CARLTON FLETCHER: Trump faithful: Impeachment imshmeachment

Before you accuse me, take a look at yourself.

— Bo Diddley

Here’s the political logic (oxymoron alert!) of Democrats in the House of Representatives. They’re going to “gather information” for a while and then, when the timing’s right, they’re going to start impeachment proceedings against President Trump.

That “while,” it’s so obvious, will be … oh … sometime when the election process kicks into full swing. Then, these sharp-minded political strategists figure, Trump will be so caught up in the legal proceedings, he won’t have time to campaign for re-election, and someone else — presumable a Democrat, they reason — will swoop in and become president.

Now whether or not Donald Trump should actually face impeachment, well, that’s a matter for more astute Constitutional scholars to figure. If a guy can lie straight-faced to the American people on the regular and get caught in those lies — and, yes, a lot of them surround the Russian influence investigation that is the alleged grounds for the House Democrats to bring impeachment charges — well, the president might have a little ‘splaining to do along the way.

But this impeachment hoo-hah is not about a president who would lie to the American people or to other politicians or to people investigating him at every turn. Hell, if lying to the American people is all it takes to be impeached, we’d have an empty Congress, the only politician left standing being Vice President Mike Pence, and his defense is that when you’re not smart enough to know something’s a lie, you can’t really call it a lie.

No, this talk about impeachment is nothing more than a Democratic political ploy to try and weaken the sitting president, an apparent attempt to confuse Trump’s not-quite-true-believers who actually would care if he shot someone in the street — depending, of course, on the ethnicity of the person he shot — to secure a victory for their side in 2020. When you have a group slow-witted enough to rally behind an elected Congresswoman classy enough to proclaim, “Impeach the m——-f——-” shortly after being sworn in, well, you see the kind of mob mentality you’re dealing with.

But here’s the real kicker. The Democrats have about as much chance of impeaching Trump and actually having him removed from office as the aforementioned Congresswoman from New York has of moving to Mississippi and winning election there.

As Republicans learned when they brought impeachment charges against Bill Clinton — oh, those quaint times when a president could be called into account for action unbecoming, action that the current president would call “a weekend at Trump Tower” … not that there’s anything wrong with that — they probably embarrassed Clinton … OK, that’s not possible … they probably annoyed him, but their actions did nothing to weaken his base. And he actually came out of the impeachment drama stronger, while Republicans were left looking more than a little foolish.

That’s the fate that awaits Democrats if they go through with this ill-advised strategy. Trump’s base — the ones who would applaud him shooting someone in the street, no matter the ethnicity — is going to dig in their heels and double down on their unwavering support, while wishy-washy Republicans who secretly loathe the president — the ones Democrats are hoping to turn — are going to see the whole soap opera as a way to get back in the president’s and the party’s good graces (and, remember, that’s all that matters in Washington these days), and they’re going to announce their “unwavering support” for Trump.

And the Democrats will look even more foolish than usual. And Trump will be re-elected. And he will probably at some point call for a special session to do away with that two-term bull and declare himself president or king for life, “like my buddies Kim Jong and Vladimir.”

Two things about all this impeachment talk that has more of a WoW! factor for me than the talk itself: 1) America had best pray Trump is not impeached and charged before the election or after he has won re-election. Could anyone imagine scarier words than “President Mike Pence?”

2) These bozos — yeah, Rush “Oxycodone” Limbaugh and the like — who are advocating civil war if Trump is impeached or not re-elected … man, I don’t care how big your mouth is, anyone willing to take up arms against his countrymen for Donald Trump or any other human being alive is the one thing I can think of crazier than a Mike Pence presidency.

God help us all.

Email Carlton Fletcher at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @ABH_Fletcher.