Unimpeachable?

There's no use going over the legal aspects of whether the President illegally solicited assistance in his reelection from a foreign government in the form of incriminating information on his likely opponent. Donald Trump will never be convicted or removed from office by the U.S. Senate as currently constituted. If the Senate would not convict President Clinton when the opposition controlled the upper house, conviction is infinitely less likely when the President's own party controls it. It's hard to envision a vote to convict as anything other than political suicide for any GOP senator, as the Trump movement, under whatever name, will most likely survive the Trump presidency, whenever it ends. Convinced of pervasive corruption among career politicians and as incapable of objectivity as most Americans today, they are unlikely to be convinced by any revelations that may yet emerge that voting to remove Trump would not be treasonous, or at least treacherous. The Biden family's role in the Ukraine story can only exacerbate Trumpist suspicions. They'll focus on the purported original offense, Joe Biden's alleged interference in inquiries into his son's Ukrainian activities, as if it -- whatever it is -- entitled Trump to seek the truth by any means necessary. For them, Democratic corruption is always a more pressing issue than any irregularities on Trump's part. The presumption of Democratic corruption isn't merely Trumpian, after all, but fundamental to Republican thinking. From the GOP's beginnings, Republicans have argued that Democrats have systematically used politics for personal gain, both for themselves and for their constituents. Democratic corruption will always appear more serious to them than Republican excess -- and to be fair, the only fault in the Republican charge, historically speaking, is the hypocrisy of their own implicit claim to innocence.

If it's certain that Trump will survive impeachment, the real question is whether Democrats will suffer a backlash from voters in 2020. After Clinton's impeachment, in 1998, the Republicans didn't lose their majority in Congress, but did lose enough seats to compel Newt Gingrich, an impeachment cheerleader, to resign his Speakership. The current Democratic majority in the House is smaller than the majority the GOP enjoyed in 1998, and in 2020, of course, the Presidency is in play as well.  Many Democrats today, believing Trump illegitimate from the beginning, are determined to demand his removal regardless of consequences. They may not think anything else necessary, but they have some tough thinking to do right now about Joe Biden. The Biden allegations -- some call them a conspiracy theory -- are inextricably linked, like it or not, to Trump's Ukraine scandal. Contemporary zero-sum thinking inevitably will lead people to think that damaging Trump will benefit, and is meant to benefit, the Democratic front-runner. With a backlash against Biden a sure thing, it might be advisable, if not fair, for Democratic leaders to persuade him to withdraw from the presidential campaign. Getting him out would have to be carefully done, however, to discourage the belief that there is fire in Ukraine where there had only been smoke. Biden would need to explain that his withdraw is meant to keep the public's focus on Trump's offenses, but at the same time he would need to welcome more extensive inquiries into his son's activities and his own dealings with the Ukrainian government. Biden's withdrawal would create an additional problem, since no other candidate among the Democrats seems to unite as much of Barack Obama's coalition as his vice-president does. On the other hand, Biden's departure would create an opening for a younger moderate amid continued skepticism among some core constituencies about the leading radicals in the race. Whether the nation needs a moderate Democrat at the helm at this time is a separate question, but as things stand it seems like such a person is more likely to beat Trump next year than the perceived extremists are -- though they shouldn't be underrated, as each for different reasons may be a rhetorical trap for the loose-tongued President. Wherever Democratic deliberations lead, however, they should not delude themselves into thinking that they'll have Mike Pence to deal with a year from now -- unless, of course, Donald Trump should commit the political equivalent of filing for bankruptcy when things get too hot for him.