The Myth of a Trump Impeachment

In any year prior to this one, an Impeachment would seem all but inevitable. But the fact of the matter is, it isn’t coming.

Frankly, the administration probably hopes you’ll place all of your time and energy calling, emailing, and battling for this specific cause. When there are refugees being denied lawyers, questions and accusations of Russian meddling in our elections, and rumors of a full on power grab via a white supremacist with the ear of the most powerful person in the land, Impeachment makes perfect sense.

We’re all dealing with this whirlwind of colossal nonsense in our own ways. We’re all finding that we’re more capable and far stronger than we all assumed we knew, so this essay isn’t to dissuade you from the resistance that gives you hope. Only to say that, in this one case, this particular cause is genuinely not worth the hope or energy.

So, point by point, here is why an Impeachment will never happen.

1) There might not be enough votes in the House.

If there’s not enough votes in the House, it kills the Impeachment from the get go. For an impeachment to be officially filed, a member of the House needs to bring forth charges against the President. Charges that indicate the President has committed “Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors.” Following this, a vote is carried out by the House, and if a simple majority votes to impeach, then it moves on to the Senate.

The problem arises from the current party lines in the House: 240 Republican, 193 Democrat. For an Impeachment to proceed, the Democrats would need to find 24 Republicans to switch allegiance. Oddly enough, 24 is the exact number of current House members that throughout Trump’s campaign, never supported or endorsed him.

So, it is possible. But the odds of convincing 24 Republicans to vote against their President, with no guarantee that an Impeachment would be successful and the knowledge that their vote could ruin their re-election campaigns in 2018, makes this very unlikely.

But, let’s say the incredibly implausible happens and the Democrats get all the House votes they need. Off the Impeachment goes to the Senate where:

2) They do not have the votes, whatsoever.

As the Senate stands, the split is 52 Republicans, 46 Democrats, and 2 Independents that typically side with the Democrats. For a President to be formally removed from office, there needs to be a 2/3 majority vote.

Now, the Democrats do have a number of Republican Senators that have never endorsed the President. Eleven, in fact. There’s even a couple that, on a daily basis, let the man know how much they do not like him. But even if all eleven Senators were convinced to vote to Impeach, the Democrats would still need another eight to remove Trump from office. And those eight would have to come from a group that has formally endorsed the President and, for the most part, are aligned with the politics that he’s espousing. It’s not absolutely impossible, but it would be an incredibly shocking turn of events if it happened.

So, even with the most optimistic numbers, Trump remains as President by a vote of 41–59.

But, hey! We have the Midterms coming up in 2018! It’s a chance to come back and change the balance of everything! But actually:

3) It becomes even harder after 2018

It’s a bit early to predict any sort of change in the House, but districts have become so gerrymandered that its become nearly impossible for the Democrats to regain control of the House. That being said, it is still possible to gain enough votes there to make Impeachment Hearings more of a reality.

However, it becomes a dead issue in the Senate.

There are currently eleven Senate races in the 2018 Midterm that are considered to be competitive. Of those eleven, only two are races that feature a Republican incumbent. And both of them (Jeff Flake-AZ & Dean Heller-NV) are part of the eleven Republicans that refused to endorse Trump. To make things even more difficult, Jeff Flake has stated that he’s certain that Trump will endorse a candidate to run against him, and sure enough, a number of potential Trump-supporting candidates have announced an interest in Senator Flake’s seat.

So even if these two Senators lose their re-election, the Democrats lose two non-Trump supporting Republican Senators in the process. Or worst case scenario, they lose to two brand new pro-Trump Republicans.

But wait: it gets worse.

All nine Democratic races will take place in states where Trump won in 2016. Granted, some of these states feature well-liked Democrat Senators (i.e. Heidi Heitkamp-ND and Joe Manchin-WV), but others will be in for a very, very difficult race.

In Ohio, Sen. Sherrod Brown is already facing tough competition against State Treasurer and Professional Asshole Josh Mandel. In fact, a recent poll has Mandel up by a point over Sherrod Brown. Mandel has tapped into the wave of Trump support in Ohio, has become the face of the Anti-Sanctuary City movement in the state, and has created a very strong fandom in a short period of time.

The races in Montana, Missouri, and Wisconsin are also shaping up to be incredibly close and could potentially result in a party switch, according to polling from Morning Consult. In March of 2016, they released a list of top and lowest rated Senators (by constituency), and located in the bottom ten are Democrats Jon Tester-MT, Claire McCaskill-MO, and Tammy Baldwin-WI. While no candidates have officially announced that they will run in these states, it can be assumed that the White House (specifically Steve Bannon) will make sure that pro-Trump candidates will emerge from the various Republican primaries.

So, best case scenario? The Democrats win the two Republican seats and the Senate becomes a 50–50 split with Mike Pence going after John Adams’ Senate Tie-Breaking Vote Record.

Worst case scenario? Trump’s new Republicans win the seats in Arizona and Nevada, the Democrats in Red States lose their seats, and the Trump Loving Republicans hold a Super Majority of 61–39, making Impeachment a complete and total impossibility.

But, hey! What happens when Republicans decide Trump has made them look too bad, and go forward with Impeachment to save face before the 2020 Election? :

4) After 2018, it’ll be too late

If I were to theorize the plan the Establishment GOP has for Trump, it would be this:

- Allow Trump to be the figurehead, while Pence pushes through all the cultural law that they could ever wish.

- Try to control Trump as much as possible, but never in a way that makes him suspect he’s being wrangled.

- The public will grow angry, but direct the blame to Trump throughout.

- In year three, check and see if Trump’s numbers look favorable enough for re-election.

- If the numbers are great, keep him in. If not, encourage a Democrat congressperson to file for Impeachment and garner enough Republican support to make it happen. Repeat in the Senate.

- Pence becomes President, can act as savior, and, ideally, win re-election.

- Wash, rinse, repeat for another four years.

It wouldn’t be a bad plan. If this were a normal politician and it were 1996.

The establishment of the GOP think they can control Trump. That they have the final say on whether his presidency continues or ends. To them, this is some idiot they can use, but they are completely ignoring the True Believers that flock behind the man.

After the election, President-Elect Trump began what was, essentially, his first act as President: a swift and decisive victory against the Old Guard of the Ohio GOP.

Trump never really hid his dislike of John Kasich. He never really hides his dislike of anyone. Ever. When Kasich continued his Presidential run, despite having no chance of victory and only succeeding in becoming a meme for food lust, it really seemed to irk Trump to no end. It also couldn’t have helped when Kasich’s name continued to pop up during the whole #NeverTrump movement as a Republican Convention or Electoral Vote spoiler. And to top it off, Kasich was one of the few Republican nominees to stand his moral ground and never endorse Trump (though, he did give a lukewarm, ‘let’s give him a chance” after Election Day). At the time, it was a very intelligent move that seemed to cement Kasich as the 2020 Republican nominee. The man who could bring the old GOP back from the tiny hands of the Burnt Umber Ogre that nearly ruined the party he loved so much. But in the wake of the election, watching his state firmly support Trump after so firmly supporting Kasich in the primaries, Kasich had to see the writing on the wall. Granted, his governorship is up after this term anyway, but Trump still had to find some way to give Kasich not only one final “fuck you,” but one final “everything you ever loved is mine now.”

So, in the first week of January, Trump personally called various GOP state congressmen and senators in Ohio, and convinced enough of them to oust former state GOP head Matt Borges for Trump backed Jane Timken. It may have been small news at the time, but this set forth one hell of a message: if you go against Trump, he will take away your power.

And this is precisely a lesson that I think the GOP establishments have yet to learn. This becomes very evident in a recent quote from Republican State Congresswoman Beth Fukumoto-HI, who is currently facing calls to resign from her House Minority Speaker position and has been told “to commit to not criticizing the president for the remainder of his term and to take a more partisan approach to working in the Legislature.” This man is their Ochre Goose and he lays whatever laws they wish, so why would they risk losing all this power?

In one week of phone calls, he was able to bend the Ohio GOP to his will. With a half dozen tweets he may be able to defeat a Senator that’s represented Arizona since 2003 and replace him with a candidate far more suited to his ideals. By the time that the establishment decides to cut him loose, they may find that they don’t have the votes they thought they did. And that they’re a number of tweets away from being voted out of power themselves.

……..

…..yeah. So, I don’t like to leave things on such a negative note…

5) What do we do instead?

There are so many options, but one thing that is a genuine requirement: do not lose hope. Just because Impeachment is practically impossible doesn’t mean that other things aren’t.

You continue to protest. You adapt to fight for more than one cause at a time. You strengthen your ability to take in more and more news and knowledge. You find that breaking point of exasperation, acknowledge it, then find a way to move past it. You make art. You attend local meetings of your local parties. You donate to causes and journalism that you care about deeply.

You find not just one amazing candidate for 2020, but multiple ones. You email them and encourage them to never let the debates descend into insults or fights. That once they are on that stage they offer not bickering and anger, but a unified front of hope and resistance. The option of empathy and kindness and understanding. Of reminding people that debate isn’t about being right, it’s about exchanging ideas and possibly coming away with a brand new understanding. That it’s about lighting a fire inside the hearts of those that in the next four years will need a bolstering, beautiful, and invigorating voice to draw them back out of the darkness.

And it’s about being that voice yourself. Even when you feel like you’re hitting your head against the wall, it’s about letting the world around you know that you’re an ally. That you’re their kind and genuine voice, like a lighthouse in a storm. That you are the safe haven for those around you, until the normalcy that we once knew finally returns. And that you are willing to work and resist and fight until that wonderful world returns to every single one of us.

Yes, the fight is hard. But unlike so many things, it’s not impossible.