To impeach or not?

In a recent post that surveyed the various ways that President Trump courteously could be shown the White House door (presumably accompanied by polite expressions of the wish that it not slam him in the backside on the way out), I expressed the opinion that impeachment was a non-starter.  My reasoning was practical: there is no chance that it would succeed, so long as Republicans hold the Senate.

But in Commonweal, Rand Richards Cooper does a deeper dive on the question, Should the president be impeached? 

After a comprehensive survey of serious and responsible arguments that have been offered by Democrats and progressives, in and out of government, on both sides of the issue, he offers his personal views:

Yet while Trump may be supremely impeachable, that doesn’t mean it should happen. There are problems on either side. The arguments against impeachment were put forward succinctly by political scientist Greg Weiner in an op-ed last year. Anticipating a Democratic takeover of the House, Weiner called for “the kind of political judgment concerned with the public good, not with gaining electoral advantage” and appealed to Congress to treat impeachment “with a gravity that will reconcile the public, including Mr. Trump’s base and his most intense critics, to the answers.” Good luck with that. The problem with Weiner’s logic is that it makes Trump permanently unimpeachable, since his supporters will likely never be reconciled. Yet I agree with his implicit point—namely, that whether successful or not, if the attempt to remove Trump proves a 100 percent partisan effort, it will seal a capsule of toxic resentment—a big one—within the body politic that could further poison our society for decades to come.

I highly recommend the article.  A lot of food for thought.  As I mentioned in my own recent post, I end up where it seems Cooper does: the ballot box is the best remedy for the Trump presidency.