ahead of Super Tuesday – where 15 presidential primaries are held on the same day – on 3 March.
“There’s a big fight between the left and the centre of the Democratic party,” Finlay said, singling out Sanders and Warren as the more left candidates compared with Buttigieg and Biden.
Emboldened Trump
Far from being forced from office, the impeachment proceedings have seen Trump declared not guilty.
The finale to the trial won’t mean an end to Democratic-led investigations, but it gives Trump momentum in his bid to win another four years after a tumultuous, scandal-filled first term.
Although he has never got approval ratings over 50 percent during his presidency, this most polarising of politicians was able to celebrate a personal best on the eve of the impeachment verdict – 49 percent, according to Gallup.
With a ferociously loyal right-wing base packing his frequent rallies around the country, Trump thinks he has enough strength to win.
Finlay said: “This seems to have emboldened Trump. But then everything emboldens him. And he has these rallies where he says outlandish things.”
The Iowa debacle for the Democrats was a further boost. He gleefully mocked them for their “unmitigated disaster” of a caucus night.
Donald J. Trump / TwitterWhen will the Democrats start blaming RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA, instead of their own incompetence for the voting disaster that just happened in the Great State of Iowa?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 4, 2020
And his constant refrains of “do-nothing Democrats” and of “witch hunts” is surely to remain a feature as the campaign intensifies over the coming months.
UCD lecturer Finlay said: “The economy is doing okay, but not as well as he says it is. His approval ratings are higher than they’ve ever been. They’ve actually gone up during the impeachment process. Almost half, more than half – depending on the polls – want him impeached and removed. Which one is right?
All the opinion polls pitting Trump against potential rivals are very tight. Being behind in the polls also didn’t stop him winning the presidency last time out.
The end of the impeachment trial coinciding with the first Democratic caucus and Trump’s State of the Union address has served to act as the first starting gun in the 2020 presidential race.
Whether America will still be “blazing bright” with another term for President Donald Trump in 10 months’ time remains to be seen.
As for who could beat him, Bernie Sanders is the one looking most likely to get the nomination at present. If he got in, it’d mean a 79-year-old socialist in the White House.
Finlay pondered: “Have Americans suffered enough to embrace a radical alternative?”
In America – as in Ireland – voters will soon be facing the choice of whether to back the “radical” choice to lead them forward.
The Democrats knew from the outset they would not get the votes in the Senate to remove him. The whole purpose was to damage Trump in the upcoming election. It appears to have backfired.
@Morning Gus: or maybe the fact he committed impeachable offences
@Morning Gus: 1. No they didn’t. 2. No it wasn’t. 3. No it hasn’t.
0/3
Very disappointing.
Must try harder.
@bmul: ya what impeachable offences are these? & don’t say he hurt your feelings
Let me guess your voting FF/FG on Saturday
Same sheep falling for the media
@RAYZ88: You know, the whole bribing-a-foreign-government-to-interfere-in-a-domestic-election thing.
And yeah, all “the media” around the world get together every Saturday afternoon to decide what they’re going to make up and say about Trump for the next week. I think Amazon are having a sale on tin foil.
@Kem Trayle: Tin foil hat?, what bribe are you on about that nobody else knows about you clown
@Kem Trayle: where is the evidence of russian interference? there is none and proven so. If you want Russian interference, look at Hillary, sold shares in a uranium company to the russians as secretary of state…. wheres the investigation of that??
@RAYZ88: More English classes required Comrade.
@Francis Sally: Yaaaaaaaawn!
@Kem Trayle: Not defending the presidency of trump, BUT there has been an investigation, presided over by a bunch of people who want nothing more than to remove him from office. And even they couldn’t prove he did anything wrong.
@Pauline Gallagher: and yes, its more to do with the fact that they made a mess of the investigation and it wasn’t targeted enough. They had their chance to get him, and they blew it.
@Pauline Gallagher: It’s hard to prove anything when the jury has already openly stated before the trial that they’ve reached their verdict and won’t allow any actual evidence to be heard.
@Pauline Gallagher: Actually the republicans openly admitted that the democrats did prove their case and therefore no new witnesses were needed but that they didn’t think his behavior was impeachable under the constitution and deemed that removing a sitting president would be bad for the country. I really wish people would watch what’s actually going on and not simply spout out sound bites they’ve heard second hand.
@Kem Trayle: I see his approval ratings have gone up. It sure has backfired for the Democrats.
@Kem Trayle: intelligent input, act like an adult and debate. Is there anything I said false?
@Francis Sally: “where is the evidence of russian interference? there is none and proven so” – the US security services concluded their investigation and said there definitively was Russian interference.
“If you want Russian interference, look at Hillary, sold shares in a uranium company to the russians as secretary of state…. wheres the investigation of that??” – the Republicans have been all over that from every angle they could and found nothing.
If you want intelligent debate at least educate yourself on the facts. Otherwise, as I said, yaaaaaaaawn!
I think people need to realize that the world has changed ,the new generation will be on twitter and social media and trump is actually showing the wAy good or bad as imperfect an individual as any man or woman for that matter,his wealth makes him arrogant,when he says he’ll do something he does it that’s what I like about trump , the Iranians knew that as well and so did rocket man ,the democrats were messing around trying to knock him nobody has a hope of beating trump watch this space
@Paddy Dunne: there is this myth about Trump saying something then doing it. He has few achievements of his own. If anything, he tears things down. It is a lot easier to knock something down than to painstakingly build it from nothing.
@Paddy Dunne: the man who denies doing or saying things even when on camera and fools believe his Twitter account and not there own eyes
@Paddy Dunne: trump does sfa. The only people that believe he does a lot are the fools that support the mango moron!
@Dave Thomas: he kept 15 of his 16 election promises,,the 16th is to lock up Killary
@lambda sensor: I don’t support Trump. He said he’d build a wall and he is. He said he renogiate NAFTA and he did (so he can now sort of claim Mexico is paying for the wall)..he said he’d bring the troops home and he has….they were his biggest 3 promises…now he promised other stuff but hasn’t delivered…but as Clinton said ‘its the economy stupid’ .. well their economy is doing well so he’ll be re-elected.
@RAYZ88: name those please…. You can start with the wall, who did he say was gonna pay for it? Lol. 3 years later and it still hasn’t happened. Keep daydreaming trumpanzee.
@Dave Thomas: ya you don’t actually send the bill or tender to Mexico,,you tax it back out of them economics 101
American politics is a wasteland now. Both sides talking past each other, big money groups dictate policies and their governance system gives huge power to whoever is in the White House. Trump has set the US presidency on a whole new path. To my mind, Trump is relatively harmless. He doesnt like war, he has no real legislative agenda and he is too busy bigging himself up to force through any real change. You cannot expect whoever comes after him to be so vacuous and that is when th e real lurches will happen.
Trump is petty, a child and should not he allowed on social media but.. the Democrats have shown themselves to be undemocratic, corrupt and willing to do anything to be in power.. the impeachment process was a farce from beginning to end. You can’t just call the witnesss you want and put words in their mouth. Trump probably did everything he is accused of but this process was flawed all the way through..
@Jon Shannow: so trump is guilty but nobody should hold him to account….. Ok then!
@Dave Thomas: no not that they shouldn’t hold him to account.. but do it legally . The shambolic self serving way they did it was always going to lose and emboldens him to keep going
@Dave Thomas: is Joe Biden not guilty even after he said no aid until they “fire the prosecutor” live on tv.
It’s like the typical Irish way of not investigating the FAI or the children’s hospital or cervical check scandal etc.
Would you not like the new government to investigate the corruption of the previous government.
so what if he’s a political rival, Bidens caught and the democrats have to watch his back.
I think people need to realize that the world has changed ,the new generation will be on twitter and social media and trump is actually showing the wAy good or bad as imperfect an individual as any man or woman for that matter ,his wealth makes him arrogant,when he says he’ll do something he does it that’s what I like about trump , the Iranians knew that as well and so did rocket man ,the democrats were messing around trying to knock him nobody has a hope of beating trump watch this space
@Ben Dunne: “but still impeached none the less”
Means nothing anymore – Democrats have diminished its purpose – whoever is President next, the other side will start impeachment proceedings from day one for whatever their researchers can dig up.
Perjury 45 for 55 against , obstruction of justice 50 for 50 against, was that much closer than predicted ?
@Gerry Campbell: He wasn’t even charged with obstruction of justice!! How many people on here have said this over the past few weeks. If your going to comment on it, at least know the charges.
@Burn_the_Witch: he was charged with obstruction of congress.
@Dave Thomas: Exactly, thanks for making my point. You do know they are different things?
@Burn_the_Witch: replace “justice” with “congress” so,and come up here to the best boy seat…now have you anything to offer on how twas closer than predicted?
@Gerry Campbell: So are you one of these folks who believe if a president asserts executive privilege then he is obstructing congress. Now, would that only be if you don’t like that particular president or disagree with them on a particular point?
Anyone who agrees with the dems on this article of impeachment has no clue of the meaning of executive privilege. If they have a genuine grievance with him asserting executive privilege, then the place to take it is to the courts. That would be due process. The fact they made it an article of impeachment before taking it to court is nothing short of laughable, and was clearly thrown together out of desperation.
Unfortunately he will get 4 more years. Then he will be even more dangerous..
Still impeached though
@DJ François: Acquitted: verb (used with object), ac·quit·ted, ac·quit·ting.
to relieve from a charge of fault or crime; declare not guilty:
@WreckDefier: but he was still impeached. He survived the impeachment,just like Clinton did, but still impeached none the less.
@Ben Dunne: The only reason Trump was impeached is because the Dems wanted to discredit him because they haven’t got a
a half decent candidate to go up against him in the November elections
…
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