Three possible results of the Trump Impeachment Process

After the American Century

"Intolerance," by Maurice Sterne, 1941 

US Department of Justice, Main Library, Washington

Photo: Carol Highsmith

The Law: The Constitution dictates that only if two-thirds of the Senate find a person guilty can they be convicted of an impeachable offense. The Senate cannot fine or imprison a guilty party. The only penalty it can impose is a ban from holding public office. Other punishment is left to the courts.

Scenario 1: All the Democrats and at least 17 Republicans vote against Trump, making him the first president ever to be found guilty by the Senate. Richard Nixon resigned rather than face such a vote. Andrew Johnson was almost impeached and convicted by a Republican dominated Senate in 1868. There were 35 votes against Johnson (guilty) and 19 for him (not guilty). The Republicans needed just one more vote, but did not get it. Historically speaking, a president has never been convicted. The founding fathers intentionally made it difficult, requiring not a mere majority but a very large majority, in order to avoid impeachment becoming a matter of mere partisanship. 

    For Trump to be convicted, additional evidence will need to be presented during the trial, evidence so damning that it would force Republicans to repudiate him. Given the several week delay in starting the proceedings, it seems possible that Democrats might find such a smoking gun. For example, there might be a phone call or an email that links Trump directly to those who invaded the Houses of Congress. Conviction would divide the Republican Party into two irreconcilable camps, in the short term, but as happened after they repudiation of Nixon, the GOP would be in a position to revive and move on. This is a bitter pill for Republicans, but it the best option for them in the long run, and also for the nation.

Scenario 2: A majority of the Senate votes to convict Trump, but that majority falls short of 67 votes.  Instead, he could be taken to court on related charges and found guilty. For example, he might be charged with incitement to riot and being an accessory to the murder of one or more of the people who died in the attack on Congress. In addition, there are other court cases awaiting Trump, notably in New York State. A court conviction of any kind would weaken Trump and keep Republicans in turmoil, and might lengthen the struggle for control of their party until the 2024 elections. Normally, the party in power loses some seats to years after winning the presidency, but if the Republicans are internally at war, the Democrats would have a chance to win additional power the 2022 Congressional elections. 

Scenario 3: Trump is neither convicted by the Senate nor convicted of any crime in court. He could present himself as a victim of left-wing conspiracy. His supporters would feel righteously justified, and his control of a majority of the Republican Party would continue. The result, Trump will re-energize his base, while the country remains deeply split.

Which possibility is most likely? 

Scenario 1 is not very plausible, but it is Plan A for both Democrats and few Republicans who want to escape Trumpism. However, there are not 17 Republican Senators who look likely to convict Trump. Unless dramatic new evidence is presented to the Senate.

√ Scenario 2 is the most likely. In that case, Trump will only lose some support because of the impeachment trial and lose a bit more after being convicted of economic crimes, such as fraud, tax fraud, or money laundering. (There are apparently many other possibilities, too.) This would keep Republicans split and be good for the Democrats in 2022.  

Note added 15 Feb: This is indeed what happened.

Scenario 3 is possible, but not likely. Democratic Party leaders have a good idea of what court cases Trump will face after his trial in the Senate.  It seems exceedingly likely that he will face prosecution, and for that reason, the Democrats can take the high ground and demand an impeachment trial before the Senate, knowing Trump will soon be tied up in more litigation afterwards.

Whatever happens, the punishment of Donald Trump has, in all likelihood, only just begun,

Impeachment and the Republican Party

After the American Century

It is not only Donald Trump who is on trial. The Republican Party spent four years overlooking his many illegal actions and bullying tactics. They will also be tested, and unfortunately they will probably disgrace themsleves. For they surrendered to Trumpism, with only a few exceptions. They wanted power more than they wanted truth. Now the 50 Republican Senators will have to decide if they care about how they will be remembered. Historians will not be kind to those who continue to support Trump,, who say that the election was rigged, who claim Trump really won, who pretend against all common sense and a great deal of evidence that the attack on the halls of Congress had so little to do with Trump that he is not responsible for it.  

Liquidation Sale, Trump Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City

Now I write this as someone who grew up in a Republican family, and whose father and mother were both elected as Republicans. My father was elected to the town school board and my mother was elected a Justice of the Peace. That was back in the 1960s, when many Republicans, including my parents, supported Civil Rights, full equality for women, and scientific research. My mother taught biology and my father taught engineering. They would be horrified to see what the Republican Party has become.

When Trump goes on trial, the big question is not whether or not he is guilty. He has committed so many crimes that whole books will be published analyzing them. The real question is whether the Republican Party can separate itself from his brutal tactics and his inability to tell the truth. 

Does that sound like an exaggeration? The Washington Post has made a list of the lies that Trump has told. They found that the number of  lies increased with each year.  Trump averaged six false statements a day during 2017, 16 a day in 2018, 22 a day in 2019, and 27 a day in 2020. By election day he had made about 25,000 false statements during his time in office, creating an alternative reality for this followers.

Many of these lies were exaggerations. The most common one was that the American economy was “the best in history.” By 2020 this escalated to the repeated claim that it was “the best economy in the history of the world.” The second most common lie – 262 times – was that the border wall with Mexico was being built. In fact, only a few miles of new wall had been built by May 2020. Fragments of existing barriers were rebuilt, but they were hardly impregnable. In 2020, Trump repeated 38 times that the wall was almost completed. The third most common lie was that his tax cut was the largest in American history, but economists calculated that it was the eighth largest, and not even one third as large as Ronald Reagan’s tax legislation in 1981. Trump did not explain to his crowds that the lion’s share of his tax cuts were for the wealthiest 2 percent of the population. (For more on Trump's presidency, see The United (and Divided) States,  especially the final three chapters.)

Lying became the basis of Trump's campaign and his most common form of attack on other people. Of course, the biggest lie was that he had won the election, but it had been stolen from him. It appears that after the election he was unable to separate that lie from the truth, a sad development for him, and a catastrophe for his followers and the Republican Party, which in the fall of 2020 was fast becoming more a cult than a political organization. 

When the impeachment process begins in two weeks, the central question will be whether the Republicans will continue to live a lie, or whether they can begin the harder process of acting like a political party again, a party that respects education and science, a party that argues from facts rather than invent convenient "alternative facts," a party that does not embrace extreme right-wing zealots who think it is patriotic to attack the Congress, or, in short, a party that people like my parents would recognize and want to be part of.  As for me, I gave up on the Republicans in the Richard Nixon years, though there were some honorable men and women among them. That was decades ago. It has now become a threat to democracy. May it find a way to reform itself. 

But don't hold your breath. The Trump brand is as bankrupt as his casino hotel in Atlantic City, but more than 60 million Republican voters could not see it.