David Catron of the American Spectator explains why the Trump impeachment has not produced the same results among Republicans in Congress as the threatened impeachment of Richard Nixon four decades ago.
The Democrats are clearly frustrated by their failure to convince congressional Republicans that President Trump has committed any act approaching an impeachable offense. This was made plain when House managers Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) resorted to the bizarre and self-defeating tactic of insulting the integrity of the very Senators who will ultimately decide the President’s fate. The Democrats obviously believed their relentless attacks on all things Trump, combined with impeachment, would eventually cause Republicans to abandon him just as they did President Nixon in 1974. Instead, their three-year smear campaign has only strengthened the President’s support among Republicans in both houses of Congress.
Why?
The Democratic case for Trump’s conviction is so flaccid that it hasn’t persuaded the voters upon whom the GOP relies to win elections. FiveThirtyEight reports that a mere 8.4 percent of Republicans and only 41.8 percent of Independents support Trump’s removal. Consequently, the President’s support among congressional Republicans shouldn’t be difficult to understand. Yet an explanation continues to elude not only the Democrats but the establishment media, which has churned out countless “think pieces” in a uniformly unsuccessful attempt to solve the conundrum. One of the more amusing theories is that the United States has somehow stopped producing statesmen with the moral courage to speak truth to power.