Republicans expect impeachment to cost the GOP seats in 2020: ‘Cult members can’t see past the Kool-Aid’

As the GOP strategy for the impeachment of President Donald Trump seems to be a combination of shouting and stubbornly denying facts, even some Republicans are worried that ignoring reality could have historic implications.

In 1974, Republicans suffered an epic defeat following the impeachment inquiry that resulted in the resignation of GOP President Richard Nixon.

"Nearly a half-century ago, [GOP House Judiciary Committee members] who protected then-President Richard Nixon suffered a hefty price for it just months later in the 1974 midterm elections: Five of the 10 members who voted against all three articles of impeachment saw their seats flip to Democrats. Four were defeated outright. The fifth retired, and the Republican hoping to succeed him lost," HuffPost reported Thursday. "In contrast, House Republicans as a whole lost only 25% of their seats that November ― still a staggering loss rate, but only half of that suffered by members of the Judiciary Committee."

Republican strategist John Weaver worries the same could happen in 2020.

“Cult members can’t see past the Kool-Aid,” he explained.

Longtime GOP strategist Rick Wilson, the author of the bestselling 2018 book Everything Trump Touches Dies: A Republican Strategist Gets Real About the Worst President Ever, is also worried.

“They’re completely ahistorical,” Wilson charged.

He added that such an approach is “the worst conceit, and that is that history doesn’t apply to them.”

Former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, who is challenging Trump for the GOP nomination in 2020, was a lawyer on the Judiciary Committee impeachment staff in 1974.

“They were saying all summer long that there wasn’t enough evidence to say that Nixon knew," Weld said. “As soon as the tapes came out, they looked like idiots.”

Read the full report.