There is nothing the President does better than rallying his supporters against or for a cause, he himself during the 2016 election said: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot someone and I wouldn’t lose any voters.” He’s probably right, he would tweet about how American and brave he was to use his second amendment rights and his followers would eat it up. Trump seems to be able to use any event to sway his influence over his most loyal followers, no matter if the event is negative. It’s an incredible talent and it’s something that will come back on the democrats hard if they push for impeachment.
This has been a big question for the Democratic party. Many Democrats seem to be pushing for impeachment procedures more and more every single day. Democratic candidates Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris both have supported the impeachment of the president. Claiming that beyond politics, it’s the Democrats’ constitutional duty to impeach Trump after everything that has come out about him. Perhaps there is some warrant to that statement, but if you are talking about the political ramifications of this, it’s a horrible idea. It will backfire on the Democrats in the 2020 election and hurt their chances of winning significantly.
Donald Trump is good at playing the public and his supporters. If he got impeached, America would never hear the end of it. There would be a flurry of tweets and public statements coming out from the former President every single day. He would first start by bashing the Democrats with the support of his party. The narrative that some Republicans have created of Democrats being elitists and progressive communists would be pushed hard by Trump and by everyone in the GOP after an impeachment. They would warn their voters about an oppressive blue wave that is taking over the country and that had brought down the President they loved. That kind of public defamation would seriously hurt the growing support the Democrats have gotten.
There’s no doubt that the Republican party would use the disgraced Trump at every opportunity to support their 2020 nominee. Voter turnout which may not have shown up otherwise would be incredibly energized, many more voters would come out as an almost “revenge” for removing the President and to stop the evil blue wave that the Republicans would preach is coming. Any nominee the Republicans choose this time will have that huge push of support right out of the gate.
Another major aspect to consider is that the impeachment might not even go through either due to the Republicans majority in the Senate. In order for impeachment, the Senate needs a two-thirds majority vote and chances are most of the Senate will vote against impeaching Donald Trump. Yet still, the Republicans would use it as leverage against the Democrats and Donald Trump would still be in office. So the Democrats would head into the 2020 election at a disadvantage and the President would still be in office. So they would just be shooting themselves in the foot whether it worked or not.
Consider what do the Democrats even gain from removing Trump from the presidency? They have a minority in the Senate and the Vice President will move in to take Trump’s place. Mike Pence won’t be any easier for the Democrats to deal with so really they gain nothing from this move but a headache and a possible lost election.
Just look at the history, in the 2000 election the Republicans could not let go of Clinton’s impeachment trial two years earlier. Many including the nominee Bush talked about it on several occasions and used it to the leverage the campaign in their favor. Who won that campaign? The Republican party. They used the impeachment all they could to win that one, so what’s stopping the Republican party from pulling that again? It will work especially well this time considering it was their President that got impeached.
It’s a lose-lose situation for the Democrats so their best plan might be to just leave it alone and ride out the rest of Trump’s presidency and hope they can get him in 2020.
