Impeachment acquittal gives Trump a big popularity boost
With impeachment now behind him, Trump is finally free to focus on a 2020 re-election win and move past the fanatical attempts of Democrats to bring him down, writes Miranda Devine.
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To nobody’s surprise, the dishonestly partisan impeachment operation to remove Donald Trump failed on Wednesday.
The US President was acquitted along party lines in the Senate of charges of abuse of power and obstruction of justice brought by Democrats who refuse to accept their 2016 election loss.
They hoped impeachment would damage the President before the November election.
But the ruse backfired. All it has done is deliver him record high approval ratings and unite Republicans around him, now reborn as street brawlers. The only holdout was bitter Never-Trumper Mitt Romney.
Just nine months before voters deliver their verdict on his presidency, Trump’s acquittal capped off a trifecta of doom for the Democrats.
It began at the Iowa Caucuses on Monday, the first test of their presidential candidates, which descended into farce when a new app designed by former Hillary Clinton staffers crashed, meaning final results still aren’t known.
But what was already clear on the ground is that Joe Biden’s campaign is on life support. Despite the advantage of having the state virtually to himself for three weeks while his main rivals were tied up in Washington on impeachment duty, he is languishing in fourth place.
So true! https://t.co/Ds9MSUlWXA
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 6, 2020
All that’s left against a Teflon Trump is the unelectability of a 78-year-old Vermont socialist, Bernie Sanders, and 37-year-old Pete Buttigieg, a left-wing gay mayor of a midwestern town the size of Newcastle, who has never won more than 10,000 votes.
Rigging the rules for New York billionaire Michael Bloomberg to steal the nomination only sets the stage for civil war at the Democratic National Convention in July.
All that’s left for the Democrats are angry futile gestures to mask their fatal political miscalculation.
On Tuesday night Trump delivered his State of the Union address, studded with concrete achievements, including a booming economy, the lowest unemployment in 50 years, rising wages for low income earners, new trade deals, conservative judges, stronger borders and a rebuilt military.
His optimistic message of the “great American comeback” is the blueprint of his election campaign.
During the long months of impeachment, a mutual loathing of Trump preserved a facade of unity and purpose for Democrats.
But all they have left now is the spectacle of their broken Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, shredding her remaining dignity by ripping up her copy of his speech.
“Washington Democrats think President Donald Trump committed a high crime or misdemeanour the moment he defeated Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election,” Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell said as he opened the vote.
“That is the original sin of this presidency, that he won.”