Impeachment Vote II

Macro Perspective: Thu 14 Jan 2021

The Washington Post ran a story at noon on January 20, 2017 with the headline, The campaign to impeach President Trump has begun.

While much of the next three years was under the cloud of impeachment threats, the actual impeachment vote in the House didn't come until December 19, 2019. The Senate trial started on January 22nd, 2020 - and it ended on February 5th, 2020 in an acquittal.

So, just a year later, and they have voted on a second impeachment - it's reported that the Senate won't reconvene (prior to the inauguration) to hold a trial.

It’s not about removal.

Among the motivations of the democrats is to disqualify Trump from running for President again (as Pelosi admitted in her recent 60-Minutes interview).

Importantly, this political chaos in the U.S. has weakened the U.S. economically, not just in this pandemic recovery, but over the course of the four-year term and it has opened the door for China to emerge as the global economic superpower.

We looked at this China superpower scenario prior to the election. As I asked then, what rational person thinks it's a good idea for a communist country to become the global economic superpower? I suspect they won't be promoting democracy. 

This is a sample population survey, asking people around the world who they believe to be the leading economic power in the world.  This results of this study demonstrate where China has been buying influence (on that front, many gains were made in the global financial crisis) and how China’s neighbors feel about the prospects of a world led by China (i.e. not so fond of the idea).

With this in mind, while most of the world continues to pursue an exit from pandemic-induced recession, China is set to do the hottest growth (better than 7%), in four years (since Trump got into office).