Democrats are downplaying talk of impeaching President Trump now that they have the Congress. But that’s what they said after his first midterms, too — I go through the history in my Washington Post column today — and they impeached him anyway.
Then as now, their stated reasons for caution were that they wanted voters to associate them with action on kitchen-table issues rather than partisan warfare and that impeachment was unlikely to succeed in ousting Trump. But those concerns have a way of melting away when enough people are outraged about a presidential abuse of power. And since Trump regularly abuses presidential power, there will be no shortage of possible grounds for an impeachment.
As someone who has always believed Trump is unfit for office, who supported both previous impeachment efforts, and who opposes most Democratic legislative proposals, I would much rather see the Democrats spend time investigating administration misconduct than on promoting their destructive policy ideas. But I also think, as I spell out in that column, that the political logic of the situation will push the Democrats toward impeachment.
Keep in mind that most of their legislation isn’t going any further than impeachment is. The choice Democrats are going to face on impeachment isn’t: Do this messaging exercise, or deliver for voters. It’s: Which messaging exercise should we do next? And “We’re fighting against Trump’s abuses and corruption” is a message they are probably going to want to send.