Impeachment and Political Risk

"You're all committing suicide!"
--Lou Zabel (Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps)

There are competing arguments about the long term consequences of the impeachment circus staged by House Democrats. One argument is that the Democrat's abuse of the impeachment process threatens the Constitution and sets up future presidents for similar partisan impeachment votes over petty issues.

The open ended criteria for impeachment proposed by the Democratic experts are dangerous and place Congress above the law. That’s why the Framers demanded specific criteria that sound of crime, rather than “abuse of office.”

— Alan Dershowitz (@AlanDersh) December 4, 2019

Another argument is that voters will see thru the sham for what it is, and rally behind those falsely accused. The backfire will scare future congresses from invoking impeachment for years.

Some say this impeachment sets a new low and every president from now on will face an impeachment vote over something petty.

But if Trump wins re-election and/or Republicans take back the House, it could be 2 or 3 decades before another congress does something this partisan.

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) December 18, 2019

These pages have already suggested merit in the second argument.

Perhaps our founding ancestors understood the political risk of such recklessness as well.