Plenty of danger for Democrats if they win House, impeach Trump
In 2018, Democrats win the U.S. House.
In 2019, Democrats begin impeachment proceedings against President Donald J. Trump.
In 2020, Trump wins re-election.
It could happen.
“If [Democrats] take the House, [Trump] wins big,” Barry Bennett, a former senior adviser to the Trump campaign, told the news website Politico. “The market always overcorrects.”
Last week Politico laid out the tale, a horror story for sane Americans everywhere.
A bevy of Trump loyalists believe there’s little chance the GOP can retain control of the House this November, the story goes. So, let the Dems have it.
The idea is “gaining currency on the right,” Politico reports. Trump supporters argue Republicans should concede the House elections and “go for broke” by throwing Trump’s political weight behind keeping the Senate.
Then, just sit back and watch House Democrats implode.
Some Trump supporters “argue that Trump’s at his best when his back is against the wall, and that a move to impeach would both rally the base and make the president sympathetic to moderate voters,” according to Politico.
It could be a nightmare scenario for Democrats. An impeachment push backfires and drives voters into the arms of Godzilla, i.e., the GOP.
This theory has legs. Everywhere I go, liberal Democrats ask me “when are we going to impeach this guy?”
Democrats, particularly those on the left, have never accepted Trump as their president.
They despise Trump and underestimate his base and popularity. They are counting on impeachment to take out the bogeyman.
A recent national poll by Quinnipiac University found that 65 percent of Democratic voters said that if their party wins back the House, they want their lawmakers to launch impeachment proceedings against the president.
Only 39 percent of all voters and 42 percent of independents favored impeachment, according to the poll.
No matter. The impeachers are fired up and heartened by Tom Steyer, the billionaire and former hedge fund manager. Steyer has reportedly pledged at least $120 million to fund Need to Impeach and other efforts aimed at getting out the vote this November, then pushing for impeachment next year.
Need to Impeach says it has an email list of 5.5 million members, reports Bloomberg.com.
The GOP will surely hold on to the Senate. Even if Special Counselor Robert Mueller comes up with damning, iron-clad evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors against Trump, Republican senators will find a way to overlook it. After all, they looked the other way at every other one of Trump’s egregious acts and lying ways.
In this hyper-divided nation, getting the House and Senate to agree on anything is a Herculean task. Convicting a sitting president and removing him from office is a pipe dream.
The national midterms are on Nov. 6. The 2020 presidential primary season will kick off Nov. 7. It will be brutal.
An impeachment drive by the House Democrats would be allconsuming, burning up precious political energy and distract vital attention from 2020.
It will make Trump a victim in the eyes of his deliriously devoted base, as well as fair-minded voters who believe we should let an election decide his fate.
The need to impeach could bring Democrats short-term delight but long-term misery. Four more years of Trump.
LAURA WASHINGTON
lauraswashington@aol.com | @MediaDervish