Marcus answered this question posed a few days ago by a respondent (“Revelator60” ) at greilmarcus.net. The query was prompted in part by word that historian Sean Wilentz (who testified for Bill Clinton during his impeachment hearings) is now urging Democrats in the House to move against Trump.
I’ve been opposed to impeachment given that there is no chance of conviction—yes, he could shoot people on 5th Avenue and the Senate would consider it a legitimate exercise in the president’s inherent power to take preventive action for national security purposes—and because it would help Trump’s reelection. There is nothing he could do that would cause those who now support him to say, Gosh, he’s a bad guy! He shouldn’t be president! He could hold an orgy with Jeffrey Epstein on the White House lawn with a thousand naked women and his evangelical support would not suffer (men, that might be a harder call). Despite Sean’s arguments I still think impeachment supported only by Democrats, and not all of them, either, could have that effect. Clinton’s impeachment was prima facie illegitimate because it was brought by means of a 98% partisan vote; the charges brought by the House Judiciary Committee against Nixon were legitimate because it was bipartisan, and the Republicans who voted to bring the bill forward were among the most respected and considered lawmakers in the country.
But I have also changed my mind. When actions are taken and speech is made that is an absolute violation of the Constitution and all of those things that surround it and give it meaning—the Declaration of Independence, the law, institutional norms of behavior, traditions of probity, decency, and democratic respect for the people—then those elected representatives of the people who are willing to take on the burden and the risk have a duty to come together and press the case that a violation has occurred. That can only be done through a process of public hearings that move forward without self-aggrandizement. People—such as Sean—will have to come forward to explain how and why Trump’s conduct is an affront to and a purposeful attack on the nation itself and the very idea of republican and democratic values.
I think, at bottom, that the deepest crimes at issue are multiple acts of treason, where he has put his personal, family, or pecuniary interests above those of the country or the people, acting on behalf of foreign powers to benefit or protect himself. That is probably impossible to prove and a hard case to press, and probably shouldn’t be a shirt to wave no matter how much blood is on it. But the Democratic majority should begin hearings, slowly, deliberately, with the goal of finally taking a Constitutional stand that will be entered into the official history of the country: at a certain time, in a certain place, for certain reasons, certain people whose responsibility it was to affirm the oath they had taken to preserve and protect the Constitution of the United States, in a body, as the Constitution made it their responsibility to do so, said no.