News broke yesterday, that European Ambassador Gordon Sondland updated his testimony after having his “memory refreshed”, and that in fact there was an understanding of quid pro quo. Many think this is the smoking gun that will get Trump thrown out of office. While it will certainly get him impeached, the most important part will probably not happen; getting him thrown out.
Already, his supporters in the Senate, the jury that would get him thrown out, have switched the narrative from there was no quid pro quo, to there cannot be quid pro quo if the other person never felt any pressure to comply. The other person, of course, is the hostage nation of Ukraine who has to calculate its words carefully. Ukraine’s options are dependent on who is the President of the United States. At the moment, Trump is, so what is Ukraine supposed to say? “Yes, we were pressured”, and hope Trump is actually thrown out of office? What if he’s not? What if his replacement, Pence, withholds future support? There is nothing to win for Ukraine in our political game of impeachment, nothing at all. Trump and his supporters know this and so they’ll use Ukraine’s denial for as long as it makes sense.
Trump is an opportunist and will shift his narrative with the wind. What scares me the most about Trump is that I believe Trump has no limits. He will incite a race-war, so long as it serves him staying in power. As Lincoln put it “I am the President of the United States, clothed with immense power…”, but that power disappears when he leaves office and he knows this. It is for this reason that we must vote him out. We must make sure he never comes back. We must make sure that his departure is the result of America coming back to its senses.
