Robert Mueller’s explosive statement ending the Special Counsel investigation today has sent Democrats into a media-driven frenzy, with Speaker Nancy Pelosi bowing down even more to her left-wing colleagues and their calls for more investigations and an impeachment of President Trump. Republicans have plenty of principled reason to be worried in the short-term about Mueller’s final statement, but today’s events might just help Trump and Republicans in 2020 after all.
No matter what Democrats like Jerry Nadler and Maxine Waters find in Trump’s tax returns or the Mueller report, impeachment of the President will never happen unless Congress uncovers some heinous crime that rises to the level of treason, bribery, or high crimes and misdemeanors. Even if Democrats magically controlled the Senate majority, they would still need 67 seats to convict the President on a party-line vote. They are currently 20 votes short of that in the GOP controlled Senate.
With impeachment off the table, let’s turn to how this will play out in the 2020 elections. Democrats will make a strong case that keeping the President under constant investigation is not just the right thing to do, but is also a winning strategy to take back the presidency. They could not be further from the truth.
They will point to the fact that the Special Counsel investigation helped Democrats win back the House in 2018, and if they finally get to the bottom of what Trump is really up to, they can indeed win back the White House. This is an easy trap to fall into, and is one which the Democrats have fallen for repeatedly.
Sure, the Democrats got a temporary boost in the midterm elections because the Special Counsel had not said a word in almost two years, and many Americans on both sides were seriously wondering if President Trump and Vladimir Putin were indeed best friends. If I were a swing voter, I probably also would have voted for the party that is not accused of working with our enemies.
There is a big difference between 2018 and 2020. Democrats won a marginal victory in 2018 by lying and claiming that Trump worked with Russia to steal the election from Hillary. Despite the fact that Trump never colluded with Russia, Democrats ignore that and are still screaming impeachment because the President allegedly obstructed an investigation that was never supposed to have happened in the first place.
With a Republican counter-investigation led by Attorney General Bill Barr in the works, there is no sign of the slew of investigations slowing down. With equal vigor on both sides to prove their case, the opposing investigations are likely to cancel each other out in the minds of voters as they speak to their own base.
Democrats’ entire message up to this point has been anti-Trump, and this election cycle was supposed to be the chance for their party to show voters why they represent a better path forward for Americans. After today’s announcement, leading left-wing figures will not shy away from radical calls for impeaching the President and driving their party further off the deep end. This is no way to win elections when swing voters are the key to success.
With early election models already favoring Donald Trump, all he needs are a few key domestic and foreign policy victories over the next 18 months to show that he can lead the American people despite being targeted by the mainstream media, the intelligence community, and many of DC’s entrenched bureaucrats. It may be a bad few months for the President, but he will come out of this with an even stronger case for a 2020 Republican victory to stop the frivolous investigations and get back to governing again.
Democrats chose the wildcard again today, and this time they are going to get burned.