Funny Moment Impeachment Proceedings Constitutional Professors

Gathering in front of a giant Goggle box screen for a live viewing at Wallis Annenberg Hall, USC students watched a parade of ambassadors and diplomats testify during the public phase of the House Intelligence Commission hearings on impeachment in mid-November. They also heard from professors who took turns leading open up discussions of the testimonies, evidence and other new developments.

"We decided to use the biggest Idiot box on campus to provide students with the opportunity to watch the impeachment hearings in as unfiltered of an environment as possible," said Christina Bellantoni, professor of professional do and managing director of the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism's Media Center. "We chose a livestream that didn't have a lot of extra graphics and wasn't going to be cut into with a panel of talking heads to let them experience information technology completely raw."

Christina Bellantoni wanted to provide her students the opportunity to lookout man the impeachment hearings in as unfiltered of an environment as possible. (Photo/Spencer Quinn)

A microphone was available for faculty, who were encouraged to provide political and historical context and take questions from students.

"Information technology'south been a fun experiment," Bellantoni said. "If there ends upward being a Senate trial that extends for days, I think there will be even more interest."

Bellantoni is likewise using the impeachment proceedings, forth with the presidential principal debates, to show her students how the moments highlighted past the media sway how candidates perform in the polls and how voters perceive them.

"Every moment of the impeachment hearings is livestreamed and analyzed by people who are influential in the political realm, and anything could be a viral moment," she noted.

Impeachment is rare, which makes it a unique opportunity for professors to teach students about the process. Only two U.South. presidents have been impeached: Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Beak Clinton in 1998. They both were acquitted. The kickoff president to face the threat of impeachment proceedings was John Tyler in 1842. In 1974, President Richard One thousand. Nixon resigned amidst certainty that the House would vote to impeach him for revelations related to the Watergate scandal.

Students across the university are studying the impeachment proceedings to deepen their understanding of history, constitutional law, policy, diplomacy and rhetoric. Dora Kingsley Vertenten, a professor at the USC Toll School of Public Policy and an expert in campaigns and political parties, describes her students in the Main of Public Assistants program as increasingly more than interested in the inner workings of government. They aspire to serve the public and their communities — and are therefore among those paying attention to the hearings.

"The impeachment inquiry provides a real-time exercise in watching debates about what the regime should exist and, more importantly, what the authorities and our agents should non be doing in office," she said.

Impeachment's touch on on the 2020 election

Vertenten said there are a number of important lessons from the hearings, including that they're paradoxically taking media coverage away from President Donald Trump and focusing information technology on members of Congress — particularly those who sit on the committees conducting the investigation. Previously lesser-known members like Rep. Adam Schiff accept an opportunity to raise coin for the 2020 election, when all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 of the 100 seats in the Senate will be up for grabs, along with the presidency.

"Everybody gets a hazard to raise coin during an impeachment inquiry," Vertenten said. "If Congressional hearings — and a Senate trial — reach the level of the McCarthy hearings, then you lot can expect large war chests aimed at the 2020 ballot campaign from all sides of the political spectrum."

Boring, CSPAN-level textile has been elevated via the impeachment inquiry.

Dora Kingsley Vertenten

Media coverage doesn't have to include a lot of bells and whistles to requite members of Congress that all-important platform.

"Slow, CSPAN-level material has been elevated via the impeachment research, making everyday politicians into reality Telly stars with the ability to go social media influencers and stone star fundraisers," she added.

She provided an case of how that benefits both sides: Rep. Elise Stefanik had a viral moment thank you to her defense of President Trump during the Nov. 15 impeachment hearing. The president himself tweeted that Stefanik was a "new Republican star." Even so, her 2020 Democratic opponent, Tedra Cobb, raised $i 1000000 and increased her Twitter following — from roughly 5,000 to 250,000 — mere days after Stefanik accomplished GOP celebrity status.

Lessons from prior impeachment proceedings

While in that location's no dubiousness that millions of dollars are being raised on both sides of the political aisle using the impeachment narrative, USC political experts have a variety of opinions on whether the hearings volition ultimately aid or hurt President Trump's reelection chances.

"Some contend that impeachment without a Senate conviction would help Trump, pointing to the Democrats' modest 1998 midterm gains in the midst of the Clinton impeachment," said Robert Shrum, director of the Center for the Political Time to come at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

"The reality is that Clinton's impeachment opened the way for George W. Bush to entrada on a promise to restore honor and integrity to the White House. A Trump impeachment, if he is non removed from office, will harden his base, but the revelations are likely to further alienate independents and swing voters and injure his chances for reelection."

When I'm putting my political prognosticator lid on, I say this is helping Trump.

Christina Bellanton

On the other paw, Bellantoni noted that history isn't always the best guide when it comes to Trump.

"When I'm putting my political prognosticator hat on, I say this is helping Trump," she said. "Impeachment is an opportunity for his base to exist very fired upwardly. When people are angry, they show upwardly, and they're unafraid to fight dorsum when they feel threatened."

"That said," she added, "anything I sympathize nearly politics, I try to throw out the window at present, considering the Trump campaign and presidency upended all those traditional notions well-nigh what it means to run a campaign, and how."

With the outcomes of both the impeachment proceedings and the 2020 presidential election uncertain, i thing is for certain: USC students and faculty alike will go on to tune in to see what happens next.

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Source: https://news.usc.edu/163838/impeachment-hearings-usc-students-history-2020-election/

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