If the nightmare charge about President Trump and Ukraine is proven true, the case to impeach is self-evident.
There’s no solid evidence yet indicating that Trump attempted to withhold aid to Ukraine to initiate a political quid pro quo to dig up dirt on Joe Biden. But the charge itself replicates the surely impeachable crime that special counsel Robert Mueller found that Trump did not commit.
The “if” here is all-important, obviously. It’s fully possible that further inquiry will exonerate an innocent Trump. It’s also possible that Trump asked Ukraine to investigate Biden, but not in exchange for any favor. The case for impeachment, as a matter of historical and political calculus, would be clear and nonpartisan if — again, a monumental and unproven if — Trump did withhold aid from Ukraine in the hopes of getting leverage over the 2020 front-runner.
But the public may have become so desensitized and exhausted from three years of the media swearing that Trump himself conspired to collude with the Russians that opinion may not follow the obvious logic. Consider.
For three years the media promised that they had uncovered the smoking gun spelling the end of the Trump presidency. And three years later, he’s still here. But now, the dam is breaking!
The dam is breaking https://t.co/wxdkRWzsh4
— Jon Favreau (@jonfavs) September 24, 2019
Trump will release his transcript of the call at the center of this fracas tomorrow, and unless it’s clear that he used the foreign aid as leverage for his personal benefit, this story should rightly retreat to the back burner. On the other hand, if it’s apparent that he actually manipulated taxpayer money for his own reelection odds (dealing with a foreign government no less!) then this would be actual noose tightening, walls closing in, and dams breaking.
Thing is, the public didn’t want impeachment for the last three years of the media crying wolf, and they may not want it now. The polling on impeachment has proven sticky, and after too many years of Mueller-mania, the Ukraine question may just register as more static.
FiveThirtyEight found that support for impeachment has actually fallen from the beginning of Trump’s presidency to the aftermath of the Mueller report and Mueller’s testimony to Congress.
Just imagine: A whopping three in five Americans oppose impeaching a president whose approval rating on its own can’t seem to top 45%. For that, the media have only themselves to blame.
