"One of the several things that a democratic republic depends upon is trust, and the partisan weaponization of impeachment, a tool of last resort for deployment only in the most egregious “high-crimes-and-misdemeanors” cases, is enormously destructive of trust."

In American Greatness, Roger Kimball writes about impeachment.

...But “impeachment” means many things. Until 15 minutes ago, I’d wager, many people believed it was a synonym for “remove from office.” But with the House shouting “impeach him, impeach him, impeach him” in tones more or less like those that emanated from that angry mob which sided with Barabbas in front of Pontius Pilate, lo, these many years ago, we have all been reminded that while the House may bring articles of impeachment, it takes two-thirds of the Senate to convict the accused and remove him from office.

Two-thirds. I was told there would be no math, but I am pretty sure that means 67 senators, when 53 of them are now Republicans. According to my abacus, that means that 20 Republican senators would have to jump ship and vote with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to remove the president from office. How likely is that?

...I am not sure that there is no radioactive skeleton in Donald Trump’s closet. Maybe the Democrats will discover something heinous, something sufficiently potent to bring him down.

I am not sure, but I doubt it, partly because I think that Donald Trump’s erratic behavior is mostly epiphenomenal—a matter of words and gestures, not substance—partly because we’ve seen this show so many times before: the pussy tapes, Stormy Daniels, Michael Cohen, “Russian collusion,” Robert Mueller’s two-year fishing expedition, and now a telephone call to Ukrainian President Zelensky. Since I’ve already introduced sums, l’ll follow by observing that all those supposed torts do not add up to squat—or, rather, squat, i.e., zero, nada, rien, zilch is precisely what they do add up to: zero + zero + zero + zero = zero. And it doesn’t matter how many zeros you add on to the problem. The answer will still be zero.

...One of the several things that a democratic republic depends upon is trust, and the partisan weaponization of impeachment, a tool of last resort for deployment only in the most egregious “high-crimes-and-misdemeanors” cases, is enormously destructive of trust.

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