A potential fatal flaw for presumed Democratic Impeachment Strategy
The following analysis includes speculation on the basis of the Democrat’s longer term strategy of why impeachment is important. Some of the ideas included here go well beyond analysis of social media and into our interpretation of longer term political strategy, so caveat emptor.
We believe that at least a portion of the impeachment strategy is focused on returning the Republican Party to its state prior to Trump. This does not infer Democrats are trying to directly help Republicans but that they believe the former Republicans to be easier to defeat.
The current consensus is that if Trump is impeached and forced to leave office, that the most likely presidential candidates for the Republicans would include Pence, Haley, Romney, Kasich, Cruz, Ryan, Rubio, etc.
Betting contracts have these politicians as leading for the Republican nomination, assuming Trump is not eligible or does not run.
The list of potential Republican candidates remarkably includes few pro-Trump Republicans. Further, those who might be categorized as pro-Trump have not always been believed to be so.
The consensus, based on betting market activity, essentially tells us that if Trump is forced out, the Republican Party will in fact revert to circa 2014. And, SMI analysis tells us that these Republicans would in fact be defeated by current Democratic Presidential front-runners. In such a scenario, Democrats would greatly benefit from a successful impeachment, at least according to the consensus.
According to a broader SMI analysis, however, such a scenario appears highly unlikely. Those Republicans noted by the consensus as the most likely to gain the nomination in the case that Trump is not eligible are overshadowed by many ‘New Republicans’ or those who were not well known or even active in politics in 2014.
Emergence of ‘New Republicans’
Those individuals in this group of ‘New Republicans’ have essentially been either created or greatly helped by Trump’s entrance into politics. SMI suggests that this group would dominate in the case that Trump did not or could not run. A partial list includes:
On average, this group of ‘New Republicans’ is younger and more dynamic while having significantly higher SMI.
The apparent belief of Democrats that an outcome of impeaching Trump would result in the Republican Party reverting to 2014 seems completely misplaced.
SMI shows that the landscape has dramatically shifted. Current influence lies with ‘New Republicans’ whereas the Republican favorites of the pre-Trump era have withered. Furthermore, SMI implies that a comeback is highly unlikely.
In short, the hopes of Democrats of a future Romney-Pence ticket (or similar configuration) that would be easily quashed is simply out of place.
SMI implies that a future Republican ticket, in the case that Trump did not run, would be younger, more dynamic and more ‘Trumpian’ than most anyone fathoms.
An Ivanka Trump-Jim Jordan or Donald Trump, Jr.-Candace Owens ticket is much more likely to prevail in the current environment and to be more formidable versus any Democratic ticket.
The main point here is simply that it appears Democrats have miscalculated. Instead of forcing Republicans back to being stodgy and boring, it looks like the push for impeachment has solidified a Trumpian leadership outside of Donald that is anything but stodgy and boring.
In this sense, polls, betting markets, and professional political analysts appear to have completely missed the underlying shifts of the political landscape.