Quote:
Originally Posted by Rochard
Why wouldn't the Republicans not go along with this? If they impeach Trump it puts Pence in as President, and Ryan in as VP. The only thing that changes is they remove Trump from office. Republicans remain in office, they continue to control the White House, and they remove the one thing that is causing everyone problems.
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They can't and won't go along with it for a few reasons.
1. While they may not like Trump, he remains popular with his base, a base that very well could either turn out and vote against them or just not turn out during the 2018 primaries costing them the House and possibly the Senate. They aren't willing to trade their majority for Pence.
2. At the end of the day party politics typically ends up winning. Let's not forget, during the Republican primaries Trump basically said Ted Cruz's wife was ugly and Cruz hated him so much he said things that pissed off many other Republicans during the convention, yet he has supported him, appeared with him, and even said nice things about him since he has gotten in the White House. You yourself have pointed out on many occasions how unwilling the Republicans are to investigate Trump even when faced with real evidence.
3. Pence would likely be a lame duck President the minute he took the oath and became the POTUS. If you thought the Republican party was fractured and disjointed now, wait until a large number of them vote to impeach. It would cause chaos that would make it hard for Pence to get anything done. If they then went on to lose one or both houses of Congress in 2018 the Democrats would simply block anything he wants to do.
If the Republicans really want Trump out of office their best bet is to wait for the investigation to play out and see what happens. If that brings up an impeachable offense they can move forward and impeach without much worry. If not, then they just ride it out to 2020 and try to run some people against him in the primaries.