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Count on fiercer partisan divisions with US moving into election year

China Daily | Updated: 2019-12-28 08:47

Tensions between President Donald Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi were evident when he gave his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress in February. [Photo/Agencies]

WASHINGTON-The year 2019, which kicked off in Washington D.C. with the longest US government shutdown and the inauguration of a deeply divided Congress, is drawing to a close with US President Donald Trump's impeachment as its final, discordant note.

The partisan wrangling is moving into the deep waters of the 2020 election year, which is almost certain to produce more acrimony, divisions and chaos.

At the center, two major events will help shape the country's bumpy election year: the impeachment trial in the Senate in January that Trump is widely expected to survive and the highly competitive Democratic primaries beginning in early February.

Trump impeachment

"I want an immediate trial!" Trump tweeted on Dec 20.

The president's demand came two days after the Democrat-led House of Representatives approved two articles of impeachment that allege abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The House's vote capped months of closed-door inquiries and public hearings in the lower chamber.

However, Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer, the top Republican and Democrat, respectively, in the Republican-controlled Senate, have yet to agree on the rules governing the upcoming trial. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi still won't say if or when she plans to send the impeachment papers to the Senate.

"The House cannot choose our impeachment managers until we know what sort of trial the Senate will conduct," said Pelosi in defending her decision in a tweet on Monday.

In response, McConnell said: "We're at an impasse."

US citizens' views on the impeachment are neatly split along party lines. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released on the day of the impeachment found 48 percent of registered US voters believe Trump should be impeached and removed from office; 48 percent say they disagree.

Moreover, both Democrats and Republicans show no willingness to move closer to each other on the impeachment issue. The poll showed some 90 percent of Republicans oppose impeaching Trump and removing him from office, while 83 percent of Democrats favor it. Among independents, 50 percent support impeachment and removal, while 44 percent oppose it.

"Views on Donald Trump's impeachment remain locked in place, with most Americans having made up their minds both on Trump and the impeachment investigation a long time ago," said Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research.

The Democratic Party won the first phase of the impeachment battle in the lower chamber, but failed to make the case transcend the white-hot partisan divide, local analysts observe.

Senate Republicans may follow suit by acquitting Trump in a quick wrap-up of the trial, with little effort made to sway those with opposing views.

Democratic primaries

No matter how the Senate trial unfolds next year, the chances of Trump being convicted are small, if not "zero" as McConnell has asserted. Republicans show no sign of abandoning the president.

It won't be as easy to predict the outcome of the 2020 Democratic primaries, which are likely to overlap with a delayed impeachment trial when they kick off in early February. The competition between the party's progressives and moderates will be intense. A recent poll found 57 percent of Democrats might change their minds on the candidates before the primaries and caucuses next year.

Based on most of the polls conducted in 2019, former vice-president Joe Biden, a moderate, remains a fragile front-runner in the sprawling field of Democratic challengers. He is followed by senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who are splitting the progressive vote.

To the surprise of many, tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang has slightly overtaken Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend in Indiana, in the 2020 Democratic primaries net favorability rankings, according to a Morning Consult poll published on Tuesday. Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, activist Tom Steyer and House lawmaker Tulsi Gabbard from Hawaii are also fighting hard in the hope of becoming the party's banner-holder in 2020.

However, beyond those topics relating to Trump, the candidates disagree a lot, as six primary debates held by the party's national committee this year have shown. The issues that divide them range from a Medicare for All proposal, free college education and gun control to a wealth tax and climate change. The progressive agenda has garnered much more support among Democratic voters than ever before.

Suspense is building over the whether the eventual winner will be a progressive, a moderate, or someone in between.

"Democratic Party voters are split," said Thomas Edsall of Columbia University, citing a CBS survey breaking Democratic voters into three roughly equal groups: the most progressive wing; the middle group pushing bread-and-butter concerns like jobs, taxes and moderate healthcare reform; and those Democratic primary voters who describe themselves as moderate to conservative.

"The Democratic Party is actually three parties. They have different constituents and prefer different policies. Satisfying them all will not be easy," Edsall was reported by The Washington Post as saying.

The sharp divisions between Democrats and Republicans seem to be working in Trump's favor. Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Darrell West said that Trump's base has worried "about the left wing taking over", and see Trump as working hard to stop the left.

"He has very strong support from his base and this will continue through the 2020 election," West said.

Xinhua

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