Daily Archives: May 18, 2017

Tim Farron recognised the divisions in his party when he told Andrew Mar he is a bit of a Eurosceptic Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images

I dont think Im the only Liberal Democrat to have identified unreasonable optimism as one of the characteristics of my own party. In some senses its built in: during the bad times lets face it, quite a lot of the time those not optimistic enough go off and do something else.

There are positives and negatives about this, of course. Serious optimism gives you amazing resilience. But it can get in the way of self-criticism when things are not going quite right.

The Lib Dems went into the local and general election campaigns believing that the other main parties (apart from Ukip, apparently) were divided about Brexit. They argued that they were riding a burgeoning wave of anti-Brexit sentiment.

It is certainly true that remainers now have increasing energy behind them, as research into Twitter trends revealed last week. It is also true that the Lib Dems have reached a record membership, pushing over the 100,000 mark in the last month and it seems likely that the overwhelming majority of those are remainers. They will be cheered by the announcement yesterday of commitment to a second referendum on the Brexit deal in the Lib Dem manifesto.

The trouble is, the electorate as a whole does not seem to have responded yet. The Lib Dems slipped back a little in seats won during the council elections (though their vote share went up). The recently defined re-leavers category the 23% who voted remain but want to respect the vote, according to a YouGov survey suggests that not the whole 48% will be tempted to vote Lib Dem this time.

Luckily for the Lib Dems if they see it like this there is a clue about what to do next. This lies in an awkward, unheralded group, an unresearched, unrecognised corner of the political taxonomy: the Liberal Brexiters.

It hasnt suited academics or political anoraks to track these, so how do we know they are there? The obvious evidence is that so many former Liberal strongholds including Cornwall, Devon, parts of west Wales and parts of Lancashire voted strongly for Brexit. They therefore hold an unpredictable key to a Liberal revival, and especially in the west.

There has always been a sense of rugged independence in these places areas with high self-employment rates, which used traditionally to vote Liberal.

There are also, undoubtedly, Liberal-minded people who voted to leave the EU not because they were convinced by Boriss bluster or the 350m but because they have an instinctive dislike of large supranational bureaucracies (and national ones too), however they might approve of their internationalist purpose.

So here is the problem for the Lib Dems: they are divided, not among their current members, but between their current voters and an important section of their traditional ones. They are a broad church, like all political ideologies. But to achieve the breakthrough (or breakback) they need, they will have to find ways of holding this division together.

Tim Farron clearly recognised this dilemma himself when he told Andrew Marr he was, as he put it, a bit of a Eurosceptic. This is partly because he realises, perhaps more than others in his party, the need to reach out to Liberal Brexiters; partly because his own constituency is in a leave area; and partly because he regards liberalism, as he told Marr, as an ideology that challenges people in power the EU, in government, in councils.

The reason the Liberal Brexiters provide a somewhat unwelcome clue is that the party somehow needs to articulate what unites the Lib Dems and this group: a scepticism about large, over-mighty institutions, which is part of the Liberal purpose.

There are mutterings in the Lib Dem camp from those fearing an identical rerun of the referendum campaign, which was over-technocratic, under-emotional and not noticeably successful.

None of this suggests that Farron should row back from his position on Brexit. But it does suggest that he needs to find other grounds in common with the Liberal Brexiters.

If he can wriggle out of the Brexit dialogue of the deaf between those who defend the purpose of our institutions (the technocrats) and those who attack the way they work in practice (the radicals) he can apply some of that radicalism to those other institutions nearer home that work in theory but not in practice: the housing market, Southern Rail, the energy market and, especially, the banks.

If the 2015 election taught the Lib Dems anything, it is that centrism needs to be driven by a crusading fervour for change. Those who want an effective Liberal opposition will therefore hope Farron can as he promises that the British people will have have a final say on any deal speak effectively to those old curmudgeons, the Liberal Brexiters.

See the rest here:

Tim Farron can still reach out to the Lib Dems' lost tribe, the Liberal Brexiters - The Guardian

Liberal democracy is not dead, but it's not well. From Hungary to Poland to even the United States, far-right populists have won power, and, in a few cases, are busy consolidating it.

In some sense, it shouldn't be too surprising that the worst economic crisis since the 1930s has led to the worst political crisis within liberal democracies since the 1930s. At the same time, though, it's not as if right-wing nationalists are winning everywhere. Just in the last six months, they've come up short in Austria, the Netherlands and now France. So why is it that these abundant raw materials for a far right stagnant incomes and increased immigration haven't always turnedinto a far right that wins elections?

I talked to Harvard's Daniel Ziblatt, whose new book Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy" traces the history of how the center-right often determines whether democracy lives or dies, about what's behind our populist moment and just how close a parallel we're running to some of history's darkest episodes. Hisanswer: It depends. In countries where the center-right is willing to quarantine the far-right, undemocratic forces should be politically neutralized. But when the center-right gives in to the temptation to try to use the far-right because it thinks that's the only way it can win, then their Faustian bargain can end up like they all do: not as they expected. Mainstream conservatives might find out that they, and not the radicals, were the ones being manipulated. That they weren't appeasing the far-right, but empowering it.

The followinghas been edited for length and clarity.

I wanted to start out by talking about why it is that conservative parties seem to matter so much more for either saving or killing democracy. What's going on here?

Historically, at least, the real threat to democracy has come from the groups that conservative parties represent. They were the opponents of democracy, the potential saboteurs who were trying to block it before it was adopted and then undermine it afterwards. So how you get these guys to buy in is critical. Back in the 1800s, we're talking about landed elites and aristocrats and so on. Those who have the most to lose and the most resources at their disposal, these are the ones we have to pay attention to.

Is it any different today?When you look at the populist wave across the world, what do you think is behind it?

Well, there are forces pushing for it, which have to do with slowed economic growth, globalization, and immigration, but, if you look cross-nationally, there is variation in how successful populists are. So what determines that variation are the features of the political system.

To me, the thing that really plays a major role is the structure of and the strategies of the center-right. In particular, whether they distance themselves from, or ally with the far-right. But there's a third answer: they can try to come up with better arguments. That's the hardest path. That's the liberal democratic path. To come up with better arguments and better solutions to win the political debate. When the center-right can do that, it limits the potential for the far-right in the first place.

That sounds like a pretty good description of what happened in France's presidential election last week.

It does. I think there are two big points there. The first is this. When the center-left fell apart in France, you got Emmanuel Macron. But when the center-right fell apart, you got Marine Le Pen. So there seems to be this asymmetry, because, whatever you think of Macron, he's not a major threat to democracy.

The second point is the role of the center-right candidate Fillon in stopping the far-right Le Pen. Fillon got knocked out in the first round of voting, but kind of crossed the ideological aisle to endorse Macron in the second round. And if you look at the polls of how people voted, a significant portion of his party did in fact support Macron. It may have made the difference in the election.

The ability of the center-right to distance itself from the far-right was critical. We see that happening in France. We see that happening in Austria as well, where some Catholic Party members supported the Green Party in the presidential election. But we don't see that in the U.S., in the sense that a lot of Republicans who don't like Trump nonetheless supported him. Looking back historically, the center-right in Britain, I would argue, sometimes played with real extremists like Ulster nationalists, yet, at the end of the day, still tried to distance themselves from them. The German Conservatives, on the other hand, tried to use these far-right actors, but didn't distance themselves from them as part of this myth that they could contain them.

That's a perfect segue to what I wanted to talk about next.Thereare a couple moments in the book that jumped out at me, where obviously there's some recency bias kicking in, but it sounded to me like you were describing Trump and the Republican Party. Am I reading too much into that?

I think you're referring to the descriptions of the Weimar Republic. This is the curious thing about writing this book. I've been working on it for 8 years, long before Trump was anything but a guy on a TV show that I didn't really pay much attention to, and it was really a book about a historical period. I thought I had identified this more general problem, because I'm a political scientist, and this more general problem seemed to be reoccurring throughout the world in different times. That was the relationship of the moderate center-right that plays a small-D democratic game, and the extremist elements on the far-right that do not. So as events in the U.S. unfolded the last two years, I felt like this was an illustration of that general dynamic. It's not something that's unique to the U.S., it's not unique to Trump, it's not unique to the Republican Party, this is a more general pattern.

What arethe big parts of that pattern?

I have this idea that conservative parties, originally as well as today, often have this dilemma: they rely on an activist base that tends to be more extreme than the party leaders themselves. The question, then, is who has the upper hand in that relationship. If you have a strong conservative party, one that has what I call organizational firewalls that can mobilize voters and mobilize activists while allowing the leaders to keep control of the party, then democracy can be stable. But if you have a party that is weakly organized, and in some ways porous almost like a holding company of different groups and interests, where the leadership doesn't have a monopoly on financing and selection ofcandidates, then it's much more prone to radicalism.

That's really the parallel. The political partiesI looked at were the contrasting cases of Britain and Germany. And if there's one thing to take away here, it's this: I think political parties are a great invention we sometimes don't fully appreciate. Now, in Britain, the Conservatives historically had a well-institutionalized party with party professionals. It's really a coherent organization that has members and activists. At election time, the party leaders are able to turn these guys out to vote, but then after election time, they would calm back down and play the democratic game. Theparty leaders, in other words, were steering the ship.

The German Conservative Party, on the other hand, is one that for a variety of reasons was weak and fragmentary and the party leaders never really had control over the activists. Eventually there was a rebellion of the activists, and they took over the party. And it's that relationship between the grassroots and the leadership withinconservative parties that ends up having reverberations for the whole political system.

That makes me wonder about effect the internet has had onpolitics. We tend to think it's a good thing that it's easier for activists to exert influence on parties, in terms of raising money and pressuring candidates. But is there a downside as well? Has this increase in democracy made democracy less stable?

I think that's right. I think of what I'm describing, if we're giving it a label, as the conservative dilemma. This is something that's latent, or is present and becomes more activated in certain places, and I think one of the things that has exacerbated this for the Republican Party are things like thetransformation of media. What this does is itdiminishes the party's control over its own message.

A provocative point that I think comes out of this is that in order to have a stable national democracy, maybe political parties have to be organized in somewhat undemocratic ways. If you think of the Democratic Party with the superdelegates, this is a way of keeping pretty moderate forces in control. It's a double-edged sword, because it keeps maybe some real grassroots reformers out, but it also keeps extremists out. The larger point, though, is that social media does democratize the party, but there is a cost to that. The gatekeeping function of the party is diminished.

What about the rise of cable newsespecially the influence Fox News seems to exert on the Republican Party? There were a lot of uncomfortable parallels for me between that and the story you tell about Germany's big media mogul of the 1920s, Alfred Hugenberg, taking their Conservative Party over and pushing itfar to the right.

Absolutely. We tend to think that the media technological revolutions we're living through now are the first ones ever, but similar kinds of revolutions took place in the past. And the guys who were at the forefront of those could deploy them for political purposes. So in Weimar Germany, the equivalent kind of media revolution was the emergence of the news wire. That let Hugenberg create a common message across a bunch of newspapers throughout the country, and integrate this right-wing radical message into one. He owned these, and then also took over the party.

The Republican media-industrial complex is a similar thing. I think it's an indicator of the degree to which the party is weak, that you have these outside forces shaping the message of the party and putting real pressure on it. And, again, I can imagine people saying, Oh, that's so elitist to say that the party should have control over the message, and I think in some sense that maybe it is. But I'm just trying to point out that there's a cost to this fragmentation.

What about the other big piece of this puzzle: campaign finance?

Well, asthe party has lost its monopoly over money, this means that other groups can shape the agenda in a way. Parties are coalitions, and they hold together diverse groups, but once you lose control over the money, then the groups can assert their own interests much more narrowly. That can generate this populist style of politics.

Another thing that stood out to me was when you talked about how Britain's Conservatives almost triggered a democratic breakdown in the early 1900s. Part of that was over Irish Home Rule, but to me the more interesting part was their reaction to the introduction of the welfare state. They thought this had changed everything, and that they wouldn't be able to win on their own terms ever again.

It made me think of the GOP's response to the 2012 electionin particular, to Obamacare and the Obama coalition. They thought that Obamacare had changed the social contract in a way that they couldn't live with, and that the Obama coalition was proof that there was this younger, nonwhite group of people that, if they wanted to reach out to, then they'd have to change their positionsbut they didn't want to change their positions.

So they kind of saw this as their last chance. You could see that in the way they were talking about makers and takers, and about the "47 percent who were supposedly bringing us to a tipping point where the poorer majority would be able to vote for whatever they wanted from the richer minority. And so in the last couple of years, at the state level, Republicans tried passing a lot of voter ID laws and other ways to restrict the franchise. Instead of persuading people, they're trying to keep their opponents from voting in the first place. Am I overreacting?

No, I think that's right. I see that parallel too. The second part of the conservative dilemma is that if they represent at their base the well-off in society, then how do they win democratic elections? Because the high end of the income distribution aren't the majority of the population. That, in some ways, is the heart of all this: how do you participate in democratic politics when the people who are your core constituency aren't the majority?

Conservatives throughout history have had different ways of responding to that reoccurring dilemma. One way is, if you don't think you can compete, then you come up with ways of evading fair competition by essentially cheating or changing the rules. There's a clear distinction between those types of strategies, which are highly undemocratic, to ways that can actually facilitate democracy. That's finding issues to compete on. You may or may not like the stances they take on particular issues, they may even be racist or nationalistic or defending cultural values that you don't like, but at least they're playing the democratic game.

TheBritish Conservative Party faced the same challenge in the first part of the 20th century of perceiving themselves on the losing end of history. One of theirleaders Lord Salisbury called this the catastrophic theory of politics: you assume that everything is going terribly, history is moving against you, and you're fighting this rearguard action. What ended up happening, though, is because they had effective politicians and an effective political party, they searched around for issues, forged coalitions, and came up with ways of competing. But it's worth emphasizing that in order for that to happen, they needed an effective organization. You had to have people in charge of the party who were highly qualified politicians, and who knew which issues worked. In some way, the modern equivalent would be having pollsters and the ground game to not only tap into but also mobilize thevoting blocs you're trying to reach.

The modern-day Republican Party certainly is doing well electorally, but, in some ways, we're beginning to witness an undemocratic game beginning to unfold. We're at the tail end of this process. And I don't know if it can be restored. The party has already moved to the far-right, so then the question is how do you put the conservative party back on track? In the cases that I've studied, once that happens, it's hard to do that.

I kind of see two contradictory parts to this. On the one hand, Republicans have been extremely successful on the sub-presidential level the last six years. But, on the other hand, you can understand their sense of despair despite that. It wasn't just economic issues that were moving against them, but also the cultural ones. Gay marriage had gone from being something they'd used to mobilize their base in 2004 to something they had the short end of the electoral stick of by 2012. I think there really was this apocalyptic sense among some of them that society had changed in ways they didn't understand, and what are our issues going to be?

For the last six years, that's just been running against Obamacare. But we might find out that only worked until they won. They don't really know what to do about it now that they have a chance to actually do something. It was the same sort of thing during the 2016 primaries. With Trump, it was more affect than anything else. It was about sticking it to everybody else and every other country. It's hard to see what the issues are there.

Here's the thing. I say that weak conservative parties are a threat to democracy, so somebody might say well, the Republican Party is very strong right now, in what sense are they weak? But I think we're witnessing the product of what happens when you have an increasingly desperate conservative party. It's a mistake to read strength off of electoral success. To me, a strong party is one that is organizationally strong, that isn't just a holding company for disparate interest groups, and that can win elections on issues, not on affect and populist leaders.

We're seeing the tail end of this process. I think the Tea Party, the big-money interest groups, organizations like ALEC at the state level, have all essentially hollowed out the Republican Party. The party is, metaphorically-speaking,a rotten house with a rotten door, even though they're winning elections.

You said that it's hard for conservative parties to get back on track. What would Republicans need to do to get back there?

I can tell you where they need to be. I don't know how to get there, though. The party needs to regain controls of its own money. It needs to be hierarchicalinstead of relying on outside sources of money. But that's a function of campaign finance laws. In some ways, I think that opening up the money has possibly led to the radicalization of the Republican Party. Look at their presidential primaries. Over the years, you've gotten increasingly strange collections of people who, as outsiders, have little chance of winning the nomination, but because they're financed by their own personal billionaire can keep going. In that sense, the party has lost control of the nomination process. This also has to do with media, but it's harder to do something about that.

To go back to the British Conservatives, the reason they did so well in the late 19th century is that guys like Lord Salisbury who were not particularly interested in democratic politics were able to hire people who could play the democratic game. These advisers were proto-political scientists running demographic studies and figuring out the details of election appeals, but, most of all, they were working for the party. These were not independent guys running their own companies. When the party has control over this, it can be more democratic. But maybe that's something that has disappeared into the past, and is no longer there.

The only time I've seen this restored is after great devastation, for example, the German Conservatives getting their act together after World War II. Presumably we don't want to have to go through something like that.

That's very uplifting!

Let me leave you with something slightly more optimistic. Politics and economics go through cycles. There are always moments of crisis, and all we can hope for is to get through it without destroying the political system. After that, we cantry to figure out more robust institutions for the next time around. But there's no permanent solution that will solve this once and for all.

The alternative is to think that we're on this trajectory where the world is fundamentally different than it was in the past, and unless we come up with a way of solving the problems we face now, we're doomed. But actually the problems are not so different from previous eras.There's always a segment of the population that's very sympathetic to nondemocratic political parties, and when the economy's worse, that portion of the population grows. We've gotten through these crises before, and we can again.

Excerpt from:

Why liberal democracy only dies when conservatives help - Washington Post

The death of Fox News founder Roger Ailes shocked fans of the network and the world of journalism Thursday morning. But many liberals, who despise his creating, took the opportunity of the mans death to attack him and the network he created.

Unable to contain their contempt, they took to social media to attack the man.

Though some of the tweets have since been deleted by their authors, the magic of screen captures allows the Internet to relive their poor taste forever.

Huffington Posts senior politics editor:

Screen capture from Twitter

Screen capture from Twitter

Screen capture from Twitter

Screen capture from Twitter

Screen capture from Twitter

Screen capture from Twitter

Screen capture from Twitter

Screen capture from Twitter

Screen capture from Twitter

However, it was all nasty. MSNBCs Al Sharpton managed to show some class.

Many of the cable news networks handled Ailes death with class as well, although one particular network was especiallynasty. Watchtosee their reactions:

Continued here:

Sick: Liberal Journalists Celebrate The Death Of Fox News Founder Roger Ailes - The Daily Caller

CNN anchor Kate Bolduan lost it on Trump-supporting former Navy SEAL Carl Higbie during a Tuesday night roundtable interview. Discussing reports that President Donald Trump had shared highly classified information with Russian diplomats during last weeks White House meeting, Bolduan became enraged during the segment.

When asked by Bolduan if it frightened him as a military man that Trump may have shared classified information with Russian officials, Higbie fired back hard.

Ive been sitting here quietly listening to all this B.S. quite frankly, Higbie observed of the rest of the panel at the roundtable discussion. Did you listen to anything [White House National Security Adviser H.R.] McMaster said today? Where he said, I was in the room, that didnt happen?

Higbie was referencing McMasters comments, which alleged that Trumps conversation with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak was wholly appropriate.

As Bolduans temper rose, Higbie became more composed.

Higbie attacked outlets such as CNN over using anonymous sources who were purportedly knowledgeable of the situation regarding the Russian meeting and were running with the allegations.

Youre basing all of these allegations off of one or maybe two sources, Higbie said. Two former officials? Come out, name those people, then well have something to talk about.

Bolduan claimed that many other liberal outlets received the same type of tips from anonymous sources, such as ABC, NBC and The New York Times.

Yeah, but who are the sources? Higbie asked. Oh, because theyre hiding behind this anonymity.

Bolduan was triggered by Higbies dismissal of the anonymous sources and began shouting at the former Navy SEAL.

Oh, please! Please! Bolduan shouted. Do not even start with me, that youre just going to attack sources. That is ridiculous!

Higbie, undeterred, asked Bolduan outright if she felt that McMaster was lying.

Im not saying McMaster is lying, Bolduan countered. He didnt answer the question. You cannot attack do not attack the stellar reporters of CNN, who have their sources and would protect their sources.

Seeming to find the term stellar reporters entertaining, Higbie mocked, OK, the stellar reporters of CNN that I am going to attack right now and say: Guess what? I dont believe them because they are staying anonymous. If they stand behind the story, come out, face the camera.

See the heated exchange in the video below.

More:

Liberal CNN anchor has a meltdown on a Trump-supporting former Navy SEAL. It does not end well. - TheBlaze.com

The Conservatives' manifesto proposalto require ID to cut down on electoral fraud has many on the left worried that the proposal is actually a ruse to decrease the number of Labour voters who are eligible to vote. Are they right?

The first thing to note is that while there is a very small number of electoral malpractice cases fewer than 100 some of which count as an electoral fraud, they involve matters unrelated to the wrong people voting at polling stations. The most frequent crime is putting false signatures on nomination papers, after that breaking expenses rules, and lastly making false claims about other candidates.

The most recent high-profile cases of electoral fraud involved false claims about a candidate (Labours Phil Woolas against his Liberal Democrat opponent in 2010), postal vote fraud(Birmingham, 2004) and bribery and spiritual influence (Lutfur Rahman, 2014).

In none of the cases would a stronger ID requirement have detected or prevented the crime.

Of course, some people will ask, but what about the criminals we dont catch? The difficulty there is that its hard to see where this fraud is taking place. In all those cases, the result itself was a sign something was up. If someone is rigging results, they are doing so in a way that produces outcomes entirely in keeping with national swing and demographic behaviour. Other than the thrill of the chase, its not clear why someone would do this.

What we do know from the one part of the United Kingdom that requires voters to produce ID before voting Northern Ireland is that it makes it harder for poorer people to vote as they are less likely to have the required identification. That's why after their pilot, their scheme, introduced in 2002,went hand-in-hand with free ID.

There is, however, a strong argument that elections need to command a high level of public legitimacy, making the case for ID stronger. But there is a wide suite of measures the government could bring in alongside this change that would achieve that while lessening the impact of having an ID. They could, for instance, make it so you are automatically enrolled when you pay council tax, a water bill, a heating bill or any other charge that comes with a fixed abode. They could roll out a free photo ID for elections.

But as they are doing neither, it feels fair to say that at best the government is relaxed about making it harder for supporters of its opponents to vote, and at worst is actively seeking to do so.

Link:

The Liberal Democrat manifesto is a blast from the past - New Statesman

The impeachment process is ultimately political. Photograph: Michael Reynolds/EPA

To watch Fox News on Monday night or peruse rightwing outposts like Breitbart and the Drudge Report was to find an America that will always be to Donald Trumps liking. Deep State Strikes, blared Breitbart, perhaps Trumps most ardent media defender. Leaks Classified Info to Washington Post to Smear Trump.

Looks like more Fake news, Foxs Sean Hannity tweeted. Drudge struck the same tune: More Leaks Smear President.

Tuesday night, when news broke that Trump had asked his since ousted FBI director, James Comey, to shut down an investigation into his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, the wagon-circling renewed. Comeys Revenge? White House Pushes Back on Report Trump Asked Ex-FBI Boss to End Flynn Probe, read the banner headline across Foxs website.

The decidedly Trump-unfriendly Washington Post revealed the president had disclosed classified intelligence about an Islamic State plot at a meeting last week with Russian officials, while the New York Times broke the Comey news. The intelligence, according to subsequent reporting, was provided by Israel, one of Americas closest allies. The consequences were immediately clear: in the future, countries could balk at sharing intelligence with a country led by such a reckless man.

A president can declassify intelligence. Trump acted stupidly, not illegally. What he did, most likely unwittingly given his disdain for learning the intricacies of governing, is violate espionage etiquette and prove to the world once more that Americas impulsive overlord will go rogue at any moment.

The Comey revelation is more disturbing. If hard evidence is produced, Trump is opening himself up to obstruction of justice charges. Both Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon were subject to impeachment proceedings on these grounds.

But the rightwing medias reaction to Trumps latest imbroglios should be a comedown for every Democrat and liberal member of the punditocracy who is convinced that his days as president are numbered. What they always seem to forget is that a large chunk of the people who elected Trump still want him around. Just as importantly, the media they consume hasnt given up on him. With no consensus reality uniting all Americans, news consumption becomes tribal: you remain in the fiefdoms you trust and shut everyone else out.

The Watergate scandal felled Nixon because, in part, his own party turned on him. House Republicans, giddy about their newfound majority, pressed the case against Clinton. No president in American history has been impeached when his own party controlled Congress, but weve at least learned from 2016 that few people should take comfort in any kind of precedent.

Will Republicans desert the president? More importantly, will the media they read and watch to form the only reality they know suddenly decide Trump is totally unfit to lead? If there are signs of fissures on the right Ann Coulter, once a tireless Trump acolyte, recently blasted him for not keeping all his campaign promises they are tied to questions of policy, not propriety.

Republicans waited eight years for Barack Obama to disappear and arent ready to make war with one of their own, despite what people like John McCain may intimate.

If polls show Republican voters are fleeing Trump en masse, House Republicans may stand up and move against a president who devolves into a true albatross. If this happens, even the most sycophantic of news outlets could decide Trump isnt worth the effort of defending. Then, and only then, will impeachment from a Republican Congress become viable.

The impeachment process is ultimately political. A majority of the House and two-thirds of the Senate are needed for a conviction. The rule of law only means so much. This, more than anything else, may be Trumps saving grace.

More:

The liberal punditocracy thinks Donald Trump is toast. Not so fast - The Guardian