UPDATED: Mr. Trump Goes To War

Last night CTH ran with two Trump tweets that are clear signs that Trump is enraged at the attempts of Neocon backed GOPe senators (think: McConnell, Graham, Lee, Thune, Delecto, among others) to sabotage his program and to try to use Impeachment Theater to strongarm Trump into backing down. For reasons I've already gone over in recent days, I believe this is essentially a bluff. Last nights tweets, among other indicators, appear to signal that Trump believes so, too, and is prepared to call that bluff and go to war:

The WSJ this morning headlined a further indicator:

Trump Lifts Curbs on Turkey

President says Russia-brokered cease-fire in Syria will hold, defying bipartisan criticism.

As policy statements go, that's pretty in your face: Take your Senate resolutions and House resolutions and shove 'em!

Trump appears to understand full well that both the GOPe and the Dems are between a rock and a hard place. Impeachment Theater has not got either party where they wanted to be. Daniel Henninger covers this from the Dem perspective:

Anyone of any political stripe knows that the most psychologically distressed Democrats  have wanted to impeach this guy, somehow just get rid of him, from day one.

Ditto the GOPe.

Within a day of the Mueller report's release, dismissing the Russian-collusion story lines, the opposition pivoted to the obstruction--of-justice narrative. 

But it looks like they've pivoted in a full 360, as witness Pelosi's "all roads lead to Putin" meme. That's a strong indication that the weak Russia Hoax card is still the highest card in their hand.

Somehow, the pivoters must have assumed that the American people, after enduring the Mueller odyssey, would not notice that this extraordinarily dispruptive investigation had come to nothing. And that people would saddle up to join the next get-Trump posse. That didn't work.

Nothing in the Constitution says elected officials are obliged to do anything productive. But translating the public's votes into a permanent presidential takedown had better work, because if they don't pull off impeachment and drive Donald Trump out of public life next year, the losses for the Democrats and the media will be devastating.

Who thinks Donald Trump had to wait for the NeverTrump Henninger to write this article to understand all that?

Maybe it really will be the third time's the charm for the Trump-elimination forces, but the impeachment project looks like it's starting to go wobbly.

It sure is. When you have to proceed in secret and utilize lies and what amount to forgeries, I'd say that's pretty wobbly.

But the most telling impeachment development this week wasn't any paraphrased testimony from Mr. Schiff's private hearings. It was the news that Speaker Pelosi's impeachment timetable had been delayed.

And really delayed pretty much indefinitely. There's no solidly projected date. When you start adding in the practical difficulties that Henninger goes on to detail it's easy to see why the cold feet. Those practicalities have to do with campaigning--the presidential primaries begin early in the new year, and impeachment would sideline leading candidates in the all important early going, including Warren.

Slightly different considerations go for the GOPe. Trump has undoubtedly done his political calculations. He understands the polls as well as or better than anyone in politics. He knows--not just thinks, but knows--that the American people are behind him on the issues: Endless war, trade, jobs, immigration. Not just traditional GOP constituencies, but increasingly Dems, too. Trump also knows that impeachment is a total bluff on the part of the GOPe--Trump is the candidate. To remove him, or even pretend that removal is being seriously considered, would be suicidal. To conflate two observations from yesterday:

How long can the DC political Establishment--Dem and GOP alike--continue to buck the growing popular consensus? How long can they kowtow to the Deep State status quo, without risking serious backlash?

In 2016 Trump ran a remarkably issue oriented campaign. He can do it again and run against a do-nothing Congress that has tried to impeach the Nation. The GOPe flirts with trying to use impeachment as leverage against Trump on policy issues at grave risk to itself.

Trump is committed, and he's ready to go to war. Lindsey Graham is feeling the wrath. The rest of the GOPe will need to reconsider their treason. We will undoubtedly be learning much, much more about the Russia Hoax from Barr/Durham. Who thought that that threat was a threat against not only the Dems but the GOPe as well? When the American people get a glimpse of the enormity of what's been going on, heaven help anyone who's caught out trying to sabotage Trump.

UPDATE:

Steve Forbes: “Impeachment is not gonna happen. They are doing it for political purposes… The thing to watch for is what our Attorney General in the US is doing, Attorney General Barr is going to be releasing in the next few weeks in terms of his investigations on what was happening with the CIA, the FBI, and certain White House officials leading up to the 2016 election and afterwards… A lot of bad things were done. That’s going to dominate the news. It is a big scandal coming. And it’s going to take all this other stuff off the pages.”