You want to impeach him. I get it. He deserves it.
Should he be impeached? Fuck, yes.
Can he be? Maybe, but it won’t be easy or without complications.
The capture of the House in 2018 is one of the biggest weapons the Democrats have in the effort against Trump. The House GOP bled Hillary with the Benghazi hearings from 2014 to 2016, and the Democrats should now return the favor. Congressional committees should drive and drive hard on corruption by Trump, his cronies, family members (particularly his family members), his business interests, and his allies. His cabinet members need to be on the hot seat early and often.
I remain a deep skeptic of impeachment as a political strategy for another reason: He’ll raise a quarter of a billion dollars off it. The boob-bait GOP base emails will never end. Convinced of his impending removal from office, Trump would batter down every possible email inbox to scrape the last $5 from Granny’s Social Security check for his campaign grift. He’s already going to have a hell of a financial advantage; don’t make it worse.
I’ve argued time and again that the smart play is IIABN—impeachment in all but name—but the great beast of Washington shambles ever forward, its ponderous, inexorable tread leading it toward the inevitable impeachment proceedings against Donald John Trump, forty-fifth president of the United States.
For the love of God, don’t bet the farm on it unless you can win in the Senate.
Look, I feel your pain and frustration, but unless you convict Trump in the Senate and destroy his political future, you’re not fucking anyone; you’re just enjoying a masturbatory revenge fantasy. Democrats who make the argument on the impact of impeachment hearings do so based largely on magical political thinking. They’re missing the point.
This isn’t the Watergate era. Not a single Republican vote beyond Justin Amash can be guaranteed in the House, and the Senate landscape is entirely bleak. Until you can get to two-thirds of the Senate for a conviction, impeachment means nothing. Do you really think Mitch McConnell will do more than laugh? I’d put down 3:2 odds that McConnell could flip two or three Democrats.
The Senate will exonerate Trump. He will hang his entire campaign on No Collusion, No Obstruction, No Conviction. You think Trump will be shamed, and you’re wrong. He cannot be shamed. Ever. Your people don’t need impeachment to win, given how fired up their base is for his removal; they do need to keep up the pain.
The Democrats aren’t helpless. They can and should turn 2020 into a spectacle. Let the congressional oversight become a weaponized accountability tool. Open a second front in the war of 2020. Lest you think that the American people would reject such a transparently political ploy, may I remind you of the 2015–2016 Benghazi show trials? How’d those turn out for Hillary Clinton? I’ll tell you how: badly.
Constant, always-on, televised torture sessions won’t backfire in the way an impeachment would. Show Americans the dregs and scum who work for Trump. Keep beating the drum. Keep dragging Trump’s feeble mental process back to Russia, impeachment, corruption, emoluments, his sons, his little friends Cohen, Manafort, and Stone.
The trick is to keep up the pace of investigations and flood the zone. Democrats need to up the tempo and visibility of these hearings. You need cameras, spectacle, vivid moments the public can see and remember. This is playing by the rules of your reality-TV show, not Trump’s.
This isn’t just about Russia and the 2016 election scheme to help Trump. No, this is also about the rich portfolio of corruption and self-dealing that comprises this entire criminal enterprise masquerading as a White House. So what if they’re gone? Bring in Pruitt, Carson, Tillerson, Mattis, Lewandowski, and the rest, both the good and the bad. Get their asses in the chair for public testimony. Drill, baby, drill. You will rivet Trump’s attention to the spot.
Here’s just one small example of how the House Democrats could drag the administration into a deep mire and frame the 2020 referendum on Trump:
In July 2019 it was revealed that a secret Facebook group of current and former Customs and Border Patrol agents and officers was a revolting sink of raging racism, abuse, and mockery of immigrants, including dead immigrant children who died while being held in detention centers.
Every one of the currently serving CBP officers on that group should be dragged in front of the cameras. Drill down. Get into it with them. These are Stephen Miller’s frontline troops in the war on migrants, and they’re a lockstep group of Trump supporters. One even posted a meme called “Lucky Illegal Immigrant Glory Hole Special Starring AOC,” showing the Bronx congresswoman being forced by President Trump to service him orally.
I’m not a reality-TV producer, but this is the kind of play that is riveting television and will cause Trump to dig deep to defend crooked, sick cops. Adorable moppets telling stories of their time in cages? Call me cynical, but that’s good TV, and in the Trumpverse, good TV counts.
Trump’s reality is bounded by television. It is defined by cable news. If the Democrats in the House make this an aggressive element in 2019 and 2020, Trump will begin his usual obsessive watch-tweet-sleep cycle and further elevate the stories of his lawless administration.
You want to drag Don Jr. off the campaign trail. You want Hope Hicks and Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort and Kellyanne Conway and the rest of the parade of his clingers and toadies taking the oath, sitting through the grilling, generating pictures and headlines.
Impeachment may work, but it’s likely a bridge to nowhere. Investigations serve a valid accountability purpose, and have the corollary benefit of being a great earned-media and political trap for this president.
Besides, what else are you going to do? Pass an infrastructure bill?