Before he jacked up inflation & lost a war, most Americans wanted to impeach Trump

The People Have Had Enough

A new poll tells us that fifty-two percent of American voters—a majority, mind you, not a plurality or a rounding error—support impeaching President Donald Trump just fourteen months into his term.

That is not the slow burn of a man who has gradually disappointed his constituents.

That is the speed of a train derailing before the conductor has finished collecting tickets, and the survey was conducted before the neo-fascist Republican lost a war he started that sent prices soaring.

Let us be clear about what this means.

In the long and colorful history of this republic, we have seen presidents impeached for corruption, for obstruction, for the kind of backroom scheming that would make a riverboat gambler blush. But never—never—has a president faced this level of public support for removal so early in his term.

The founders, in their wisdom, imagined impeachment as a lifeboat for extraordinary circumstances.

They did not imagine it as a biannual ritual, and yet here we are, watching a despot behave as though the Constitution were a suggestion.

The numbers tell a story that requires no editorial embroidery.

Fifty-five percent of independents support impeachment. That is not the Democratic machine grinding its ax. That is the fellow who just wants to grill on Sundays and get the trash to the curb on time.

When independents—those hardy souls who claim allegiance to no tribe save common sense—break for impeachment by a margin of fifty-five to thirty-four, something has gone profoundly wrong.

And what has provoked this extraordinary verdict? The articles of impeachment under consideration focus on the president’s threats to execute members of Congress and his intimidation of federal judges.

Let us pause to let that sink in. We are not talking about parking tickets or even influence peddling.

We are talking about a president threatening to kill legislators and bully jurists. If a neighbor did that, you would call the authorities. If a boss did that, you would call a lawyer. But because the man occupies a particular house on a particular street in Washington, we are supposed to furrow our brows and debate process.

Eighty-four percent of Democrats support impeachment. That is predictable, like the sun rising in the east.

But fourteen percent of Republicans also support it. That is the canary in the coal mine.

That is one in seven members of a party looking at their own standard-bearer and quietly reaching for the emergency brake.

When one in seven of your own voters says enough, the ship has more than a leak. It is actively taking on water from a hole the captain himself is widening.

Now, forty percent of Americans oppose impeachment. Let us not dismiss them.

They have their reasons, or at least their rationalizations. Some believe in loyalty above all else. Some have convinced themselves that the threats are just talk, the bluster of a showman who would never actually do the terrible things he says.

Some simply cannot abide the chaos of another impeachment trial, as though stability were achieved by pretending a fire is not burning.

To them, one might gently observe that the poll also found intensity high on both sides—forty-six percent strongly support impeachment, thirty-seven percent strongly oppose. That is not the ambivalence of a nation at peace.

That is the sound of a family arguing at Thanksgiving, except the turkey is controlling the nuclear codes.

One million Americans have signed a petition urging Congress to act. One million. That is not a fringe movement.

That is a small city of people who have taken time from their lives to say, in writing, that this cannot stand.

Yet Congress, that august body of deliberative delay, has so far mustered only 140 members to vote for impeachment.

That number represents a seventy-seven percent increase from the previous vote, which is encouraging until you remember that seventy-seven percent of a very small number is still a very small number.

The absurdity here is almost too rich to be believed. The president threatens to execute lawmakers, intimidates judges, and the national conversation becomes about timing and polls and political calculus.

Meanwhile, the people—the actual people, the ones who dig ditches and teach school and drive trucks—have already made up their minds. Fifty-two percent of them say do something. And what does Washington do? It commissions another poll.

The great lesson of history, which we seem destined to learn and forget and learn again, is that republics do not fall because of foreign armies.

They fall because decent people convince themselves that the emergency is not quite urgent enough, that the fire is not quite hot enough, that the man with the match is just kidding around.

Fourteen months into a term, a majority of voters want the president out. That is not a political development. That is a verdict.

The only question now is whether the jury in Congress will have the courage to read it aloud.

The national poll was conducted by Lake Research Partners and commissioned by Free Speech For People.

View the topline results here.

View the poll memo here.

View the poll briefing slides here.