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It shouldn't be, because unless there's a 2/3rds majority in the Senate it will be the exact same as the last two times.
Performative impeachment is pointless. Draft good legislation, then either let the Senate shoot it down or Trump veto it, and hold them all accountable in the '28 election.
I can think of three problems with this way of thinking:
Trump has committed impeachable offenses, and to act otherwise cedes reality itself. It loses the game before even playing, and normalizes impeachable conduct. For a narcissistic sociopath like Trump and his Wormtongue Miller, this is an invitation to continue to ignore the Constitution. Their conduct will get worse without impeachment.
The impeachment process itself changes public opinion. A recent story said that Trump's approval is already at Nixon's lowest point during Watergate. Republicans likely will do nothing, I get it, but impeachment forces them to stand up for a traitor. When push comes to shove, they may flinch. We won't know until we try.
The corollary of Democrats' choice to "focus on other agenda" is true here: Republicans can't focus on Project 2025 if they're spending all their time defending against impeachment. Right now a depressing amount of Project 2025 has been pushed through, so ending their offensive is itself a win.
He absolutely has committed impeachable offenses, the problem is we need 67 votes in the Senate to convict him and the Senate absolutely will not do it.
So we'd end up with the same results as the last two times, Susan Collins and "I think he learned his lesson" and all that.
Nobody held the Senators accountable either. So there's no point even pretending at this point.
What moves the needle is flipping the House in '26, getting good legislation passed, then holding the House in '28, flipping the Senate, and winning the Presidency.
THEN we can talk about the best ways to change the system.
I'd start with upper end age limits across the board for all three branches. It would need an amendment to do that.
Ideally, make it so convicted felons can't be President.
And term limits.
Sorry to respond so abstractly, but, I think the main lesson the modern political era has is: be a tactician, not a strategist.
A strategist may plan twelve moves ahead, but has a huge Achilles heel. They won't move until they are sure there is a winning path.
A tactician weighs the costs and benefits of acting in the moment, and acts in a way that improves position even without having a clear path to victory.
Putin is a tactician. For example, he flooded the US with propaganda and leaked emails starting in 2015 to do nothing except destabilize an adversary, kept it up as a cheap side-bet, and ended up getting two Trump terms in return. He attacked Ukraine without a clear plan, and will probably end up (I hope not, but probably - in conjunction with the last sentence) with semi-legitimized control of Donbas and Luhansk.
Republicans are tacticians. They kept attacking "Obamacare" despite healthcare being a top issue with voters and offering no alternative, and eventually the weight of their attacks made it so unpopular, voters were voting in politicians promising to remove it, despite that it would remove their own healthcare. They have been tacticians for a years with voter suppression (they succeeded in getting many state governments, the House, and so on). Stephen Miller is a tactician, and we saw it in how he kept pushing ICE's unconstitutional policies.
The point is that each move we make, even without a clear strategy to the final goal, itself changes the reality on the ground. And tacticians are winning because their maneuvers take weeks, each time a free swing and way of moving the reality, the Overton windows, a little closer to their goal. If they fail, they have five other plans brewing, all free swings. Meanwhile, strategists' maneuvers take years to show any effect. No long-term strategy adapts fast enough to counter those tactics.
We have become the stereotype of that republican quote: They act, we react; and while we react, they act again, changing the reality and killing our still-gestating plans.
So I'd humbly argue: The only way out of this is not to wait until 2028 (2029, actually, before a new president is hypothetically seated). It's to act, now, using every legal tool we have, even if we don't know the full path to victory.
There are legal tools besides impeachment, but like I say, it's not a matter of not knowing the full path to victory when it comes to impeachment, there literally is no path to victory. Plus the legal tools are currently controlled by the opposition.
If 2026 goes the way we expect, the 50% majority in the House will be easy enough.
If we want impeachment, we have to run on it now. Get No Kings to swing the Senate races.
Right now it's 53 Republican, 45 Democratic, 2 Independent (caucusing with Democrats).
33 Senate seats are up for re-election in '26, we need to flip 22 seats to win impeachment, maybe only 20 if Collins and Murkowski are willing to play ball. 4 seats will flip control, but control is not enough to impeach.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_United_States_Senate_elections
If we can't get 20-22 Senate seats, there is no point pushing impeachment. It only has the desired effect of making the Democrats look bad and that hurts them in the run up to '28.
I don't see why performative impeachment is more or less pointless than performative legislation. I would say they should do both; I think it is important to get on record who is for and against things. Although in this case, given that he has been impeached before, I am willing to accept the political calculus that a third performative attempt may not be beneficial.
Performative impeachment lets the Republicans play the victim card in '28.
Passing good legislation that gets defeated by Republicans in the Senate or vetoed by Trump gives them ammunition for even more flips in '28.
Republicans will play the victim card either way.
Which is why it's important to hammer them with good, popular legislation.
Shouldn't be so ham-tied that it's not possible. Hell, why wait till mid-terms, get drafting now so things are ready on day one. Not like they're doing anything productive or meaningful at the moment.
Except impeachment lets the Republicans play the victim card in '28. So impeachment both does nothing, and lets the Republicans go "See those Democrats are just mean!" in '28.
Instead, you pass good legislation and if the Republicans kill it, you hang them with it in '28.
"Living minimum wage? Republicans say no. Universl health care? Republicans say no. Functional immigration? Republicans say no."
Way harder to do that if you hand them the loaded gun of a 3rd failed impeachment.
They're going to do that anyway. Don't let their bullshit stop us from doing what's right. Otherwise we're just allowing him to continue his criminal activity with no pushback. And that depresses voter turnout.