Hades said:
But people already decided whether or not they are in league with Trump. The Republicans already made it very clear they sold their soul to him and that they will protect him until the end. The impeachment will reveal no new loyalties.
I fear this will end up backfiring. Republicans will kill it in the senate anyway but Trump's cult will likely get mobilized and radicalized by this attack on their ''great leader''
This is the fear. This is what Pelosi kept saying when she asked people to not grasp at impeachment so readily. There is a new Teflon Don in the world. Charges that would sink anyone else only strengthens this Anthropomorphized Orange. Trudeau is dying over Blackface, and The President Of The United States called for a Foreign Powers aid to discredit a political opponent by releasing information of a possible (despicable) bartering technique... and twisted the screws by doing the same thing himself [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/23/us/politics/trump-un-biden-ukraine.html].
The Republicans don't care about how anything looks. They control the Senate, they have the Supreme Court, and they have the Gerrymandered Districts. And a rabid cult that by and large has shrugged off any sense of decency because their side is winning.
I'm not saying I'm against Impeachment. I have no faith in Trump at all. He seemingly goes out of his way to show that we should never have faith in him. By his 'forgetful' nature or the fact that every time he speaks news organizations has to continually explain how much of his speech was flat out lies, he should never have been president and every American will forever be stained knowing that he now represents us in some fashion.
And yes, even those people who are for Trump are stained. Even if they like it.
BUT.
For a proper Impeachment that won't have a retaliatory motion (and remember, Trump HIMSELF is a retaliation), the evidence needs to be damning and unforgivable. I don't see this as damning because the faithful will probably rationalize it as "What person doesn't try to get dirt on their opponent (a la last election)", see anything the Democrats doing to be worse "Did Biden REALLY threaten to withhold funds in order to get his son a job?! Horrible! (while ignoring Trump's son-in-law previous dealings [https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/05/jared-kushner-conflict-of-interest/525897/])... and most won't even care because they will just see it as Trump trying to win at all cost and they love that.
This will enrage the people it was going to enrage (i.e. us) and not convince the faithful of anything.
Now, to take off my bias hat and see it as an independent or undecided... I might be shocked, a bit? Maybe turned a little more off by Trump. Would it make me seek out to elect a democrat? I don't know. As an independent, I might not see this as a big deal. I might see it as "Oh, he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar, so what" and might tune out about it. And then I'd be inundated by democrats talking, talking, talking, talking about it. It wouldn't make me run screaming to the Democrats, begging me to save the entire world.
If I was the average independent or undecided, I don't know if I would see this as an issue. The only way I could is if it was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that what he did was in violation of an actual law. Just like how people were swayed away from Hillary when Comey announced the FBI was investigating Hillary again weeks before the election.
And unfortunately as Avengr pointed out, not that many people understand what the Impeachment Process is. You can be guilty of something and not be impeached. Bill Clinton did commit Perjury. But he had the Senate on his side. So that's a thing.
