Trump’s angry, bizarre, self-defeating impeachment strategy

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/10/03/trumps-angry-bizarre-self-defeating-impeachment-strategy/

Thursday morning brought a remarkable development in the Trump impeachment saga: While the president stands to be impeached for using the power of his office to pressure a foreign government to investigate one of his political opponents, he is responding to the crisis by — wait for it — using the power of his office to pressure a foreign government to investigate one of his political opponents.

“China should start an investigation into the Bidens, because what happened in China is just about as bad as what happened with Ukraine,” Trump told reporters. His allegations about Joe Biden’s son and China are, you’ll be surprised to hear, as utterly bogus as pretty much everything else he learns from trolling right-wing conspiracy theory sites.

China is obviously not the same as Ukraine; they aren’t dependent on us for weapons and protection, so they’re likely to just laugh this request off. Nevertheless, Trump’s bizarre plea shows just how blinkered his view of this whole scandal is.

His strategy — if you can call it that — has quickly come into focus. That strategy is, like so much of what we have seen over the last three years, an unfiltered expression of the man himself. And a look back at the last time we went through impeachment offers such a stark contrast that it illuminates how our politics have changed and how unique Trump really is.