Impeachment is about the worst thing that can happen to a US president — unless that president is Donald Trump.
There is no question that having that historic asterisk as only the third US president ever impeached would hurt him personally.
More than any other occupant of the White House, the real-estate developer and reality TV performer obsesses over his image. Trump’s name and patina of glitzy success is literally a brand he sells for millions of dollars worldwide.
However, it is equally true that the Republican adores a good fight and impeachment is the Olympics of Washington brawling.
“This moment is [perfect] for a person like him,” Quinnipiac University communications professor Rich Hanley said.
Democrats in the US House of Representatives are expected to vote to impeach Trump, probably tomorrow. Then, as the president knows all too well, the Republican Party, which controls the US Senate, would vote to acquit.
The outcome is likely to be as preordained as one of those absurd WWE wrestling bouts that Trump has always loved.
Which makes a perfect setup for the showman-in-chief.
First, he gets to demonize opponents, throwing around words like “treason,” “crook,” “crazy” and “sick.” Then he declares victory and turns the entire thing into an ad for his re-election campaign.
“He’s already seen the narrative arc of this particular episode of the Trump show,” Hanley said.
From Andrew Johnson, who got impeached in 1868, no US president has exactly enjoyed the notoriety.
Former US president Richard Nixon resigned over the Watergate affair just before he could be impeached, while former US president Bill Clinton fought bitterly to avoid being convicted by the Senate in 1999.
However, Trump, a veteran of scandals, comes into the ordeal uniquely ready.
After all, he has already ridden out allegations of sexual assault and other misconduct by two dozen women over the years.
He has withstood a two-year probe by a special prosecutor into whether he was wittingly or unwittingly getting election help from Russian agents.
He has brushed off accusations of using his office to benefit his real-estate empire, including billeting US Air Force personnel at his Scottish golf course and US Vice President Mike Pence at his Irish resort.
On a daily basis he crudely insults opponents, swears in public and tells so many lies and exaggerations that fact-checkers can barely keep up.
The list goes on.
As Trump said in 2016: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters.”
The Clinton impeachment stemming from his affair with a White House intern was famously nasty — a televised horror show that forever stained the popular Democrat’s reputation.
However, those days seem almost quaint alongside a Trump version supercharged by Twitter, politicized rival TV coverage and a president eager to star in, produce and direct his own drama.
Far from hunkering down, Trump holds rallies to whip his base into a frenzy over the “witch hunt.” He tweets his outrage dozens of times each day — sometimes more than a 100.
“Nixon and Clinton largely stayed out of it. Trump has thrust himself into the middle of it repeatedly,” American University distinguished professor of history Allan Lichtman said. “He absolutely owns it.”
It is a high-risk, high-gain tactic that fits in with Trump’s entire upending of Washington.
Having “shattered” every other norm, Trump is now doing the same to impeachment, Lichtman said, presenting the Republican Party no other option than to defend him all the way.
“The real reason Republicans have to defend Donald Trump is that the only thing they’re left with is Donald Trump,” Lichtman said.
Washington might be in chaos, but “Teflon Trump” is thriving.
The latest poll, from Quinnipiac, showed him with a 43 percent job approval rating. Even if that is the worst score for a president at this stage of an administration in many decades, it is Trump’s personal best.
“It’s a very sad thing for our country,” Trump said last week. “But it seems to be very good for me politically.”
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