I don't have a whole lot to say about The Impeachment of Donald Trump except that I don't think anyone's predictions about how this will play out — including mine, certainly — are worth a whole lot. I do agree with this piece Josh Marshall wrote last night and I'll quote just this much of it…
Here are three points that, for me, function as a sort of north star through this addled and chaotic process.
One: The President is accused of using extortion to coerce a foreign power to intervene in a U.S. presidential election on his behalf.
Two: There is no one in U.S. politics who would ever find that behavior remotely acceptable in a President of the opposite party.
Three: The evidence that the President did what he is accused of doing is simply overwhelming. The documentary evidence points overwhelmingly to guilt. His sometimes unwilling accomplices say he is guilty. His own words prove his guilt. He continues to justify what he is accused of and continues to do the same things again and again in plain sight.
This process has been so clotted with tantrums, goalpost-moving and dissimulation that it can be hard to keep one's bearings. For me, those three essential points clarify the matter and drown out the yelling and stomping.
The problem with the kind of partisanship we're now seeing in this country is that it pre-empts rational, honest thought. Imagine you went to a U.S. Senator and posed a hypothetical question about some unnamed president of the future who committed certain questionable deeds. You ask him, "Would you consider those impeachable offenses?" and the answer you might well get would be "It depends. What party is this hypothetical president?" Or some would answer that yes, those are impeachable offenses but they'd presume that if one of their guys did those questionable things, they could effortlessly modify or reverse that position as necessary.
Once upon a time, it might have been possible to look at a situation like the one that now exists and make some reasonable predictions but that was back when at least some people in power were being reasonable. Now, I dunno and you don't either. I'm going to guess that the reason Trump is so visibly furious at being impeached is that he believed his own bullshit about this being a "do-nothing Congress" and can't believe they did anything.
Deep down, the guy's gotta know a dozen things in his past that are either worse or could be spun as worse…so it's like, "My God, if they'd impeach me over this, what will they do if they get hold of my 2017 income taxes? What if they find out about the deal I made in Peru? What if they find out about that special assignment done for me by Jon Voight and our Rudy Giuliani body double?"
But that's just a guess from a guy who writes cartoons for a living. In a way, it's kinda nice that my predictions are probably just as good as anyone else's these days. I think the three above points from Josh Marshall are valid. I'm not sure much of anything else is.