Democrats Wrestle With Trump Impeachment as Midterms Approach

To impeach, or not to impeach? That is the question. At least, it is for Democrats hoping – or assuming – they will win control of the US House of Representatives in November’s midterm elections. Obviously, they will simply not be able to help themselves, and a third (perhaps also a fourth, fifth, and sixth) impeachment of President Donald Trump is in the cards. There’s little chance House Democrats, if they have the majority, will be able to get through two years with Trump in the White House and not impeach him. So, the better question is, how do Democrats think the prospect of another impeachment figures into their electoral aspirations?

Congressional Democrats might be trying to avoid showing their hand. Alternatively, they could be nervous about publicly going all in on impeachment, while on the other hand knowing they can’t openly rule it out, since that would infuriate the radicals in their base. After all, a great many people on the far left have made it clear – in the streets, on social media, and on the pages of the more radical left-wing political news sites – that their main agenda for now and for the near future is retribution against the two-time president, his family, his associates, and his supporters.

Senior Democrats Treading Carefully

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) recently told CNN, “We haven’t ruled anything in and we haven’t ruled anything out.” Knowing that he might well become Speaker of the House if his party captures the lower chamber in the midterms, Jeffries tried to pass the buck, saying he would leave the decision to the relevant committees – Judiciary and Oversight.

Then again, Jeffries does need to tread carefully. Unless he appeases the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) members of his party, he might face a challenge for the House gavel. That raises the possibility of him breaking the record he himself set for most defeats in votes for the top House job.

South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn (D) also sat on the fence when it came to NBC News inquiring about another Trump impeachment. “I don’t rule it out, but I don’t rule it in,” he told Meet the Press, but added, “I don’t think that should be our priority if we get into office.”

The Problem With Impeachment

The elephant in the impeachment room is the Senate. Democrats already impeached then-45th President Trump twice, neither time for what the Constitution defines as impeachable offenses – or offenses of any description, for that matter. Still, any president can be impeached for whatever reason a hostile House of Representatives dreams up, apparently, but if the Senate doesn’t convict, then the process is nothing more than political theater.

Only three US presidents have been impeached: Andrew Johnson was the first, in 1868, for firing his Secretary of War, in violation of a constitutionally dubious law passed by Congress but vetoed by Johnson. Then there was Bill Clinton, in 1998, for lying under oath about his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. If lying under oath was an offense worthy of being removed from office, more than a few previous presidents and countless members of Congress, governors, mayors, state legislators, and appointed government officials spanning back to the nation’s founding era would have been sent packing.

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Then, of course, there was President Trump. In 2019, Democrats impeached him for what will surely go down in the history books as the most bizarre reason for impeachment ever recorded. That was the Ukraine phone call circus. Then, in 2021, the Democrats branded the Jan. 6 protest at the Capitol an “insurrection” and impeached Trump again.

The point is, the US Senate has voted four times in this country’s history to acquit an impeached president. In November, Democrats are unlikely to win control of the Senate. They may get the majority they need in the House for impeachment, but they will need 67 Senate votes – assuming all 100 members of the upper chamber are present to vote – to get a conviction. They have no chance of achieving that, and so another impeachment will be, as previously mentioned, nothing more than political theater.

Given that obvious fact, will it turn voters off in November if Democrats vow to impeach President Trump – yet again? It might at least rile the less politically aware (and less partisan) voters who don’t realize that impeachment is almost inevitable with a Democrat-controlled House.

By now, most Americans, including the less extreme Democrat voters, will roll their eyes at the thought of another impeachment. Maybe Reps. Jeffries and Clyburn know this, and so they don’t want to confirm what everyone knows is going to happen.