The big game is here at last. Yes, the Super Bowl between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers, but also the trial of President Trump. His relentless harassers, the Democrats, have marched the ball halfway down the field with the House impeachment vote and are now trying a Hail Mary pass into the Senate end zone. Republicans are blocking and tackling, and on this final play, they will bat the ball away so it falls harmlessly to the ground.
Sound exciting? It should. But as anyone who has tuned into Senate proceedings in recent days can tell you, it isn’t. Tedium is what people most notice. Check out social media.
Here’s a passage from a Jan. 21 story on Nate Silver’s website, FiveThirtyEight: “The whole process feels a bit like having peeked at the last few pages of a book: We don’t know exactly how the plot will unfold, but we already know where it will end.”
Silver, who started out analyzing baseball statistics, recognized that sport and politics are similar and adapted his techniques from one to the other. But Trump’s impeachment needs no analysis. His acquittal has never been in doubt. Politics can be exciting, but as with sports, it works only when the outcome is uncertain.
That’s why elections make for good TV. When pundits are asked who’ll win, the true answer is, “I don’t know.” No one ever really does. If we learned anything in 2016, it was that. If you know the outcome in advance, it isn’t a real election. Just ask the 99%-100% who voted for Saddam Hussein or Kim Jong Un.
Trump could win a second term this November — a lot of people hope or fear he will — but it’s far from certain. For my part, I can’t rule out the possibility that Joe Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders, or Sen. Elizabeth Warren might beat him. Nor do I absolutely dismiss the chances of Pete Buttigieg or Sen. Amy Klobuchar, although their odds are longer.
It’s a stretch to compare septuagenarian presidential contenders to the dynamic Chiefs and 49ers. But as we get toward November, the election will have a Super Bowl feel. The tension is building now, as the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary hove into view. It wouldn’t be like that if it was already obvious who’d be lifting the political Lombardi Trophy. Have you ever replayed a football game on video because the live clash was so exciting? It can be entertaining, like those viral videos of Democrats’ crumbling confidence on election night 2016. But it certainly isn’t suspenseful. Every twist or turn, touchdown or interception, is drained of doubt. It’s a shadow of its former self.
As the impeachment game reaches a climax after 3.5 hours — sorry, I mean 3.5 years — you’re more likely to fall asleep than to be on the edge of your seat. That’s what happened to Sen. James Risch, a Republican from Idaho. Instead of being in agitated suspense about the climactic possibility that a president might be turfed out of office, senators are trying in vain to seem interested. They’re already soggy with stories of Trump’s perfidy and Ukrainian shenanigans, and they aren’t even allowed to have their phones to play solitaire.
The worst thing about the somnolent Senate, though, is not its failure to deliver a cliffhanger. It’s that impeachment has been made cheap, a political tactic in the pursuit of power. They’re accelerating, getting more frequent. Even the first impeachment, of President Andrew Johnson, was tainted, but at least it had novelty value. Now, just 22 years after the second impeachment in history, we’re on to our third. Does anyone suppose we won’t get a fourth in less time again? If a Democrat wins the White House and Republicans then retake the House, how much would you bet against an impeachment revenge play?
The ultimate reason why impeachment is so unexciting is that it now isn’t really the big game at all. That comes in November, which is why everyone is nervously focused on that. It’s what the Democrats have always had their eyes on. Impeachment has become just a play in the bigger game of winning power. I don’t think it is going to change any minds when voters cast their ballots. But no one knows. Democrats hesitated a long time but then went all-in on that gamble.
