Impeachment of Trump has been a very big topic in the mainstream news and I can’t stress how much of a waste of time that is. The man is never going to be impeached. I’m not taking sides here I’m just saying the truth. Impeachment is just political fodder. The left is using the idea of it to rally support for their 2020 contenders and the right is using the idea of the left using it to rally support behind Trump. Net-net, nothing will change.
But, this hypothetical impeachment got me thinking and I came to a weird conclusion. It could actually be tremendously strategic for the Republicans to support an impeachment of Trump. Support may actually be too much of an action word. Let happen is probably a more accurate description. Basically, if the Dems get rolling on the impeachment process, the Republicans should just kind of do nothing.
Now why in the hell would this make sense for the Republicans to do? Trump has a year and a half left in his current term and the potential for another four years. That’s possibly another 5 and a half years with a Republican in the White House. How would it benefit them to mess that up?
Here’s how I see it. They can ride with Trump and bet on his second term OR they could watch him get impeached and open up the possibility for 12 straight years with a Republican in the White House. Now how does that work?
You see, there’s a chance for Trump to lose in 2020, but even if he wins, there is no chance for a Republican to follow him. That’s just statistics speaking. If either party controls the White House for 8 years power is almost always turned over to the other party in the following election. But, if he’s impeached during this term, I believe that the fire and anger that would spark from Republican voters would cause voter turnout like we’ve never seen before. The Republican voters would feel robbed and in 2020 they would come out in droves for whoever won their party’s nomination. As you can see, there are already 1000 Democrats running for office in 2020 and the party is completely splintered. They are going to eat themselves alive. If Trump runs in 2020 then he is the favorite but the Democrats have a tremendous chance to take down the incumbent due to his low approval ratings. But, in the case I described above, I believe the new Republican takes the White House handily in 2020. Then come 2024 he will be treated as the incumbent after his first term rather than seen as the second half of Trump’s presidency. As the incumbent always has the advantage, it would be very likely for this candidate to win again. That’s a Republican White House from 2016 to 2028.
Whatever you support, from a game theory perspective, it makes the best strategic sense for the Republicans to impeach Trump. And to think my dad never thought i’d put my political science degree to use.
