Impeachment Chess Part 2: Forget About the Senate Role in Impeachment

Forget about the role of the Senate in impeachment. The important action will be happening in the House. Reference to the Senate is a distraction. And suggesting that this impeachment will help the Republicans, like Bill Clinton's impeachment helped the Democrats is a fantasy or fear-mongering that is just wrong. The circumstances are profoundly different.

This is a follow-up on my article, Impeachment is a Chess, Not a Checkers Game, in which I wrote:

People who believe that impeachment is not worth doing because it will fail in the Senate are thinking checkers. But this is a chess game. It's not about removing Trump from office. It's about having access to the full power of impeachment hearings to investigate Trump.

The way I think about impeachment is the way I think about life-- it's the road, not the destination. Once the impeachment process is started, the revelations about Trump's corruption and criminality will start to emerge. The idea should be to keep the impeachment going as long as possible, with new testimonies and new releases of disclosures of corruption and treason on a regular basis.

Looking at impeachment as a process for removing the president is a top-down way of thinking about it. Looking at it as a key that gives access to investigative tools is the smarter, more strategic, bottom-up way of looking at it.

Ideally, it will get so bad for Trump that the Republicans will end up putting up someone else to run in the general election. They'll have to do it on relatively short notice. If that happens, it will totally neutralize Joe Biden's campaign. It will neutralize the DNC's main narrative. The candidates who focus on Trump will be neutralizes. The candidates who bring issues to the table will be the ones with the best chance of winning.

If Trump stays as the Republican candidate, the impeachment will damage him and persuade some of the people who voted for him not so much because they were voting for Trump as because they voted against Hillary. I think there are plenty of those people. Of course if the Democratic leadership goes top-down again and rigs the election, for example, through the influence of superdelegates, then they may not be able to convert the anti-Hillary voters to come back to the Democratic party.

It is sad, but not surprising to see that Donald Trump fueled the motivation to impeach by Pelosi by further engaging in impeachable acts.

It is highly unlikely that Republicans in the Senate will impeach, unless the American public makes it clear that Trump's behavior must be punished,

I am ambivalent about what I want to see happen. If Trump lingers in office until the January 2021 inauguration, he will be able to continue his corrupt reign. I am certain that what we know that he and his appointees have done that is unethical, illegal or impeachable is a tiny tip of the iceberg. But keeping him under investigation, at least through the November election, will increasingly erode the support of both Trump and the Republican party brand, making a Democratic takeover of the Senate and the White House, and an increased control of the House even more likely.

If the impeachment investigation leads to Trump being removed by the Senate, or if it forces him to resign, that will lead to Pence becoming president. He is no more trustworthy, but he might not be as stupid, not as likely to get caught as Trump. Some have brought up the idea that Mike Pence might be impeachable. There's little talk of that. And it is even more unlikely that both Trump AND Pence would be impeached by the Senate. Sadly, it is highly likely that Mike Pence, if he is installed as president, will pardon Trump.

If Trump is impeached or if he resigns, then the GOP will have to jump into overdrive finding a presidential candidate. That will be interesting. Will we see re-runs of Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Rudy Giuliani? I wouldn't be surprised.

What are your thoughts?