W.I. Democrats side with Republicans on Clinton impeachment

Impeachment passing isn't going to happen because it was, as people have noted, inevitably framed as a simple partisan contest. At least a few sitting Democratic Senators believed he was guilty of perjury, and still voted to acquit because of the power of party. In addition you have what's been demonstrated a few times in this thread to be honest, in as much as people being confused over even why the impeachment happened (And this is two decades later) and it being mixed in with some generalised moral assessment of Clinton. The renewed interest in Juanita Broadrrick's allegation is a very much separate thing to the impeachment question - her being open only happened after the process had concluded. You're not going to get the necessary critical mass of public opinion to see a demand for successful impeachment, not based on what Clinton was brought to task over IOTL.
 
Get this a lot closer to the consensus of a major Clinton military action in response to Paula Jones, and that will succeed. Bonus points if he makes a slip or writes a memo to the effect of "we need a war."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wag_the_Dog

The feminist movement did itself a real disservice by defending Clinton as much as it did, while the Republicans did themselves a real disservice by having such a strong dose of hypocrisy in their leadership.

Also, a successful Clinton impeachment followed by a Gore one wouldn't work. It would likely cause a Gore win in 2000 as big as Reagan '80 due to public sympathy.
 
I'm not so sure. One likely outcome would be a split in the Democratic Party. Unless all Democrats march in lockstep against Clinton, then I don't see the party cohering. Remember that at the time Clinton came along, the party was extremely fractured. He wasn't the front runner in the primaries initially, but something of a dark horse. The Democrat coalition always has an element of fragility, and many of the constituencies in the Democratic party are restive because they tend to get lip service and little else. Organized labour, blacks, Hispanics, immigrants, gays and lesbians, progressives. They're pretty marginal within the party dominated by its well funded mainstreams and party establishment.

So... Democrats through Clinton under the bus. Is that a universal sentiment? Probably not. It's hard to see that level of uniformity. But if not, then who throws Clinton under? The Liebermans? The comfortable party elite?

Remember that in the absence of Clinton, Al Gore had major struggles trying to appeal to or reach out to constituencies like blacks and progressives. I think it would be much much harder to unite a party in these circumstances, and I don't think that Gore has the charisma or talents to do it.

So, you'd have a lame duck President, floundering under the weight of his predecessor's impeachment, carrying that baggage, with a party under him that's at the threshold of civil war, perhaps over it, perhaps split. I don't see him winning. Rather, I see a repeat of the Ford Presidency, and its outcome.
 
Was the GOP radicalized by Watergate? Or were they already radicalizing under Nixon? Keep in mind that Nixon pioneered the Southern Strategy and reached out to the white southern racist constituencies that had been set adrift by the Democrats. Nixon reached out to the religious movement with his affiliation with Billy Graham. He took partisanship to new levels, literally plotting murder and criminal attacks against his enemies. The Watergate hearings were bi-partisan, both Republicans and Democrats were involved in the effort to bring Nixon down. But ultimately, Nixon got away with it. He was pardoned for all crimes, including ones which never saw the light of day.

During the Nixon/Frost interviews, Nixon was unrepentant to the point of saying "If the President Does it, It's not illegal." The radicalisation had already set in.

I think it was already radicalizing (although accusing the Democrats of treason has been a key Republican strategy since the 1920's, if not the 1860's), but Watergate accentuated their persecution complex, gave them a martyr figure, and drew a line in the sand between real conservatives (TM) and RINOs, the ones in Congress who aided the investigation and urged resignation. The fact that Reagan, who supported Nixon to the end, won a landslide election victory so soon after Watergate is still quite stunning in its way.

So, you'd have a lame duck President, floundering under the weight of his predecessor's impeachment, carrying that baggage, with a party under him that's at the threshold of civil war, perhaps over it, perhaps split. I don't see him winning. Rather, I see a repeat of the Ford Presidency, and its outcome.

With the awkwardness of an empty VP slot. The GOP would probably fail to impeach Gore, but I think they'd succeed in denying him a Vice Presidential appointment.
 
Wait, why is Gore being impeached in this scenario?

@Shevek23 and I explained on the last page, but a combination of religious fervor, naked partisanship, and complacency from their unchallenged success in the Reagan era meant that Gingrich's generation of Republicans pretty much refused to allow a Democratic President to govern, hence their quixotic OTL attempts to get Clinton convicted of murder, among many other charges. ITTL, they'd be even more overconfident after succeeding in scalping Bill, so if they then impeached Gore, then they'd get a Republican President again.
 
I think it was already radicalizing (although accusing the Democrats of treason has been a key Republican strategy since the 1920's, if not the 1860's), but Watergate accentuated their persecution complex, gave them a martyr figure, and drew a line in the sand between real conservatives (TM) and RINOs, the ones in Congress who aided the investigation and urged resignation. The fact that Reagan, who supported Nixon to the end, won a landslide election victory so soon after Watergate is still quite stunning in its way.

Then its a 'no way out' scenario. As I said, Nixon essentially got away with high crimes. The Republicans successfully covered everything up. It's hard to define a trajectory that doesn't leave the Republicans all bugfuck.
 
Wait, why is Gore being impeached in this scenario?

There doesn't seem to be a good reason to impeach him. Crippling him with Congressional investigations and special prosecutions for the rest of his term would be the best strategy. Imagine Gore trying to campaign for election with that hanging over his head, and struggling with a very badly divided party. Dead man walking.
 
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Then its a 'no way out' scenario. As I said, Nixon essentially got away with high crimes. The Republicans successfully covered everything up. It's hard to define a trajectory that doesn't leave the Republicans all bugfuck.

There's so much political scholarship on how people and cultures become more radical, but if anyone studies how to reverse the process, it gets no attention. There has to be some solution besides the national destruction/occupation the Axis endured after WW2, but damned if I know it.

There doesn't seem to be a good reason to impeach him. Crippling him with Congressional investigations and special prosecutions for the rest of his term would be the best strategy. Imagine Gore trying to campaign for election with that hanging over his head. Dead man walking.

That's a better GOP strategy, but Gingrich wasn't great at long-term thinking, and again, I think success against Clinton would make him even more overconfident.
 
There's so much political scholarship on how people and cultures become more radical, but if anyone studies how to reverse the process, it gets no attention. There has to be some solution besides the national destruction/occupation the Axis endured after WW2, but damned if I know it.

I'm searching my memories, and I think you're right. I can't think of a single scholarly work which examines moderation as a process direction.

That's a better GOP strategy, but Gingrich wasn't great at long-term thinking, and again, I think success against Clinton would make him even more overconfident.

Gingrich was fairly inept. So even if he went for impeachment, I think you'd still get the same sort of outcome. End result - Dead man walking.

Seriously, Gore's best option to have any effectiveness as a President would be to simply capitulate, treat Gingrich as a Co-President, announce he won't be running, and just sneak out of the White House at the end of term, and leave someone else, hopefully without baggage, try to unify the party. That, astonishingly, is his best option, which goes to show you how bad his situation is in this scenario. There's literally no credible scenario that sees Gore being able to win the Presidency. Just varying levels of failure and disgrace.
 
If they do, they'll feel very stupid once the Republicans decide to filibuster Al Gore's choices for a new VP, and then try to impeach him too. I'm pretty certain that was their endgame if they succeeded in running Clinton out, to take another step and push Hastert into the Oval Office instead.

Which, if successful, raises the specter of an even more outrageous scandal breaking out early.
 
Which, if successful, raises the specter of an even more outrageous scandal breaking out early.

If the Republicans are good at one thing, it's burying their scandals when they need to. Someone of Hastert's moral character, with the control of the Presidency, and ruthless allies in Congress, facing a divided and demoralized Democratic party? It would be.... It would be.... It would be like right now.
 

EMTSATX

Banned
I was never impressed with Gingrich. I have met a lot of politicans in my life. I worked on the Lincoln Day Dinner for years (for those of you who don't know that is a annual dinner/fund raiser. A Republican of National stature comes down. He and local people give a speech, whip up the base and collect money. I believe that the equivalent Democrat thing is Jefferson-Jackson Dinner, Republicans have started adding Reagan to that.)

Anyway, I met pretty much any Republican from 41 and Quayle to Trump and Cruz. The biggest jerk I ever met was Gingrich and he was a ass. The only thing Newt did was do the Contract with America, which was a master stroke, beyond that he was pretty much a ass.

I have no realistic view scenarios how Gore gets impeached for anything. I have gone back before and looked at the membership of the Senate at the time. The best I can come up with anything is, I *believe* they could have gotten is that I think that had to think that the Senate, could have gotten to a censure vote but, that would have required the Republican caucus not being so nakedly partisan.

You would also have to butterfly Larry Flint offering a $1,000,000 to anyone (girl or boy) who could prove a Xtra marital affair with a Republican Senator. I went back and tallied it up, I believe I got to about 15 Republican Senator's who it was known or later who it later came out that had affairs.

Maybe, big, big maybe with Gore that the affair he was having on Tipper came out, or his improper campaign finance (the whole Buddhist monk thing.) That requires a more competent Republican party. For fun do you know who becomes POTUS? Either Gingrich who had tons of moral and ethics problems or depending on timing Speaker Dennis "the Coach" Hassert. Can you imagine that dumpster fire? Starting in 2000, you would have had Democrat Presidency and Congress for about the next billion years.
 
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