Remember when impeachment was going to be a slam dunk boost to Donald Trump and Republicans? That all changed this week when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi moved in a matter of days from anti-impeachment to ceremoniously announcing to the American people that "the times have found us" on impeachment.
Last Saturday, Pelosi's aides were still swatting down questions on impeachment with, "See any GOP votes for it?" But moved by the severity of Trump's lawlessness and a groundswell of support from her moderate members, Pelosi arrived at a place she had been resisting since the moment Democrats decisively flipped the House last November.
It was clearly a matter of duty. The shift transpired so swiftly, there was no poll testing, no index finger to the wind. In fact, polling conducted by Morning Consult/Politico over last weekend showed no increase in support for impeachment, with the pro-impeachment needle stuck right about where it's been for months at 36%. For Democrats and Pelosi alike, this was a moment of moral clarity as they coalesced around protecting the republic from the gravest threat it has faced in nearly half a century.
The shift was also so decisive it knocked congressional Republicans back on their heels. Just as quickly as Democrats found their footing, GOP Senators rapidly evolved from spouting Trump's talking points about the Bidens on Monday to uniformly zipping their lips on the matter by Wednesday. GOP Senators are now in bunker mode until they can wrap their minds around the new political calculus they are facing vis-a-vis impeachment and 2020.
Meanwhile, Trump is in full meltdown mode, frantically grasping at anything to mitigate this gusher of a story. And let's be real, it is a gusher. Democrats couldn't have manufactured a better scandal if they had wanted to, but instead Trump simply handed it to them on a silver platter. In terms of breadth, it reaches multiple Trump officials, such as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Attorney General William Barr, and chief of staff and budget director Mick Mulvaney. But the depth is also magnificent, with elements like the super secret server promising to expose tidbit after tidbit about Trump's corrupt dealings with multiple foreign leaders, including not only Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky but—you guessed it—Russian President Vladimir Putin. Hello 2016! You haven't escaped us yet.
Trump, like his GOP counterparts on the Hill, has been overwhelmed by the velocity of a Washington scandal to which he can't find an antidote. He's failed to distract anyone but Fox News and right-wing rags with his totally fictional Biden diversion. His attacks on the whistleblower are meaningless now that the White House confirmed several of the complaint's key assertions: that Trump pressured Ukraine for dirt on Joe Biden, that Trump inexplicably withheld nearly $400 million in military aid from Ukraine, and that White House officials had been secreting away Trump's dealings with foreign leaders in a highly classified system. And his maddening frustration that none of his usual antics are working was evident in a series of ALL CAPS tweets along with his bloodthirsty musings about Biden getting the electric chair and executing any "spy" within his midst.
The cherry on top of this deliciously silky sweet confection of perfection is that support for impeachment is spiking in the polls. After months upon months of people favoring impeachment being stuck around the mid- to high-thirties, it's moved up in nearly every reputable poll since the week began, including the one conducted this week by Politico, which has been routinely testing an impeachment inquiry question in its past dozen or so polls. As mentioned above, the Morning Consult/Politico survey last weekend yielded the same old results: 36% support for impeachment, 49% opposition. But when they asked the question again a handful of days later—after Pelosi had announced the proceedings and the 'transcript' of Trump's phone call with Ukraine was released—support spiked to 43% and opposition fell to 43%, representing a 13-point net shift toward impeachment. Civiqs has similarly tracked a 7-point net shift toward support over just the past four days.
It just goes to show that actually doing the right thing in an era of unbridled moral depravity can spur the very change everyone discounted as impossible.