Play out

How impeachment will play out in a divided America

Opinion by Thomas E. Patterson

House Democrats are moving ahead with the impeachment inquiry despite lingering concerns that the effort may backfire and work to President Donald Trump's political advantage. Recent opinion polls showing an increase in support for impeachment suggest that such concerns are misplaced -- even if the polling doesn't yet indicate a groundswell.

The Watergate hearings and the impeachment hearings against President Bill Clinton are imperfect guides to what we can expect from the Trump hearings. We are now in an era when Republicans and Democrats differ in their versions of reality much more deeply than ever before. This divide is likely to dampen the impact of the hearings.

Trump's approval ratings have stayed within the narrow range of the high 30s to the low 40s, and there's no firm reason to believe that the impeachment inquiry will radically alter this pattern.

When Congress initiated the Watergate hearings in 1973, the public was slow to respond. There was a modest jump in support for Nixon's impeachment when the hearings were first announced, but the rise then slowed, and a year later support for impeachment was still far short of a majority. Not until the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Nixon had to turn over incriminating Oval Office audio tapes did a majority of the country come to favor his removal from office.

That was an era when partisanship was relatively weak, and when Americans generally shared a common version of the news. Neither of those conditions exists today. We are polarized in our partisanship, and many of us rely on information sources that tell us what we'd like to hear.

The Clinton impeachment hearings came toward the end of a decade when our partisanship and media habits were beginning to change, and those hearings are therefore more predictive of what we can expect this time. Conventional wisdom holds that the Clinton hearings backfired on congressional Republicans, and it's true that Clinton's approval rating rose over the course of the inquiry. But those numbers had already been on the rise, tracking upward with the tech-driven boom in the economy.

On the core question of whether Clinton should be convicted, there was no change in public opinion over the course of the inquiry. According to polls, two-thirds of Americans opposed Clinton's removal from office when House Republicans launched their impeachment inquiry. Months later, when the House passed two articles of impeachment, polls found that an identical number of Americans — two out of three — thought Clinton should remain in office.

The factors that slowed any real movement in Americans' opinions during the Clinton hearings are substantially stronger today. The partisan divide between Republicans and Democrats, as measured by how far apart they are on the average policy issue, has more than doubled since the 1990s. During the same period, a right-wing information system, anchored by Fox News, has emerged to promote an alternative version of reality.

Republicans and Democrats these days reside on different planets -- a circumstance illustrated vividly by most Democrats' belief that the climate is changing because of human activity, and by most Republicans' rejection of that idea.

Thus, Democrats and Republicans will bring to the impeachment inquiry the different versions of reality that defined their responses to the Mueller investigation, and that neutered its effect on public opinion. By the end of Mueller's inquiry, polls indicated that most Republicans believed the investigation had exonerated Trump, whereas most Democrats concluded it had not.

So which party will gain an advantage from the House impeachments hearings? The Democrats are the likely winners. In the history of public opinion polling, no party has retained the presidency when its incumbent's approval rating was less than 50 percent. Trump's rating today is between the high 30s and low 40s. If public opinion in November 2020 is the same as it is today, Democrats should breeze to victory in the presidential race.

Without exception since World War II, the party in control of the presidency has retained it in the next election when the economy is strong. If Trump had the governing style of Ronald Reagan, Democrats would likely lose the 2020 election by a wide margin. Yet Trump's inability to restrain himself has made him, rather than the economy, the central political issue of the upcoming election -- and it could enable the Democrats to upend history.

A separate question is whether the impeachment inquiry will serve the interests of the nation. From one perspective, the answer is obvious. If, as alleged, Trump has trampled on the rule of law, then the integrity of our political system requires that he be held to account. Democracy erodes when laws and norms are violated with impunity. Trump has denied any wrongdoing.

Yet the impeachment inquiry will increase the cost that our partisan wars have imposed on the nation in recent years. Vital policy problems, everything from the nation's crumbling infrastructure to its chaotic immigration system, have been swept to the side because of the parties' inability to find common ground.

The impeachment hearings will drive the parties further apart, delaying yet further the urgent business of governing.