Her reason is he's guilty of the charges but a partisan process must not remove a sitting president. She's confused impeachment with removal.
Why must I do your thinking for you. Because she is polling poorly in her district and likely to not get elected again. The same reason we over throw governments in favor of our puppet. She is against regime changes, therefore she is the least threatening of the candidates to Russia. The same reason why Russia favored Trump over Hillary. The same reason we meddle in other countries elections. Its not a hard concept to understand unless you're not intelligent enough to play 3d chess like Morey and Trump.
She didnt confuse anything. Democrats will impeach Trump for literally any reason. Trump gave the DNC a flimsy enough excuse for the DNC leadership to bring up articles of impeachment. Republicans will not remove him from office unless he commits a serious crime. Tulsi sees the stupid games Trump is playing, pitting the Democrats against the Republicans. She made the right call.
I think she sees a non-conviction as a foregone conclusion given the makeup of the Senate, and this impeachment will do more damage long term than not. Before impeachment, 70% of the country though Trump did something wrong. After impeachment, do you think that number goes up or down? I'd say it actually goes down. Republicans will rally around their President and convince themselves that what all he said in that letter is correct. Also, if the charge for this impeachment trial is "abuse of power", that's going to be used as precedent to impeach any future president on partisan grounds. Since the opposing party almost always complains that the President is abusing his power in some way or the other. If Trump ends up winning reelection, the question Democrats will have to ask themselves is whether the impeachment backfired on them and they should have instead gone the censure route. Can a President be impeached more than once? If he gets past this one, and he wins reelection, will he feel like he has even more freedom to abuse his power? I imagine so.
I can't really fault someone for being of the mind that impeachment is a mistake because it will help Trump. That's a legitimate concern. However, once the process starts and you are tasked with doing your job and following the law, and you choose to abstain, I find that to be gross misconduct. I just read her supporter email/statement about why she did this, and it's full of "heal the nation" and "come together" nonsense. I don't buy it one bit. This was an act of political cowardice at best and self preservation at worst.
Underselling this a bit? The Dems did not impeach Trump for emoluments violations, deferring to Putin over the US intelligence agencies, obstructing justice (see 10 counts in the Mueller investigation), publicly asking both China and Ukraine to investigate the Bidens, etc. Asking Ukraine to investigate a debunked conspiracy theory for his own gain is not flimsy. Ignoring all subpoenas wrt this investigation is also not flimsy. You are delusional if you believe this.
Nothing you stated here (not going to bother debating them) refute the point that she's confused impeachment with removal.
She is giving up her seat, she has no chance to win the nomination. It's not about self-preservation, it's about ambition. There is only one reason she is doing this.
Your words here are stronger than what I wanted to state, but my first thought was exactly that - cowardice.
He believes it, it's just that there is no such thing as a serious crime where Trump is concerned. Everything he does is legal by virtue of him being their leader. Trump is running Russia's foreign policy and the GOP loves it. He could give Putin the keys to the Fort Knox and they would cheer him.
The House has subpoenaed Don McGahn to testify wrt the Mueller Report. This has been in the courts for 8 months and is just now getting to the Supremes (mid January hearing with a decision months afterwards, IIRC). Rounding the House will likely get their court decision in about a year (and still have zero means of forcing the Trump to comply). WRT the Ukraine investigation, adding a year puts the court decision (which Trump will also likely lose) is the final months of the 2020 election.
I don’t think you know what “literal” means. Was Rudy Giuliani part of a transparent governmental process or part of a shadow government? How about the key players testify under oath so we can see if there were “serious crimes”? I guess the executive branch has absolute immunity now, just a few years after your side complaining about King Obama. Tulsi took the cowards way out, but not surprising. She clearly wanted to vote “no”, but is too scared. It doesn’t matter since her political career flamed out because she’s only popular to those who think you change the establishment by switching one group of rich assholes with another.
Thus proving that intellect is no longer a requirement to do that. Trump has good instincts and actually may or may not be intelligent. I believe it is safe to say that he has zero intellectual curiosity, lacks a basic understanding of logic, logical fallacies, etc. He has shown a distinct inability to reason, is severely lacking in any kind of understanding of how the United States government works, functions, or the history of this nation. He lacks the qualities to be an effective leader.
It takes more courage to stand up to a moronic flood of idiots pouring out of the DNC than to actually just go along with this farce of an impeachment which is unfounded and politically divisive for our nation. Oh and it is killing the election chances of the dems. I think the dems are pushing it through so quickly because they know there is nothing and they have to get this out of the way before they nominate a candidate. They are hoping to put this mistake behind them, otherwise they would have dragged this out longer until the election because it would benefit them. Tulsi Gabbard is wise beyond her years and looking to the future. She knows this is a farce and won't be remembered well. It may be one of the scapegoats of the Dems losing 2020 actually. She is positioning herself for a longshot chance at moving up and for a more than definite chance of being on the right side of the issue in 4 years when she makes her big run.
Coincidentally after 8 years of GOP “takers vs producers” dogma, all the Dems had to do was to blame foreigners.... Rust Belt and rural areas still being left behind, but that was to be expected. They were just pawns.
I'm not going to bother with her anymore ... but to your other points. I don't know if 70% thought Trump did something wrong before impeachment, but I'm certain that 70% didn't think him asking a foreign power to interfere with our election was wrong before impeachment started simply because it was NOT yet known that he did that. What actually goes down or up? You need to be much more specific. In general, before impeachment proceeding starting, support for impeachment was clearly underwater. Shortly after the start of it, it was clearly above water. Toward the end, it was slightly above water. The swing for impeachment AND removal was about 10 points. Is it all because of impeachment proceeding - no, but it played a big part. All the arguments on impeachments have been made about a month ago or even prior and nothing much has changed since. Barring some new significant info, and even with that, it's likely anything will change. What you see now is probably it. Other than the 10 point swing, the significant change is more energy even in a state of high energy already. Turnout will be huge in 2020. "Abuse of power" without talking specifically about what he abused means nothing much. The precedent set is if you use your power to ask foreign power to interfere in our election for your personal and political gain (and probably more importantly, if you block Congress as a co-equal branch and not allow it to perform its constitutional duty), you will be impeached. That's much more specific and to the point. If you don't agree with that precedent, then so be it. Any future president that abuse their power in that way should be impeached. As for impeachment as standard - a way to interpret this is even with these charges, support for impeachment and removal is only slightly above water which mean that no future Congress will simply impeach for "abuse of power" without at least as significant abuse as this. Thus, the chances of future Congress impeaching didn't increase but probably decrease. Impeachment and election are two separate things. I hate how people keep mixing them up, but whatever. There are thousands of reasons reason why Trump might win reelection - and he has a significant chance. Impeachment may or may not play any significant role. Given the 10 point swing, I think it's a negative for him, but whatever. That's not what's important. Congress as an equal branch and with their sworn duty to the Constitution, need to act on it. I doubt people will have a hard time with doing the right thing and losing. On the other hand, doing the wrong thing and losing ---- let just said I don't want to be one of those GOP members. Why not? Nothing said the POTUS can't be impeached again. But if Trump wins re-election, he probably has a friendly Congress and impeachment will be far more difficult. Tump will do more harmful and unlawful things as long as he is a sitting president. The argument is he is king - seriously they have legally argued that he can't be prosecuted for shooting someone in broad daylight on 5th street while he's a sitting president. Why should he care when he's king?
