Trump may be impeached but Democrats wear scorn

Donald Trump is only the third US president to be impeached by the House of Representatives. That bald fact will dog him forever. The futility of Democrats in using their majority to pursue a one-sided, overwhelmingly partisan impeachment process may condemn them, however, to a special place in history. Impeachment will not see Mr Trump removed from office and could help him win a second term next November. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi claims she won a big victory. But it could turn out to be one of the more spectacular own goals of the modern era, with the support base that swept Mr Trump to power in 2016 enraged by the treatment of their hero at the hands of the Washington “swamp” and determined to avenge his humiliation.

Democratic hopes of using the impeachment to turn the political momentum against Mr Trump appear, at best, optimistic. Despite the revelations of alleged wrongdoing and frenzy in the US congress and Trump-hating media that preceded the impeachment vote, opinion polls have changed little. Support for and against impeachment is about the same. One new survey shows that far from impeachment eroding his support base, Mr Trump has improved his numbers in the “rust belt” states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, which he must win next year.

No less remarkable as an indicator of the likely course ahead is that voting on both impeachment resolutions was overwhelmingly along party lines: 230-197 for article one, on the abuse of power, and 229-198 for article two, on obstruction of congress. Not a single Republican abandoned Mr Trump to join the impeachment bandwagon. This was in sharp contrast to the two most recent impeachment processes. In 1998, Bill Clinton’s Democrats broke ranks in droves to vote against him. In 1974, more than a third of Republican congressmen joined forces with Democrats to force Richard Nixon’s resignation before he could be impeached.

As Mr Trump prepares for his “trial” before the Republican-controlled Senate next month, he will be reassured too by another aspect of the Clinton precedent: although Mr Clinton had lied to a grand jury over his affair with Monica Lewinsky, tampered with witnesses, faced criminal charges and been impeached, he left office with an approval rating of 73 per cent, one of the highest in US history. Mrs Pelosi and her colleagues believe they can use Mr Trump’s impeachment to defeat him next year. But with polls showing the President for the most part has kept his support base of 63 million voters who won it for him in 2016, it is hard to see that. As well, there’s little unity among the Democrats as they try to settle on a viable presidential candidate to run against Mr Trump.

Amid echoes of the loony-left lurch that last week sealed British Labour’s catastrophic defeat, Democrats are riven by divisions. On one side, senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have policies that ape Jeremy Corbyn’s socialist extremes; on the other, relative conservatives such as former vice-president Joe Biden discern a political disaster at the hands of a populist insurgency reinvigorated by Mr Trump’s treatment by Washington’s “woke” establishment.

It could be, of course, that impeachment will stir voter reaction against Mr Trump. The controversial telephone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reflected poorly on his judgment, even if it did not amount to the “treason, bribery or other high crimes or misdemeanours” required for impeachment. But the fallout over a disputed conversation with the virtually unknown leader of a far-off country many Americans probably never have even heard of is unlikely to detract from what is the pre-eminent achievement of the Trump presidency: the economy. Wall Street is soaring to new heights, with unemployment at 50-year lows, healthy wages growth and economic activity strong enough to overcome the most serious negative effects of his various trade wars.

After the impeachment, that will be the dominant theme as Mr Trump sets about winning his second term and, along the way, rubbing the Democrats’ collective noses into the ground over what he sees is his “preposterous and dangerous, disingenuous, meritless and baseless impeachment”. If he succeeds, Mrs Pelosi and co will have no one but themselves to blame. The tale of Mr Trump trying to cajole Mr Zelensky into investigating the Biden family is not flattering for a national leader. It could have been an effective campaign plank for Democrats next year.

Instead, they are going ahead with what Mrs Pelosi thought for a long time would be a strategic mistake; the party threatened impeachment from the moment Mr Trump, in their view, “stole” the 2016 election from Hillary Clinton and before he even arrived at the White House. If Democrats are to stand any chance of winning next year they need to stop whining about Mr Trump and work out how to woo their former heartland. A one-sided, partisan “fix” in the House of Representatives is no substitute for leadership and solid policies on issues that matter to citizens. The theatrical yawn that impeachment became for ordinary Americans shows they have a long way to go.