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| Organ grinder and girl, Rosh Hashanah card from Brooklyn, early 1900s. I may wish you another Happy New Year later but Brooks almost certainly won't. Image via The Blog About the Postcards. |
This political brawl will leave Trump victorious.
Donald Trump committed an impeachable offense on that call with the Ukrainian president. But that doesn’t mean Democrats are right to start an impeachment process.
Remember, impeachment is a political process, not a legal one. Some people say that means the definition of what constitutes high crimes and misdemeanors isn't a question for lawyers like in a court proceeding but politicians like in Congress which is where impeachment takes place, but I have a quirky original take, which is that it really means nobody's required to impeach anybody, it's just something you can do if you think it's a good idea, like passing appropriations bills, which used to be regarded as a must, but nowadays you just put through a continuing resolution and save yourself all the agita, and don't even think about budgets.
In the same way, when Congress is in the way of being able to prosecute a crime committed by a president, they can decide not to prosecute it by means of prosecutorial discretion, which they have, unlike prosecutors, who have to prosecute every crime they come across, even if it's just surrendering to the Customs and Border Patrol on the wrong side of the border, because the law must be obeyed no matter what. That's the difference between law and politics.
Anyway, there are many reasons for fearing that impeaching President Trump would not be in the best interest of our country, which my liberal friends tell me is very important to them. I take this so seriously that I'd like to list them in bold type instead of my usual italics:
It will probably achieve nothing. Once the House has passed Articles of Impeachment, it would take 20 of the Republican senators together with all the Democrats and Independents to remove the president, and this is not going to happen. It would be nice to have a non-criminal president, but this is unlikely. Meanwhile, impeachment could cause a backlash on both sides, the anti-Trump forces that would be angry because they lost and the pro-Trump forces that would be angry because they're always angry. So things could get ugly.
You may think I ought to be telling my fellow conservative Republicans that America is in danger and Trump is guilty of crimes and they should vote to convict instead of bothering you Times readers about it but hahahahahaha you guys kill me. That would be in the best interest of our country but you should not let the best be the enemy of the second-best.
It would be elitist. Why should just 100 senators be allowed to decide the fate of our nation? This could be seen as an attempt on the part of the rich and powerful to influence the coming election, with the Senate at 52% to 48% in favor of Trump and the public at 53% to 43% against him, which could lead the masses to feel that Democrats are trying to thwart their will. Democratic elites to voters: We don't trust you to lose this thing without a push from Senator McConnell. Too many of you are racists, or not racists, as the case may be.
It is not what the country wants to talk about. I happen to know the country. While Speaker Pelosi once said she would not proceed with impeachment unless there was a groundswell of popular support, this has not happened. Why, the latest Quinnipiac University poll finds that only 37% of voters believe President Trump should be impeached and removed from office, though admittedly the Morning Consult poll makes it 43% believing the impeachment process should begin, and the YouGov/HuffPost 47%, nine and ten points respectively above their levels in April.*
A separate YouGov poll conducted Tuesday found that a majority of Americans may either “strongly” or “somewhat” support impeachment if Trump “suspended military aid to Ukraine in order to incentivize the country’s officials to investigate his political rival.”Which is a thing that actually happened, I mean maybe they were serious.
This is because everyone wants to talk about jobs, health care, and climate change. None of the hundreds of people I spoke to at Baylor University, where I discussed spiritual hunger and my book on Monday; Nantucket, where I may have been over the weekend; or Kansas City at some other point this week, had any interest in impeachment at all or even used the word, as far as I know, though I can't swear I interviewed them all or indeed any of them, or report how many questions they asked me about jobs and health care.
It will increase public cynicism. Impeachment of a president used to be something really special, something we'd do only once a century, and now it's becoming totally commonplace, practically every time we have a criminal president and even sometimes when we don't. People will start to think politicians only do it for political advantage, even though as I've explained impeaching Trump won't be to the Democrats' political advantage at all.
But what are people to think when Democrats have introduced impeachment resolutions against Trump five separate times by this point, according to Noah Rothman, for frivolous reasons such as his obstruction of justice in the firing of FBI director James Comey, his obstruction of justice in the wider framework of ten or so cases in the Mueller report, or his alignment with white supremacist causes, his racist expressions of disdain for Rep. Frederica Wilson and the citizens of "shithole countries" of Africa and the Caribbean, or his endlessly blatant racism against undocumented immigrants, asylum seekers, and the Congresswomen of The Squad?
And, you know, please don't tell me, one more time, that that wouldn't happen if some more Republicans signed on to the latest one where Trump is apparently accused of an actual crime instead of merely violating civil rights through hate speech or obstructing an FBI investigation? Don't tell me to go around to ask GOP congresspeople to emulate ex-Republican Justin Amash and current Republican Mark Amodei (R-NV). It's not up to Republicans to blame Trump for his crimes and stop the spread of cynicism! They might lose their elections!
It's playing Trump's game. Finally, it might be what Trump wants you to do. If you impeach him, it makes him angry, which is playing to his strength, as his audiences love it when he's angry. Indeed, if the Senate were to convict him on the impeachment charges, he'd probably be angrier than ever!
In fact I'm not even sure it's safe to have an election next November! I know the Constitution says you're supposed to, but that's a political, not a legal requirement, and that will be bad enough if he wins; if he loses, he'll be so angry I don't even want to contemplate it.
So be sensible, Democrats. If you don't stop with the flailing around trying to get rid of him, we may never get rid of him. Much better to understand that we'll never get rid of him. And now, if you'll excuse me, I have a spiritual journey I'm supposed to go on, in Nantucket, which may involve some lobster. Shana tova, and don't expect too much.
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