The question of what high crimes and misdemeanors rise to the level of impeachable offenses is unclear by design. Impeachment is an inherently political process and one with parameters that the Constitution intends not to confine.
Should President Trump be impeached as a question of standards? That answer, as a stark split in partisan polling indicates, is ambiguous. Is he giving ample reason for Republicans to support removing him from office as a purely utilitarian matter? Absolutely.
Sure, the humiliating tweets and tirades of years prior could be justified with tax cuts, judges, and limited foreign policy successes (mostly thanks to Jim Mattis and the generals). But either through force or disgust, the adults have all left the room and Trump has left our Kurdish allies for slaughter in such a sophomoric manner that we’re blowing up our own military bases in Syria.
Between attempting to extort Ukraine and abandoning Kurdish units in Syria to debase ourselves on the world stage, this isn’t an America First foreign policy. It’s Trump First idolatry masquerading as an actual strategy.
Why would Republicans in the Senate want to put up with another year of this? Why lose 2020 in a blowout after spending the entire year forced to either bend the knee on the Sunday shows and life through your teeth or avoid an increasingly livid public entirely?
As it stands, just 6% of Republicans want to impeach and remove Trump from office. If that figure stays stagnant, the question is a nonstarter for the GOP, at least as a matter of pure strategy.
But support for impeaching and convicting Trump overall is rapidly increasing, and he is undoubtedly getting worse.
After the Mueller report found no evidence of Trump conspiring to collude with the Russian government, just two in five Americans supported beginning impeachment proceedings, with as many saying there is zero basis to do so. Now, 52% support both impeaching Trump and removing him from office. For context, note that at the time of Richard Nixon’s resignation, only 58% of the country supported removing him from office.
I’d say we’re accelerating toward Watergate territory, but there aren’t enough brain cells in the room to rub together to compare.
Again, these statistics mean nothing if Republican support for a Trump impeachment doesn’t take off. But if Mick Mulvaney’s admission of a Ukraine-related quid pro quo enrages the rest of the country as much as it does the Beltway, things could change.
Americans of all political stripes overwhelmingly prioritize the economy over every other political issue, and again, it’s possible that Trump’s corruption is so baked into the cake that the public won’t care about the politicization of foreign policy, or of Trump putting his personal interests ahead of the national interest.
But, again, as a question of pure pragmatism, if you’re a Republican senator livid at Trump’s Syria betrayal and even more fearful of a President Elizabeth Warren tanking the Dow, would you not feel more comfortable with someone else at the top of the 2020 ticket? And wouldn’t buttoned-up senators and trade war victims in Iowa alike not prefer President Mike Pence?
The public pushback from Republicans against Trump’s Syria malfeasance is unlike anything else that has happened during his presidency. They’re still maintaining ranks on the impeachment question for now, but if Trump blows up the trade deal talks with China, will they revolt? Only time and tweets will tell.
