They were never going to be satisfied with just defeating Donald Trump in one election. Ultimately, their goal is to personally destroy Donald Trump and the movement that he started so that it will never rise again. They want to make sure that Trump will not run for president in 2024 or any future election, and they could potentially accomplish that if there is a vote in the U.S. Senate on whether or not Trump should be banned from running for office for the rest of his life. This has never been done to any other president in our entire history. Not even Richard Nixon was treated like this. But the Democrats want to make this happen. These people are playing for keeps, and they really do intend to strike a death blow to Trump’s political career.
But before this vote can take place, the impeachment trial must happen in the U.S. Senate, and the U.S. Senate must vote to convict.
It is going to take 67 members of the Senate to convict Trump, and right now Democrats hold just 50 seats.
So they are going to need 17 Republicans to vote with them, and there are already indications that some of the usual suspects such as Romney, Sasse, Collins and Murkowski are going to vote against Trump.
If Trump is convicted, new Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has already pledged that “there will be a vote on barring him from running again”…
“A Senate trial can begin immediately, with agreement from the current Senate Majority Leader to reconvene the Senate for an emergency session, or it will begin after January 19th,” he said. “But make no mistake, there will be an impeachment trial in the United States Senate; there will be a vote on convicting the president for high crimes and misdemeanors; and if the president is convicted, there will be a vote on barring him from running again.”
So what that would mean is that Trump would be unable to run for president in 2024, 2028 or ever again.
And it wouldn’t actually take 67 votes in the Senate to disqualify him from future office.
Instead, it would just take a simply majority…
In one important way, disqualification would be the easier vote.
Conviction of Trump requires a two-thirds majority, 67 of 100 senators; a vote to bar him from future office requires only a simple majority, 51 of 100.
All it would take is for one Republican to vote with the Democrats and Trump’s political career would be over.
So I wouldn’t be printing up those “Trump 2024” shirts just yet.
The key to this whole process is Mitch McConnell. If Mitch McConnell comes out strongly against voting to convict Trump, there is no way that the Democrats will get to 67 votes, and so there will never even be a vote on barring Trump from future office.
But at this point, McConnell appears to have totally turned on Trump. Just consider the things he just said on the floor of the U.S. Senate…
“The mob was fed lies,” McConnell said. “They were provoked by the president and other powerful people, and they tried to use fear and violence to stop a specific proceeding of branch of the federal government.”
McConnell said after Biden’s inauguration on the Capitol’s West Front — what he noted former President George H.W. Bush has called “democracy’s front porch” — “We’ll move forward.”
You can watch McConnell making that statement right here.
.@senatemajldr on the U.S. Capitol Attack: “The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president and other powerful people.” pic.twitter.com/QIeviyHkl3
— CSPAN (@cspan) January 19, 2021
Previously, McConnell stated that he had not yet decided whether he would vote to convict Trump or not, but it seems that he has now gotten closer to making up his mind.
And that is not good news for President Trump.
Making things even worse for Trump is the fact that Chief Justice John Roberts does not seem too eager to preside over the upcoming trial.
If Roberts does not preside, that duty will probably fall to Kamala Harris…
The Constitution states that ‘When the President of the United States is tried the Chief Justice shall preside.’
But with the Senate having been in recess since the House voted to impeach, the trial will occur when Trump is no longer in office – potentially giving Roberts an out.
That would put Kamala Harris as next in line to preside over the trial, in her constitutional role as the Senate’s presiding officer.
Can you imagine the spectacle that would create?
Ultimately, this is a moment of reckoning for the Republican Party.
If at least 17 Republicans in the Senate side with the Democrats and Trump is convicted, it could literally destroy the GOP.
In fact, Rand Paul is warning that a third of all Republicans “will leave the party” if Trump is convicted…
“I don’t often get asked my advice from leadership on how they should react, but my unsolicited suggestion would be this: They will destroy the Republican Party if leadership is complicit in impeachment, or if leadership votes for impeachment, they will destroy the party.”
“Impeachment is purely a partisan thing, it’s for the moral, ‘Oh I’m so much better than you, and you’re a bad person, because I’m so moral.’” Paul added, “These are the kind of people that are going to do this.”
“The impeachment is a wrongheaded, partisan notion. If Republicans go along with it, it will destroy the party. A third of Republicans will leave the party.”
I believe that Rand Paul is right on target, but his estimate of how many Republicans might leave may be low.
One recent poll found that only 12 percent of all Republicans would support banning Trump from ever holding office again…
A majority (56%) of Americans overall believe the Senate should remove Trump from office and disqualify him from running again, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll released Friday.
Only 12% of Republicans support such a move, the poll said, and those are the people who decide party primaries.
I don’t often make predictions, but I will make a prediction in this case.
I predict that if Trump is convicted we will see millions of Trump supporters leave the GOP and that will result in a new political party being formed.
And all of this political turmoil will certainly make the civil unrest in our nation even worse.
In the end, it is all going to come down to Mitch McConnell.
If he decides that the Senate should not convict Trump, there is no way that the Democrats will be able to put together the 67 votes that they need.
But if McConnell takes a neutral stance, or if he openly lobbies for Trump to be convicted, then anything can happen.
And if Trump is convicted, it is virtually certain that he will also be barred from ever running for office again.
We have never had a moment like this before in all of U.S. history, and the future of the Republican Party is literally hanging in the balance.
***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***
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