Had Hillary Clinton won the presidency, a third of the country was convinced she’d not only be illegitimate but should be in jail. Another third feels the same way about Donald Trump. An electorate so polarized and vituperative is in no condition to discuss impeachment.

When George W. Bush was president, there was strong sentiment on the left to impeach him – or try to. Even when it seemed politically impossible to do, keeping it in the air provided a frisson of excitement - just to imagine it.

For Republicans, the mechanism of impeachment and continual hounding through congressional investigations has been an established tactic for some time.

In 1984, an investigation began on “Whitewater,” an Arkansas real estate deal in which the Clintons lost money. Ten years later it was still ongoing. No less than 29 members of the Clinton administration were called to testify before the Republican-led House and Senate Banking committees – and all 29 were subsequently cleared. By 1995, some of the Clintons' business associates from Arkansas were being convicted on various counts, but not the Clintons.

The Lewinski scandal hadn’t broken yet, but by 1997 the Whitewater probe was looking into President Clinton’s possible sexual indiscretions while governor of Arkansas.

Meanwhile, within two days of her entering the White House as an intern, Monica Lewinski and President Clinton were becoming involved in sexual behavior. 

By 1998, Linda Tripp informed the Whitewater investigators she’d secretly taped 20 hours of conversations with Lewinski, who was naive enough to have trusted her as a confidant. The House began impeachment proceedings while the public learned that several prominent Republicans were, themselves, engaging in adulterous affairs. A Gallup Poll gave Clinton a 70 percent support rating, with support for his resignation a mere 30 percent.

By now, the political calculus had settled in. Should Republicans vote to impeach Clinton, Vice President Al Gore would take his place – and then run for president himself. Better to leave Clinton to stink up Gore’s presidential campaign than remove him from office and elevate their next rival to the presidency. By then, the Republicans had spent over 60-million taxpayer dollars investigating the Clintons.

Under Obama, Congressional Republicans demanded an inquiry into the terrorist attack on the American Embassy in Benghazi, Libya. It centered on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the deaths of American personnel at the compound. As Secretary, Hillary had already accepted responsibility for the loss, but with the likelihood that Clinton would run for president, the Republicans’ goal was to establish culpability, not just responsibility.

The Benghazi investigations were continued for 2½ years at a cost of another $7 million. More Congressional hours would be spent on Benghazi than on the 9/11 terrorist attacks but - as the GOP majority leader boasted - it “drove (Clinton’s) poll numbers down.”

There is no question that the Clintons demonstrated a calamitous disregard for the norms of sexual and business prudence. When a reporter asked Hillary why, if women alleging sexual assaults should be believed, she consistently attacked the credibility of her husband’s accusers, she had no answer because there was none.

Trump’s irregularities and self-inflicted wounds make the Clintons’ pale by comparison. He asked the Russians to release stolen emails on national TV. Multiple trails connect his people to actors in the Kremlin. He refuses to this day to divulge his tax returns. Even the Republican-controlled Congress called for an investigation, which has lasted only a fifth as long as Whitewater did.

Now the Democrats control the House. Why not impeach Trump as the Republicans did Bill Clinton? If nothing else, wouldn’t it be karmic retribution to do so?

First, let’s remember that Clinton’s poll numbers went up not down during his impeachment. With Trump’s popularity already in the dumps, there is only his base left – and they have a counter-narrative already in place that directs their outrage against Democrats and the Deep State.

Second, although several of Trump’s lieutenants face conviction, there may be no proof of Trump’s complicity that will stand up in a court of law. The Democrats can cry “lock him up” at their next convention but, given what we know, chances of the Senate impeaching their Republican president are vanishingly remote.

Neither party should use impeachment as a political end-around to undo the decisions of the electorate. The Democrats should insist on getting the facts out, but leave it to the voters to decide in 2020. We already know what sort of man Trump is. Democrats should spend their energies offering the country a vision of what we can look like at our best. That’s what America needs.
