Here's How Impeachment Will Unfold

Richard Morris & Eileen McGann
Fri, 27 Sep 2019 14:03:44 -0700
Opinion

The impeachment drama, begun suddenly by the whistleblower complaint, will probably play out this way:

House Democrats, driven by their bloodthirsty base, will vote to impeach. All but their dedicated partisans will see them as overreaching and ignoring the agenda they were elected to legislate. Party discipline will assure a unanimous Democratic vote to impeach, but few — if any — Republicans will join them. Impeachment will be seen as a partisan ploy rather than the outcome of a real investigation.
Updated: Fri Sep 27, 2019

The impeachment drama, begun suddenly by the whistleblower complaint, will probably play out this way:

House Democrats, driven by their bloodthirsty base, will vote to impeach. All but their dedicated partisans will see them as overreaching and ignoring the agenda they were elected to legislate. Party discipline will assure a unanimous Democratic vote to impeach, but few — if any — Republicans will join them. Impeachment will be seen as a partisan ploy rather than the outcome of a real investigation.

Senate Republicans will stand firm and united behind Trump and against impeachment. With the GOP base solid and enraged by impeachment, any who waiver will be harshly disciplined by the threat of primary fights. Only Mitt Romney might break ranks. The House Democratic impeachment trial managers will fall far short of the two-thirds majority needed to oust Trump. The drama will consume the remainder of 2019 and last well into the primary season of 2020.

Voters will consider the Democrats to be taking the election out of their hands, trying to remove Trump even as his first term nears its end. Impeachment will hurt the Democrats in 2020, just as it injured the Republicans when they tried to throw out Clinton in 1998.

In the meantime, all the focus on Joe Biden's son's role in Ukraine and China will further weaken and eventually destroy Biden's presidential chances. With Biden out of the way, the party's left wing will be triumphant and will nominate Elizabeth Warren.

With the Democrats hurt by impeachment, the economy purring along and the radical Warren leading them, Trump will likely win reelection, perhaps massively.

Democrats are being forced into a strategic dead end by the exuberant media and their frothing base. But it will not end well for them.