Victor Davis Hanson on The Impeachment Coup

Aside from the emotional issue that Democrats, NeverTrumpers, and celebrities loathe Donald Trump, recently Representative Al Green (D-Texas) reminded us why the Democrats are trying to impeach the president rather than just defeat him in the 2020 general election. 

“To defeat him at the polls would do history a disservice, would do our nation a disservice,” Green said. “I’m concerned that if we don’t impeach the president, he will get re-elected.” 

Translated, that means Green accepts either that Trump’s record is too formidable or that the agendas of his own party’s presidential candidates are too frightening for the American people to elect one of them. And that possibility is simply not permissible. 

Thus, impeachment is the only mechanism left to abort an eight-year Trump presidency—on a purely partisan vote to preclude an election, and thus contrary to the outlines of impeachment as set out by the Constitution. 

Consider it another way: Why is it that the House is controlled by Democrats, yet its leadership is not pushing through any of the policy proposals voiced so openly on the Democratic primary stage? 

Why aren’t progressive representatives introducing bills to pay reparations to African Americans, to legalize infanticide in some cases of late-term abortion, to offer free medical care to illegal aliens, to confiscate AR-15s, to extend Medicare for all, to impose a wealth tax and raise top rates to between 70 and 90 percent, to abolish student debt and ensure free college for all, or to grant blanket amnesty to those currently living in the country illegally? 

Simple answer: none of those issues poll anywhere near 50 percent approval. And no Democratic candidate would expect to beat Trump as the emissary of such an agenda. 

If the economy was in a recession, if we were embroiled in another Iraq-like or Vietnam-sort of war, and if Trump’s polls were below 40 percent, then the Democrats would just wait 13 months and defeat him at the polls. 

But without a viable agenda and because they doubt they can stop Trump’s reelection bid, they feel they have no recourse but to impeach. If Trump were to be reelected, not a shred of Barack Obama’s “fundamental transformation” would be left, and the strict constructionist Supreme Court would haunt progressives for a quarter-century.

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