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There is NO SUCH THING as "impeaching a president at the ballot box." That's called losing an election and it happens all the time! George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter - they lost their elections and then became elder statesmen of their respective parties! 
If Trump loses in November 2020, and loses by a relatively normal margin, and no one in the political system makes any effort to repudiate his many assaults on justice and decency, here's what's going to happen:
In four or eight years, we'll get another Trump.
In four or eight years, we'll get another Trump.
Some enterprising successor (Tom Cotton? Trump Jr.?) is going to look at the example Trump sets, and decide that cowed Democrats will not stop Republicans who break the law. And you know what he's going to do? Break the law to become president, and then break it some more.
Trump is going to set a precedent, one way or another. That precedent can be one of two things:
A. An openly criminal president suffers terrible pushback, condemnation, impeachment
B. An openly criminal president gets to break all the rules and profit from it, for no real cost
A. An openly criminal president suffers terrible pushback, condemnation, impeachment
B. An openly criminal president gets to break all the rules and profit from it, for no real cost
Here is not what is going to happen: Trump stops being president, and Republicans all agree to go back to following the rules, despite knowing there's no penalty for breaking them.
And yet this last, impossible scenario is the one that Democratic leadership is banking on.
And yet this last, impossible scenario is the one that Democratic leadership is banking on.
Republicans ARE going to learn from Trump's example. Democrats have an opportunity to decide what, exactly, Republican learn.
Instead, they're doing nothing, and hoping for the best. And that's going to determine the country we live in for the rest of our lives.
Instead, they're doing nothing, and hoping for the best. And that's going to determine the country we live in for the rest of our lives.
And you know what? I'm certain that a lot of elected Democrats realize this. They're not idiots.
They're just too scared to act. They're paralyzed by fear - of Trump, of standing out, of Pelosi - and so they're hoping that maybe - maybe! - it'll all work out okay.
But it won't.
They're just too scared to act. They're paralyzed by fear - of Trump, of standing out, of Pelosi - and so they're hoping that maybe - maybe! - it'll all work out okay.
But it won't.
So is it really too much to ask that a few of these people swallow their pride, bury their fear, accept that politics is a tough business, and go out there and starts shouting like holy hell about the disaster going on all around them?
(The quote is from this article, about how House leadership is still ignoring impeachment pressure: huffpost.com/entry/house-de…)
