Our View

Impeachment and political grandstanding

In sizing up President Trump’s options for dealing with impeachment, Gene Healy of the Cato Institute aptly notes that impeachment targets do not enjoy the same constitutional rights as defendants in criminal trials.

On the other hand, as Healy notes, no definitive burden of proof applies at any stage of the impeachment process, including the Senate trial. Thus, each senator decides what level of proof is needed to convict.

Democratic senators might well require proof beyond a reasonable doubt, as in criminal trials. GOP senators might insist on proof beyond any doubt whatsoever.

With partisan-motivated levels of proof allowed, the impeachment process amounts to political theater. So, impeachment proponents must hope that the evidence presented in public proceedings will prove so overwhelming as to convict Trump in the court of public opinion.

This is possible, but not likely.

Whistleblower testimony may condemn Trump’s actions, but to what end? No majority-GOP Senate vote is going to get the numbers needed to convict Trump of any high crimes or misdemeanors. The consensus seems to be though that we are going through the process. Will Republicans play any role in the proceedings? The House impeachment vote notes that the resolution “would give Republicans on the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees the power to issue subpoenas, with the consent of the relevant committee’s chairman or a majority of its members.”

Since the chairs of all House committees are held by Democrats, that’s a power without any punch for the Republicans, so will they bother. Will they give credence to a process they cry is unconstitutional and a witch hunt?

Of course, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jerold Nadler of New York, is a Democrat.

So much for addressing the issue of full participation by the president and his counsel.

Of course, Trump and the Republicans around him are not satisfied with getting what they have demanded of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Each time the Democrats offer something, the Republicans will demand more in their attempt to sabotage the impeachment process. And honestly, they have every reason to. Surely the Democrats know this is a losing cause. Surely their real plan is to try Donald Trump in the newspaper and on TV and in the social media circles.

They’re not really trying to remove him from office, at least not through impeachment. The Democrats’ hopes are that they can drag the GOP through the mud enough that voters turn out for blue candidates in 2020.

It’s not the worst strategy in the world, but it is one that continues to paint the Democrats as reactionary politicians who are more worried about control than they are about enacting real policy with the welfare of the American people. Since Jan. 20, 2017, if not before, the party’s entire platform has been to derail the Trump agenda without really presenting an agenda of their own.

From supreme court nominations to immigration plans to international diplomacy, it’s been “stop Trump,” and it’s very clear that only the American voters will have the opportunity to do so.

What the Democrats need to do is present swing voters with something… anything… that suggests that they have someone with some ideas that would be better than what Trump has tried to enact over the past three years, and so far there has been very little for Democrats and liberal- leaning voters to get excited about.