Would Republicans Ever Sign on to Impeach the President?

Minority Leader of the U.S. Senate Mitch McConnell, speaks at the dedication of the Dr. Norman Borlaug statue in the National Statuary Hall at the U. S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, Mar. 25, 2014. USDA photo by Lance Cheung.

Writing at The American Spectator, Dov Fischer says that any Republican Senator who goes along with an attempt to impeach President Trump will “be signing his or her political death warrant.”  Even if Democrats were to somehow win the House and the Senate, and pass an impeachment bill through the lower chamber, it would take a number of politically-suicidal Republican senators to reach the two-thirds majority necessary to convict a president. He writes (abridged):

First a preliminary word from someone whose published writings of the past two years demonstrate quite clearly why these past nineteen months under President Trump mark him already as one of America’s greatest Presidents in contradistinction to the nightmare of the prior eight years that saw one of America’s three or four worst-ever Presidents occupying the White House 

The television-news media desperately need to fill twenty-four hours every day in order to sell advertising to support their stations.

The television-news media have to keep the money pouring in. Same with the print media. They need to grab your attention and hold it all day and night, every day.

But no subject, no Holy Fire, has proven as sure-fire a media grabber as President Donald J. Trump. Half of us have come to appreciate him so much that we cannot get enough of him. Many watch each-and-every one of his almost-weekly stadium-overflowing live campaign speeches.

At the same time, half the country really oppose him. Many hate him. Some despise him. Others just don’t care for him. But they also are glued. They also cannot get enough of him. And so the media feed the beast that pays the bills — heavy daily doses of Trump.

Realistically, in order for the President to be impeached it will take a majority of the House of Representatives to vote for impeachment. If Republicans hold the House in November, all the talk about impeachment will be so much Fake News like all the talk about Alzheimer’s: there will be no impeachment. End of story. By contrast, if the Democrats take the House they might very well pass a Maxine Waters–Al Green bill for impeachment. It then will go to the United Senate, where a two-thirds majority will be needed for conviction. The Republicans will control the Senate with between 51-57 seats.

Even if the Democrats miraculously grab the Senate in November, there still would be at least 48 Republicans in the Senate. The Democrats would need to get 15-20 Republican Senators to vote with them to oust President Trump.

Any Republican Senator who would vote that way would be signing his or her political death warrant — the end of his or her political career. They all know it. Therefore none of them would do it.

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