Impeachment opens a can of worms but it doesn’t close it. It’s basically a censure if you can’t convict. Many here understand this but the general public DOES NOT. If you impeach a president and then hes still standing there when the dust clears the general public believes he was found INNOCENT. The democrats could do nothing dumber and more wasteful than to spend their impeachment card now and give trump time to recover before the election.
So is impeachment without conviction worthless? no. After an impeachment vote, just as after a censure vote, there will be at least 2 news cycles where the impeached takes a massive hit (this happened with Clinton) then when they are still standing they have the chance to recover completely (again, see Clinton)
So what the Democrats have is the king of all October surprises that they can use whenever or if ever, it is necessary. There will never be any point in the next 2 years when a story wont break the democrats cant use as an impetus for beginning impeachment proceedings , Trump is just that criminal. So the last thing anyone using simple game theory would want to do is play that card while their opponent still had a chance to “trump” it.
Democrats can’t convict Trump and probably never will be able to. Think about this, even if the fucking “pee tape” came out tomorrow you full well know trump would still be at 40% approval. His deplorable base is just that stupid and evil (ya I said it). But we can injure him, horribly wound him at the most opportune time IF NECESSARY and that powder should be kept dry until we see the orange of his eyes headed towards the 2020 ballot box.