Quote:
Originally Posted by bobman0330
I know it's kind of conventional wisdom that impeaching Trump is not a great plan for the Dems, and I know I used to believe that too, but I'm struggling to remember why exactly. There's no point to passing legislation, so there's not an opportunity cost. I guess you could worry that winning the removal vote has a tendency to clear Trump's name (lol!), but that seems a little far-fetched, and it seems likely that Trump will lose anyways. In addition, there's a benefit to forcing GOP members to taint themselves by voting to keep Trump in office even with smoking-gun evidence of crimes (which I assume exists).
I think some of the fear is that impeaching over "soft" crimes like the quasi-nebulous charge of "collusion" or manifestations thereof that are contained in campaign finance law are not the sort of thing the public would find scandalous enough to merit impeachment, and therefore the Dems are impeaching as a power grab rather than as a check on presidential power. There is even some risk if the charge is obstruction of justice, but based on something that isn't terribly easy for the average voter to understand. The risk is that less interested voters see the Dems saying one thing, the GOP saying the other, and since they don't really understand, they think the truth must be in the middle somewhere and therefore the Dems are wrong to try to seize power. "The president directed a witness to commit perjury" couldn't be more clear, however, and given the recent precedent with Nixon, impeaching over that is reasonable.