[Max Goodman]

This article suggests Dem leaders think moving toward impeachment endangers their chances "to retake the House and... maybe even the Senate."

I take a longer view. The only way to get anything done anymore is to control White House, House, and Senate. (This is true for the Dems, at least, because of Republican obstructionism--I hope the Dems have learned enough (and care enough) to make this true for Republicans, too, but I doubt it.) My eyes are on 2020. Most voters in recent U.S. elections, I think, vote against something more than they see either party as offering them anything to vote for. The more directly the Dems attack Trump, and the more power they have to do so, the more they energize Trump's base. I hope that in 2018 the Dems pick up seats but fail to retake either house.

P.S. Even if Dems retake WH and Congress, because the right wing is now filling the judicial openings they refused to let Obama fill, for a good long while the courts will be an obstacle to some reforms.

[Roger Slater]

I disagree. I think it's important for the Dems to take at least the Senate. If the Republicans narrowly control the House, but the Dems control the Senate, perhaps the conditions would be ripe for some actual bipartisanship since the parties would need each other. But if the Dems could take both the House and the Senate, a Republican president would surely be forced to compromise.

[Max Goodman]

Originally Posted by Roger Slater

It's not a question of the ends justifying the means when the ends and the means are both reprehensible.

Originally Posted by Roger Slater

But if the Dems could take both the House and the Senate, a Republican president would surely be forced to compromise.

We should compromise with those whose goals are reprehensible? John Kelly would agree.

Bipartisanship was the goal of Presidents Clinton and Obama, both elected with actual majorities. The last two Republican presidents, neither elected with a majority, moved the country hard right. The country deserves better than bipartisanship.

[Roger Slater]

I was thinking of bipartisanship as an improvement over total and complete Republican rule, not as preferable to Democratic rule. I was responding to your expressed hope that the Dems fail to retake either house.