One of the more bizarre talking points that has become increasingly prevalent over the course of the House’s impeachment process, and which has ramped up in some corners in advance of whatever drama the Senate will dish out, is that the whole thing has “hurt” Democrats. Even some of those who believe it was the right thing to do trot out this talking point, as though the Democrats should have ignored their constitutional duty in order to placate some massive bloc of moderate voters who didn’t want Trump impeached. It’s the same old Political Genius brainworm—the one that convinces voters on the left and right that they alone can move beyond ideology to understand The Way The World Really Works.
The problem is that they’re wrong—as a new MSN poll shows, removing Trump from office remains more popular than not, and it keeps getting more popular. In fact, as The Independent noted, popular support for the idea—which goes beyond impeachment—is now at an all-time high of 55 percent. Meanwhile, his poor approval rating has remained steady, the proportion of people who would vote for the Democratic candidate in the 2020 election hasn’t really budged, and there has been absolutely no popular backlash to impeachment.
Now, if you wanted to make the case that it won’t make much difference in our insanely polarized country—that, in the end, the division is so stark that impeachment won’t swing the pendulum very much—you may have an argument. The recent stats don’t seem to totally support the point, but nor do they paint a picture of a country wildly turning against Trump. In fact, the list of recent polls makes it all look dead even—a pretty close replica of our country’s current divisions. It’s a question of degrees, and come the 2020 election, it’s still unclear whether impeachment will markedly help the Dems.
But what is clear is that it hasn’t hurt them, as much as some people may want to believe. Poll after poll proves it. House Democrats were compelled to impeach Trump on the balance of the evidence, and most of the American people were with them. Now, even better, they’re forcing the Senate to show how exactly how corrupt and servile they are, and how rigged and unfair their process will be. (They refuse to hear from key witnesses, for god’s sake!!) Trump won’t be removed from office, but the entire process will reveal what he did wrong, and just how much the highest ranking members of the Republican party now serve exclusively as his enablers and lackeys.
Of course, all of this is common sense. Imagine an American voter who got upset at the fact that Trump was impeached, and now try to imagine that voter as someone who didn’t already support Trump. The “middle-ground voter” who was driven into Trump’s arms because of impeachment is a mythical demographic adhered to by those who want their political wishes to be political truths.
Reality does not abide. Democrats did the right thing, and it’s working.