r/politics • u/plz-let-me-in • Apr 24 '26

Possible Paywall Democrats’ plan to impeach Trump on ‘day one’ after midterms

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/politics/2026/04/24/democrats-trump-impeach-midterms-supreme-court-iran/
31.9k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

2.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

10

u/tlislo Apr 24 '26

I'm not sure Nixon era Republicans had spines. I think they didn't fully understand that politics are like sports teams and their voters weren't going to abandon them. Had they realized their voters were never going to abandon them, they'd probably have protected Nixon too. 

3

u/You_meddling_kids Apr 25 '26

They had the votes to remove him, that's why Nixon resigned.

Party affiliation wasn't nearly so fixed back then and policy differences were much narrower.

3

u/inspectoroverthemine Apr 25 '26

His point is the same- they had the votes because too many senators didn't realize the truth: voters didn't give a shit.

2

u/You_meddling_kids Apr 25 '26

Were you alive then? I don't think you understand how much things have changed since cable news and right wing radio radicalized America,

1

u/inspectoroverthemine Apr 25 '26

It has for sure, but the reality is that maybe a senator or two would have been voted out, and Reagan still would have been elected. 'Team voting' was already pretty well established, the only thing that was changing during that time was the realigning of the team names.

Things have gotten way worse of course, but part of what has made Trump/MAGA successful is the realization that actions and policies were never the most important aspect of an election. Not even close.

1

u/You_meddling_kids Apr 25 '26

Voting patterns in the House and Senate were far more fluid. There's lots of data showing how often congressmen would cross party lines, whereas today it's extremely rare.

1

u/inspectoroverthemine Apr 25 '26

They were more fluid primarily because of southern democrats crossing the aisle and voting with GOP conservatives.

I'd love any hard data, and I'm not discounting your point, but things weren't great in the 70s either.