Nobody knows for sure, because this whole controversy could die down with other bigger and more pressing problems. (That's my hope not only for them but for the party in general.) However, there is no question that they took a massive risk that was easily avoidable. In fact, it's about the riskiest thing they could do.
Sasse didn't like Trump, but I've seen no evidence that Cassidy had an issue with him. But even if they didn't like Trump, you're talking about these guys like they're doped-up thugs waving a gun around police officers - so caught up in the emotion that they can't think straight about their own well-being. These aren't stupid or unhinged men. One has a Ph.D., and the other is a doctor. They aren't going to take the biggest risks of their careers just because they don't like somebody. They aren't that dumb.
And for guys who supposedly disliked Trump, they were quite supportive of him at other times as you can see from their voting records. They were not kneejerk Trump-haters.
At least in my experience, donors tend to throw money at people who support their policy agenda. Labor unions, trial lawyers, tech companies, Planned Parenthood, etc. (left-wing donors) tend to throw money at Democrats, because they are friendly to those donors' policy agendas. Insurance companies, construction companies, pharmaceutical companies, oil and gas companies (right-wing donors) tend to throw money at Republicans because they are friendly to those donors' policy agendas.
Ben Sasse and Bill Cassidy virtually never support the policy agendas of left-wing donors, but you think those donors are going to suddenly start throwing money their way just because they voted to convict Trump in an effort everyone knew would be fruitless? That's just not plausible and makes no sense at all. Suppose Barbara Boxer had voted to convict Bill Clinton. Do you think that right-wing donors would have suddenly flipped and started throwing money at her? Of course not. A friendly phone call and maybe a free dinner at Sizzler would have been about the most she could have hoped for.
This is a little like the donor thing. These guys will get media brownie points (at least compared to other Republicans) for about 2 weeks, and then the media will **** on them anytime it serves the Democrats' interests to do so. Very, very little gain for the amount of risk.
But it's beneficial to do it now in a way that it wasn't back then?
You could cry bribery. That wasn't my case, but it's what the impeachment managers basically went with. Some people bought it. Some didn't.
You're gonna jump down my throat on this, but you have a bit of derangement yourself on this. You can't accept that someone who's conservative can be adverse to Trump without it being in bad faith, and that just isn't true. It's not a mark on one's conservatism to be against Trump on something. He is not the embodiment of conservatism. It is possible to be pragmatic about him. It's possible to be supportive of him when he's doing the right thing and hostile to him when he's doing the wrong thing. That was largely my approach to Trump for the last five years, and of course, there's plenty of room for disagreement on what's right and what's wrong. It's not as simple as loving him or hating him.
It makes sense to have one, but it doesn't automatically become an emotional response if you don't. One can make the argument that he didn't meet the legal definition of incitement (and he didn't) but that he did incite in fact by what he did over the previous few months and by what he didn't do after the attack began. That's not emotional. It's still based on fact.
He said it was fraud in public far more than he said it was fraud in court and therefore under oath and/or subject to penalties for frivolous pleadings and so forth (and sometimes affirmatively said that he WASN'T alleging fraud in court). Just think about that for a minute. I'm not necessarily saying it was all a big scam like Switzer is, but I think you're giving him the benefit of the doubt more than you should.
I'm saying that he did something that no other president had ever done. There wasn't a precedent for it. I'm not necessarily saying it was the worst thing a president had ever done. Honestly, I think that kind of judgment is stupid, because that really is a subjective. For example, Nixon was effectively removed. Did other presidents do worse things than he? Absolutely.
