In a persuasive column for the New Yorker, essayist Adam Gopnik claims Democrats would be wasting their time bringing articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump because a GOP-controlled Senate would never let it happen.
But that doesn't mean Gopnik doesn't have a suggestion on how to rid the country of Trump and Trumpism.
Noting Rep. Jerrold Nadler (NY) the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee has demanded documents and emails from eighty-one agencies and individuals connected to Trump is "momentous," the author said even Nadler is slow-rolling the idea for impeachment -- and for good reason.
"There is, however, a real and reasonable argument among congressional Democrats—and, indeed, among the public—about whether pursuing Trump’s impeachment, even assuming that we get the facts, is a wise idea," he wrote. " The arguments against it range from the hyper-practical point that a President Mike Pence would be worse, to the procedural-minded one that, since impeaching Trump would mean that two of the four most recent Presidents would have been impeached, and since articles of impeachment can be passed by a simple majority in the House, every President from now on would risk facing it the moment the opposition has a majority. "
A bigger issue is that fact that the GOP could block impeachment, making the whole exercise a waste of energy and political capital -- to say nothing of making Trump's defenders portray it as a coup.
Instead, Gopnik claimed Democrats should take a cue from an old movie western quote; "Hanging's too good for him."
"A point common to all the anti-impeachment arguments, though, comes right out of an old Western; as the lawmen used to say about the cattle-rustling varmint after he was caught, 'Hanging’s too good for him'," Gopnik explained. "In this case, impeachment is seen as too rarefied, too technical a proceeding to end Trumpism. Trump should be defeated at the polls; ejecting him in any other way provides too many opportunities for after-the-fact stab-in-the-back recriminations, and will only further convince his base that the 'deep state' conspired against him."
The author goes on to point out that Trump -- and his family -- are under multiple investigations that could cripple him at the polls and that, while going through the motions of impeachment might feel good, it might help the president out.
"The long-term consequences of impeachment are unknowable; long-term consequences always are. The foreclosed impeachment of Nixon was more or less a political wash: the Democrats held the House for another twenty years, while the Republicans regained the White House just six years later," he wrote.
Despite that Gopnik left teh door open for both, writing, "Pragmatism is not a way of negating principle but, rather, the realist’s way of pursuing principle. The arguments against impeachment today are primarily pragmatic, the arguments for it primarily principled, but the principled course could, before long, turn into the only practical course."
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