The mainstream media has been busy over the past year engineering the narrative that the removal from office via impeachment of President Donald Trump is almost inevitable. Although they have had a few bumps on the road to this possible future, which caused them to temporarily switch to removal from office via the 25th Amendment fantasy, their impeachment dream is back on track. This concept reached a fevered pitch last week on Friday when many liberals went into a state of ecstasy, most notably Joy Behar, over the fake news report by Brian Ross of ABC News about "candidate" Trump contacting the Russians which later that day had to be retracted.
Despite the many setbacks in the impeachment push, most liberals seem to continue yearning for it as if Trump remaining in office would destroy their souls. Tom Steyer even blew $20 million in impeachment ads in pursuit of it. Unfortunately for Steyer and his fellow impeachment demanding liberals, contributing editor (and very very liberal) Peter Beinart of Atlantic magazine has tossed cold water upon their future of impeachment on December 3 in 'The Odds of Impeachment Are Dropping.'
Now that Michael Flynn has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, and agreed to dish on his former boss, some Trump-watchers are suggesting that impeachment may be around the corner. “It’s time to start talking about impeachment,” announced a Saturday column on CNN.com. The Flynn deal, declared former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Harry Litman in Friday’s New York Times, “portends the likelihood of impeachable charges being brought against the president of the United States.”
That may be true. But bringing impeachment charges against Trump, and actually forcing him from office, are two vastly different things. And while the former may be more likely today than it was half a year ago, the latter is actually less likely. Since Robert Mueller became special counsel in May, the chances of the House of Representatives passing articles of impeachment—and the Senate ratifying them—have probably gone down.
Killjoy! How dare you take away the impeachment joy from Joy Behar!
That’s because impeachment is less a legal process than a political one. Passing articles of impeachment requires a majority of the House. Were such a vote held today—even if every Democrat voted yes—it would still require 22 Republicans. If Democrats take the House next fall, they could then pass articles of impeachment on their own. But ratifying those articles would require two-thirds of the Senate, which would probably require at least 15 Republican votes.
That kind of mass Republican defection has grown harder, not easier, to imagine. It’s grown harder because the last six months have demonstrated that GOP voters will stick with Trump despite his lunacy, and punish those Republican politicians who do not.
Not to worry. Tom Steyer will continue to blow his money on his impeachment white whale.
Could Mueller or some enterprising journalist uncover revelations so epic that they shake Trump’s hold on the GOP, and give Republican senators cover to support his removal? It’s unlikely. After all, the vast majority of Alabama Republicans still support Roy Moore. Most conservatives consume pro-Trump media, which will downplay or distort virtually anything Mueller or the mainstream press discovers. And the more aggressively Democrats push for Trump’s removal, the easier it will be for Breitbart and Sean Hannity to rally Republicans against a “left-wing coup.”
...But removing a president requires bipartisanship. And in this ultra-partisan age, that means removing a president is virtually impossible, even when he’s Donald Trump.
And yet the MSM narrative engineers are sure to continue constructing their beloved scenario of the inevitability of Trump removal from office via impeachment.
