As the nation hurtles towards Trump’s impeachment, and yes it still may not happen but everyday the odds grow, people look back at impeachment of Clinton and the Democratic gains in the following mid-term elections. People on the left fear impeaching Trump will do the same with GOP gains following the likely failure of removing Trump from office. I think such fears are generally misplaced.

The investigation Bill Clinton started a real estate deal that to many smelled of fraud. Eventually the investigation spun off into his extramarital affairs and the civil suits that followed. When the Starr learned that not only that there was physical evidence of Clinton’s affair and after failing to convince Monica to ‘flip’ on her lover, he set a perjury trap for the president. A trap that Clinton proved willing to leap into when he perjured himself and lied under oath, which produced the charge of obstructing justice that powered the impeachment charges. Clinton’s defender tend to frame the entire thing as ‘lying about a blow-job’ but the facts is that it was perjury, it was under oath, and Clinton was disbarred as a lawyer. However despite the actual violation of his oath the emotional reaction from the general population was one that empathized with Clinton. Many people could see just how easily they would react the same way. There’s a reason why there is a common saying that ‘everyone lies about sex.’ In the end the Republicans came off looking puritanical, petty, and prudish.

What is threatening Trump is wholly different in its emotional tenor. It is not sexual in nature; it does not endear empathic feelings but rather is a direct abuse of his position as president. Even setting aside the heightened partisan culture this scandal is not one where people see themselves in the actions. That is not to say the Senate would remove him from office. No, the GOP base is enthusiastically in Trump’s corner and they will hold their representatives feet to the fire. What I think will not happen is that persuadable people will turn against the Democrats for impeachment. Not on the facts as we currently know them. Such fears should not dissuade officials from doing their duty. Right now around the world US Armed forces personnel are putting their lives on the line for this country and for what it stands for, it is not too much to demand that politicians be willing to risk an office.

And just like Captain Renault in Casablanca  the state of surprise is entirely contrived. Donald Trump strikes me as a person who has never ever been held accountable for any single action or misdeed in his entire life. Credibly accused of draft dodging, tax evading, charity abusing, sexual assaulting, and who knows what else he has escape any serious consequence which has fed his ego, inflated his sense of entitlement, and made this non-drinker drunk with power so it is wholly unsurprising that he has abused the office of president and attempted to get foreign powers to interfere in our elections. I do believe that we are now on the fast track to impeachment, though I seriously doubt that the Republican Senators would cut their own electoral throats and remove him from office. Power and position are far more important than any oath of office and even a pretense of honor.

For about 23 years I was a registered Republican but the growing unhinged base and the party’s embrace of torture while clutching their pearls over equality for LGBTQ persons drove me from the party and every day that Trump remains in power and with better than 85% of the base enthusiastically supporting him I only grow prouder of my decision. I hope that the disaster that results from this administration burns the GOP to the foundation because only then is there any hope of a rational opposition party.