President Donald Trump.
As you are almost certainly aware, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced this morning that she is going to officially file for impeachment. Though I have been largely ignoring the impeachment spectacle, this is a major new step. It probably deserves a few words.
What happens now? Well, it's going to take a vote. A simple majority, 218, is needed to pass the house. Democrats have 233 seats, but it's not at all clear if all of the Democrats will vote in favor. Many of the new Democrats elected in 2018 are from districts that President Trump won and could be voted out. Since former Republican Justin Amash is in favor of impeachment that means 16 Democrats would need to defect for this whole show to be over in the first place. That number seems high but already one Democrat, Jeff van Drew, says he won't go along with it. There is a chance that the impeachment won't even happen if Pelosi can't get enough votes.
Assuming it passes, which is likely, the trial will be held in the Senate. In order to remove the President there would need to be a 2/3rd majority. With 54 Republicans in the Senate the Democrats would need all of their Senators to vote, along with the 2 independents and 19 Republicans. I could see Mitt Romney voting to impeach, just out of pure hatred for President Trump and the voters that put him in power, but other than him, I can't see any Republicans going along with this. And there are three blue dog Democrats that are fairly likely to vote against impeachment. Krysten Sinema, Doug Jones and Joe Manchin are from red states and are extremely vulnerable if they vote to impeach. Jones is done for sure in Alabama if he votes for impeachment so I can't imagine him doing so and both Sinema and Manchin have proven themselves to be fairly reasonable and bipartisan.
I guess there is a chance that new evidence could come out at the Senate trial, like President Trump being found in bed with a dead woman or live boy and that could change some votes, but I don't see that happening. Given that President Trump has been under investigation since he announced his candidacy in 2015 there is pretty much no chance that something new could come out. There is zero evidence that Trump did anything wrong with the Ukraine call and all of the testimony was either hearsay or opinion, not actual facts. With the testimony being so lackluster, approval of impeachment so low and President Trump's overall approval around 45-50% and his in party approval being around 95% there is basically no chance of him getting removed.
So why on Earth did Nancy Pelosi do this? I was going to make a football metaphor about the Democrats being down 45 points at halftime and throwing a Hail Mary, but I don't think that's really right. It's more like the GOP's star quarterback is tossing TD's like a madman but the Democrats purposely try to injure him so they can face the backup QB, Mike Pence. Even if it works, the guy that makes the hit is getting kicked out of the league, Mike Pence will likely lead the team to victory regardless and the fans might burn down the stadium in anger. It's a move of pure desperation as the Democrats realize that they have very little chance of taking President Trump down in 2020 or even holding onto the house.
Party unity is a big part of it as well. The lunatics are running the asylum right now in the Democratic Party and there is a small but vocal group of "woke" progressives, most notably the squad, who are willing to tear the party apart. Pelosi knows this and knows that her speakership was in trouble and that impeachment was one of the only ways to herd the cats. Right now the only thing that is keeping the Democratic Party together is a mutual hatred of President Trump.
I think the Democrats will face pretty huge consequences for this impeachment. I thought that President Trump was fairly likely to win in 2020 anyways but now it's almost a sure thing. President Trump will use the impeachment trial as vindication when he is acquitted and will likely air all kinds of dirty laundry for Adam Schiff, the Biden family and Nancy Pelosi herself.
Of course, there is a small chance this charade could still work. If so than the consequences will be dire. It will basically be telling the 63 million people who voted for President Trump that their vote doesn't matter and will never matter again. That's a recipe for disaster and even civil war. Thankfully, that outcome seems so remote that I am not worried about it.
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