On December 18, 2019, the House of Representatives, under the direction of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), voted to impeach President Donald Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The move came after months of inquiry into Trump’s dealings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, stemming from the press leak that a credible whistleblower had filed a complaint over the said dealings. With this inquiry has come a cascade of new information, yet public opinion about whether Trump should be impeached and/or removed from office has remained largely unchanged. Rather than independently making up their minds or changing them as the impeachment process evolves, many voters seem to view impeachment only through the stances taken by their preferred parties, leading them to focus not on the question of Trump’s culpability but on the legitimacy of the impeachment process itself.
When it comes to Trump’s impeachment, there is a strong and consistent partisan divide in public opinion. Since last October, 80 to 85 percent of Democrats have supported removing Trump from office, as compared to about 10 percent of Republicans. This gap correlates with how Democrats and Republicans feel about Trump: as of early December 2019, Trump only had a three percent approval rating among Democrats, while he had an 89 percent approval rating among Republicans. This correlation suggests that party views about Trump are playing a critical role in how people view the impeachment proceedings and the president’s potential removal from office.
Furthermore, the consistency of this partisan divide in public opinion over impeachment indicates that the proceedings themselves have not changed partisans’ minds. A November 19 NPR poll found that “65 [percent] of Americans say they can’t imagine any information or circumstances during the impeachment inquiry where they might change their minds about their position on impeachment.” As partisan viewpoints about impeachment were formed before the public hearings began, it seems that Americans are now relying heavily on their political predispositions and preferred party leaders’ stances to shape their perspectives.
This consistent partisan divide reflects how the impeachment inquiry represents far more than a mere investigation; rather, it represents a political spectacle, fueled largely by President Trump’s efforts to discredit accusations about his potentially illegal conduct. Last November, he tweeted that the investigation was just “another Democrat Hoax” — representing one tweet of many that has shaped the public debate about impeachment. Calling the investigation a partisan-driven hoax calls into question its legitimacy. The legitimacy of the impeachment inquiry has become the main focus, distracting people from making an informed decision on the legality of the president’s conduct.
House and Senate Republicans feed into Trump’s claims that the impeachment process is illegitimate through their own partisan rhetoric. During the impeachment debate, Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) argued that Democrats “decided that the only way… [the] President doesn’t get elected again is to impeach him.” In the wake of House Democrats impeaching Trump, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) deemed the decision reflected no more than “partisan passions.” Both sentiments demonstrate that Republicans are pushing the narrative that the impeachment is a political attack by the Democrats, augmenting and seemingly legitimizing Trump’s largely unsubstantiated and hotly contested claims. By putting up a united front behind Trump, Republicans are better able to defend him.
Across the aisle, Democrats are pushing back against the Republican narrative, claiming that the impeachment trial is legitimate and necessary. Speaker Pelosi summed up House Democrats’ position when she opened the debate on impeachment, remarking that as members of Congress, all Representatives were “custodians of the Constitution” and that it was “tragic that the president’s reckless actions make impeachment necessary.” She concluded her address by telling her fellow Representatives that they were there “to defend democracy for the people.” As Democrats feel that Trump’s actions violated the Constitution, not impeaching him would represent a blow to the democratic process itself in their eyes. By emphasizing that impeachment is a necessary evil, stressing their impartiality, and upholding the legitimacy of the investigation, Democrats promote the idea that they are not impeaching Trump because they do not like him, but rather because he violated the law.
These different stances of the two parties on the nature of the impeachment proceedings have fueled divisions in public opinion: when the trial is legitimate for one party and illegitimate for the other, it is difficult for Democrats and Republicans to convince members of the opposite party that their side is correct. Furthermore, as Trump’s approval rating among voters is deeply divided along party lines, it is easier for partisans to let their feelings about Trump as a president and person influence their feelings about the trial. If Republicans follow the views of their representatives, they are unlikely to support removing Trump — the trial itself seems to them like a partisan attack on a well-liked president. If Democrats follow the views of their representatives, they are likely to support removing Trump — the trial seems to them like a necessary check on an unpopular president. As a result, analyzing Trump’s conduct takes a back seat to the question of whether or not he should be on trial at all.
As attention shifts to Trump’s trial in January, the Republican-majority Senate is likely to vote to keep Trump in office. McConnell has gone so far as to say that he will work “in total coordination with the White House counsel” around organizing the trial, raising public concerns around the impartiality of the process. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Ala.) has notably come out and said that she was “disturbed” by such an admission, but her Republican colleagues have stood by McConnell, suggesting that the current Republican narrative of Trump’s victimization by the Democrats will remain salient until the trial’s end. With the nation’s leaders unable to find common ground, moreover, the trial will likely end without resolving the greater partisan divide it represents, potentially shaping voters’ minds as they cast their ballots for the presidency and Congress in 2020.
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