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The impeachment of Donald Trump has entered it’s second week, but that doesn’t mean that the Senate is any closer to actually convicting the former president. Mr. Trump was impeached in January on charges of inciting an insurrection, a charge that quicky unified the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives. This article of impeachment, however, drew swift criticism from conservatives both in the House and Senate.
Now, it seems unlikely that the seventeen GOP senators Democrats need to flip to convict Trump will actually side with them. This is due, largely, to Trump’s enduring popularity among the average Republican voter. For many voters, Trump’s claims of being the victim of a political witch-hunt are being played out in the open by the impeachment managers themselves. Why would they move to impeach a sitting president twice, even after he’s been acquitted once? Surely, this must be evidence of some deep-help bias against the former president.
House prosecutors relied on an appeal to the emotions of GOP members in the Senate in order to get them to cote to convict. The managers showed videos of the mob that stormed the White House on January 6, many of them brandishing weapons, as they tore through the halls of the Capitol, seeking to inflict harm on the lawmakers amassed there.
However, GOP Senators are remaining adamant that the mob acted of their own accord. And, while their actions were abhorrent and clearly wrong, many Senators don’t believe that Trump bears any responsibility for the mob that attacked the Capitol. While they may have thought they were helping the president, Senators have argued, they actually were running counter to his wishes.
Trump is already out of office. However, if he is convicted and the Senate votes to bar him from holding office in the future, it would look like a betrayal to many Republican voters. Senators like Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley likely have their sights on the White House for runs in 2024 or beyond. Removing Trump from the equation could be a huge boost to their chances in a 2024 primary.
It would be bizarre for a former president to run for reelection after serving only one term as president. Trump would also be the first president to be impeached to run for election after leaving office. As a matter of course, he’d be the only president impeached twice to do the same, as he is the only president to ever be impeached twice.
