What the House Democrats just did to Donald Trump is genius

| 9:09 am EDT July 27, 2019
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When it comes to impeaching Donald Trump, the House Democrats face a number of tricky factors. Democrats have to use the impeachment process to build up public demand for Trump’s ouster, so GOP Senators might be forced to go along with it, for fear of losing their own seats. Democrats have to pull this off without prompting Trump’s existing supporters to reflexively rally around him. And Democrats can’t do any of this until they win their court battles over the relevant testimony and evidence.

Somehow, the House Democrats just managed to thread that needle in one fell swoop – at least in terms of getting the ball rolling. The House Judiciary Committee made a court filing yesterday which confirms that they’re seeking the evidence and testimony in question because they’re trying to determine whether Donald Trump needs to be impeached. This court filing is an impeachment inquiry, meaning the impeachment process has begun.

But because the House Democrats are kicking off impeachment with a Friday afternoon court filing instead of firing it out of a T-shirt cannon, they’re not giving Donald Trump much of a rallying point just yet. He can run his mouth all he wants, but he’ll have a difficult time firing up his base by whining about a mere impeachment court filing. After all, his supporters tend to view politics through a lens of “wall good, immigrant bad” and have no interest in the legal nuances of the impeachment process.

That means House Democrats have managed to start the impeachment process in a way that helps fire up their base, while making it difficult for Donald Trump to fire up his base, even while continuing to focus on the court battles over testimony and evidence that they’re going to need to win first before they can file the actual articles of impeachment anyway.