Impeachment

The Senate has refused to hear witnesses in the impeachment trial of President Trump. It’s not the cover-up Pelosi and Schiff are claiming. They brought the articles to the Senate (with no small amount of ridiculous grade-school theater) under the assertion that they had an unassailable case, backed by compelling evidence.

Apparently, they don’t. Well, that’s their problem. Let’s run through the whole 2016 narrative, shall we?

• Donald Trump personally worked with Vladimir Putin to sway the election! We have evidence, but we won’t show you just yet. Well, OK. We don’t have evidence.
• Here’s a fake report from the “intelligence community.” That’s evidence, right? No? OK.
• Let’s talk about Stormy Daniels. She…what? Russia? That was last week.
• OK. OK. We’ve got it. There’s this thing called the Emoluments Clause. We’ll use some big words to confuse people, and…oh for $%&* sake.
• Two scoops of iced cream. TWO SCOOPS, people!
• So, that Russia thing? The one we swore we already had evidence for? We’re going to start a Special Counsel investigation into it so we can dig for evidence we swore we already had.
• Any day now, the investigation will find something.
• Any day now.
• Any day now. Tell Wolf Blitzer to call everything a bombshell. That’ll keep the feathers ruffled.
• Oh, are you $%&aing kidding us? Mueller found nothing? OK. Swear it’s not explicit exoneration. I know that’s not how the legal system works, but maybe we can make it sound seedy.
• OHMIGOD, we’ve got it. Eureka! Trump said something boneheaded in a call to the Ukrainian Prime Minister. It’s impeachment time, baby!
• We’re going with quid pro quo. It’s Latin, so it makes us sound smart.
• So, that’s not resonating. Let’s call it bribery.
• On second thought, scrap that. Extortion sounds better.
• Well, those things are both crimes, so we can’t allege them without actual proof. Let’s go with…I dunno, whatcha got, Adam? “Abuse of power?” OK. But we need something that sounds like an actual crime.
• “Obstruction of Congress?” Well, it sounds like Obstruction of Justice. Brilliant! Get Adam Schiff some hookers and blow. We’re going to the Senate, baby!
• Why doesn’t anyone care? Somebody please care! Tell Alison Camerota to put on her concern glasses and assemble a panel on CNN to keep the public interested.

This claptrap is why they fail. Politics is about public perception, and the public is just sick of this. Trump supporters are angry that the Democrats have spent the last three years trying to invalidate their votes. Democrats are angry that the promises of swift removal never came true.

And you know what? This only guarantees a 2020 reelection for Trump.

We only have to look at the situation during Bill Clinton’s 1999 trial. Clinton committed actual crimes, there was a salacious side to the proceedings with Monica Lewinski, and the President was a lame duck. Even then, Gingrich couldn’t get removal.

The worst part? Clinton enjoyed his highest approval ratings during the impeachment. Trump’s ratings are a murky mess, but an acquittal is going to raise them, and it’s going to help him sell his narrative that he’s some sort of maverick candidate being persecuted by a “rigged” system.

I can only imagine what a second Trump term is going to be like.