The suspense is over: Donald J. Trump is impeached. The question is, now what?
It is unlikely that the Senate will remove Donald Trump from the office of the presidency. There are those who are not politically savvy, who do not stay informed, and who are likely expecting something substantive to happen out of this impeachment. When the president is acquitted in the Senate, they will feel as if he got away with something, unless we move the focus to why it is imperative that we elect a new president who is progressive.
Donald Trump is an unabashed, barefaced liar and spinner. He is so blatant that many believe him because they simply cannot believe someone would make statements so diametrically opposed to the truth. This is the president who was able to spin the Mueller report as if it were an exoneration. Most recently he spun the IG report that exonerated the FBI as “an overthrow of government.”
The report, actually—and especially when you look into it, and the details of the report—are far worse than anything I would have even imagined. […] This was an overthrow of government. This was an attempted overthrow. And a lot of people who were in on it, and they got caught. They got caught red-handed.”
— President Trump remarks to reporters, Dec. 9
Glenn Kessler, who is The Washington Post’s fact checker, notes that no matter what, “Trump sticks with his conspiracy theories. There is nothing in the report that supports ‘an overthrow of government.’ In fact, as we noted, the IG found that political bias did not factor into the start of the probe. He even turned up text messages of FBI agents hoping Trump would beat Hillary Clinton. In many ways, the IG report would have been disappointing to Trump, yet he gamely suggests it’s even worse than he expected.”
This is nothing compared to how he will spin his Senate acquittal. Unlike President Clinton, who was subdued after his acquittal, Trump will likely go on the attack like a rabid dog attempting to make Americans believe he was targeted to ensure he does not get reelected. He will then pivot to an economy where the stock market is setting record highs and unemployment is very low. While political junkies know this is spin, the narrative can take hold if progressives are not prepared.
It is in that light that we must “Make stock market record highs and low unemployment Trump’s failure,” and turn his perceived strengths into his weaknesses.
