American President Donald Trump was acquitted after the Senate voted to acquit him without calling witnesses. It’s an outcome that the White House has pushed for although Democrats and some Republicans too lamented that the impeachment format was broken. It is said that Republicans were themselves afraid of what could happen if Trump was impeached and how he was likely to drag down some of them too. Interestingly some things have gone in Trump’s favour. The job approval numbers are rising. When the impeachment process began in October his Gallup approval rating was 39. Now it’s 49. At this rate Observers believe he could be reelected.
Privately Republicans agree that President Trump is reckless and unfit. They also admit to his congenital lying habits and acknowledge that what he did was wrong on many counts. But the Republican senators still voted against the impeachment. Firstly they claim that calling witnesses would have meant a never-ending trial. Secondly, convicting Trump could lead to the impeachment of every future president. But that is assuming that every future American President will be a Donald Trump who would not mind auctioning off even national security to the highest bidder. So what happens to Trump now? Will he not be emboldened after being acquitted? Republican senators have nothing much to say.
Fortunately for Trump the Democrats too were not very serious about the impeachment. It was not even a topic of discussion among their rank and file. At the end of the day the Republicans gained a moral victory over the Democrats. The approval ratings for the Republican Party is now at 51 percent, its highest since 2005. More Americans now identify as Republicans than as Democrats.
In 2016, Trump’s campaign was fear-driven. His 2016 convention speech was all about crime, violence and menace. Now Trump’s speech revolves around the core question of whether capitalism is basically working or if it is broken. Trump claims the economy is working and has evidence on his side: The unemployment rate is the lowest in decades. Wages are rising. The typical family income is higher than it has ever been and Americans seem to accept this position. The Gallup polls say 59 percent of Americans say they are better off than they were a year ago. In contrast Democrats have congregated around the message that capitalism is fundamentally broken and that the economy is bad.
Democrats can reclaim the White House in a time of rising economic conditions, but they can’t do it by denouncing capitalism and by denying the felt reality of a majority of Americans