Hot Take #1: Impeachment

The majority of people I respect in politics have concluded this is a fool’s errand, a maneuver doomed to fail before it gets started. Since the Senate will never vote to remove Trump, the thinking goes, impeaching him in the House is an empty gesture. Worse, as the 1998 example demonstrated, it will backfire and probably help Trump in 2020.

With respect to those smart people, I couldn’t disagree more. Indeed, I think this is entirely the wrong way to think about it. If Donald Trump is really a norm-breaking criminal, a demagogue, and a danger to the republic, there’s a duty in the constitution to address this. The country desperately needs a full accounting. Keep in mind that the Mueller probe was highly constrained in its scope. The American people deserve to know what crimes this man has committed, and Dems are beholden to the constitution to provide knowledge of them.

The lies and obstruction have prevented this and will continue to do so. Absent this mechanism, the sheer volume of Trump’s misbehavior becomes its own shield; few can keep up with all the things he is accused of, and with his flamboyant clownishness, no one can keep up with the weekly reports of further crimes. It is a large, amorphous ball of corruption, and an impeachment would give it definition and spell out all the crimes and impeachable activities.

Considering this purely through the lens of electoral politics is a shortsighted way to think about it. Yes, he’s a bad president Dems want removed. But Americans have suffered through bad administrations. Removing a bad president is not why impeachment makes sense. He’s more than bad: he’s a deeply corrupting figure who weakens our democratic processes every day he stays in office. Think about what it says that Democrats would only fight to defend the country if it were in their political interest. Hardly a profile in courage.

Even if the Senate does acquit, they’ll have to do it in the face of a mountain of crimes—and that will also be a part of the historical record. The effort to try to stop a corrupt president and party become the foundation on which to build those very norms and processes a healthy government requires. You can’t just walk away and hope to rebuild this later if *no one* has been around to defend the law. It just becomes two parties squabbling over power.

And even from a purely political perspective, the Dem’s fears seem to come from a misreading of history as well as the current moment. Trump is far less popular than Clinton was when he was impeached. Yet despite the blowback in 1998 and 1999, the GOP nevertheless *won* the presidency in 2000. Clinton was impeached for transgressions Americans thought were petty; even now, before a long investigation that would uncover so many more misdeeds, 54% of Americans believe Trump committed impeachable crimes. (Fewer want him impeached, but that’s based on their ignorance of crimes he may have committed.) The situation was quite different in 1998—but even if it were identical, it actually worked out for Republicans. Of course, they’re not the same, and Trump is a far less popular and much more corrupt man.