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Impeaching Trump has coalesced as the preferred position among liberals and Democrats. There's nothing "wrong" with this. It's entirely morally justifiable. It might even be the moral position, but that doesn't necessarily make it right. 1/x
This is another example where one's starting premises affect the conclusion. Because of my views on "democratic minimalism" and my experiences abroad, where I saw the dangers of extra-electoral means of changing leaders, I'm incredibly sensitive to going down this path. 2/x
I'm not going to be able to convince anyone who doesn't share at least some of those starting premises that impeachment (or trying for impeachment) isn't a good idea. 3/x
Thankfully, the founders saw impeachment as weighty enough to require a Senate supermajority (for conviction). This basically means that we can try for impeachment all we want, a conviction is unlikely to ever happen because of increasingly entrenched partisan polarization. 4/x
In this sense, polarization is "good" because it prevents what I consider to be an otherwise potentially dangerous outcome. We're too divided to ever reach anything approaching a bipartisan consensus on impeachment, so democratic outcomes are likely to hold indefinitely. 5/x
"Partisan balancing" means that if one party doesn't like a president, the other party will, even if that president is terrible. This is in addition to the institutional balancing the US has, which is one reason I'm rethinking my (academic) dislike for 2-party systems. 6/x
Partisan polarization can, in a sense, be good for minorities. For the first time, in large part as a response to Trump, Democrats have become more pro-Muslim. It's nice to know that one party (sort of) has your back, which is much rarer in Europe: medium.com/s/story/how-do… 7/x 
Because of polarization, the House may impeach, but the Senate won't convict. So impeachment may be the worst of both worlds: It will undermine norms around respect for democratic outcomes while failing to accomplish the one thing it's ostensibly meant to accomplish 8/x
