Analysis: Why Democrats — and pundits — shouldn’t assume impeachment will backfire
By Aaron Blake Aaron Blake Senior political reporter, writing for The Fix Email Bio Follow May 22 at 6:51 AM Pressure is growing on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to impeach President Trump, no matter how much she denies it. With an increasing number of House Democrats and 2020 hopefuls calling for beginning impeachment proceedings — and now even a House Republican supporting impeachment — House Democrats are holding a closed-door meeting Wednesday to sort through the situation.
But the parallels only go so far. As I wrote a while back, the timeline of Clinton’s impeachment seemed to work against Republicans. Having begun impeachment proceedings on the eve of the 1998 election, the initial backlash was instantly able to register at the ballot box and help Democrats score unexpected success in the midterm elections. Republicans then officially impeached Clinton on Dec.
Bill Clinton's approval rating throughout his second term. Then his party lost the presidential election in 2000. So, however bad a blunder impeachment supposedly was, it didn’t prevent the GOP from winning back the presidency two years later, which is actually a more similar timeline to the one we have today.
The Clinton scandal was relatively simple. He engaged in an affair, lied about it and covered it up. Trump’s actions, by contrast, are more complex and difficult to digest and put in the correct legal context. There is an argument to be made that impeachment proceedings could shine a spotlight on his actions and make them register with the American people — the vast, vast majority of whom have not and never will read the Mueller report.
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