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Mike Hosking: Live impeachment hearings won't change the outcome

Author
Mike Hosking,
Publish Date
Thu, 14 Nov 2019, 4:08PM
Donald Trump is under the microscope in a far more public sense. (Photo / AP)

Mike Hosking: Live impeachment hearings won't change the outcome

Author
Mike Hosking,
Publish Date
Thu, 14 Nov 2019, 4:08PM

Welcome to impeachment day – TV style.  

This is the Democrats dream come true. The whole world watching, pouring over the minutiae, dissecting the every move, utterance and bead of sweat on witnesses brows.

Well, those who are gripped will be. Most of the rest of the world will grab some headlines as they go, but in that is the grand plan.

Do they, the accusers, have the numbers to impeach? They might well do, but if this thing gets sent off to the Senate for a trial, do they have the numbers there? No, they don’t.

So what is it they’re actually trying to achieve? The clue is in the public nature of the hearings. The plan is to flood the American voter with detail so egregious, so outrageous, so astonishing, they stop and wonder why on earth they would possibly elect this Trump bloke for a second time.

it’s sort of like failing in a trial, but condemning someone in the court of public opinion. You make them electorally odious.

My suspicion as to why it will fail is because support for the Democrats is so baked in, they could hold the vote now without a single witness and Trump would be guilty.

Likewise, support for Trump is so baked in Ukraine’s President could go on prime time American TV and say I lied, he had my wife hostage and told me we’d never see military aid ever again, and the faithful wouldn’t blink an eye.

So is there a so called swinging vote in the middle. Are there voters to be swayed? I doubt it.

But here’s the other bit that might lead to the Democrats coming unstuck. What is it Trump did? Well, that depends on who you listen to, but broadly it was asking the President of another country to do you a favour, and there might be a bit of military aid released if you did

That as an act, as a suggestion, as an inference, as a wink-wink say no more is what goes on in politics in every country every day. Parties do it with voters, they do it with donors, they do it with other countries.

We supply aid to the Pacific, you think there isn’t an inference? New Zealand First wanders round the country telling industries and communities ‘remember who gave you money from the PGF’. The Chinese hand out soft loans like water with a view to what?

Join the dots.

All trump was doing was saying what he’s said to every leader going: America does a lot of stuff for you, America cleans up a lot of problems, America covers a lot of bills and provides a lot of help, aid, military, intelligence, trade.

The closer you are the better the deal. Just what is it that is so heinous so illegal so beyond the pale that Trump has done? Nothing: he’s been Trump.

Breaking into the Watergate building is breaking the law. Having a phone call with inference applied is not. Watch it all you want, but the Democrats will lose firstly in the senate, and secondly in the court of public opinion.  

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