Of course, the Democrats were not going to create an irresistible political tide that would get enough Republican senators to vote to oust Trump with that "obstruction of justice" issue, and they knew it. The chance of that was effectively zero.
The odds on that are now changing significantly. What happened to change the impeachment calculus? That might move enough Republicans?
The answer is nothing that's in the Ukrainegate smokingburger, which replaced the obstruction-of-justice smokingburger, which replaced the Russiagate smokingburger. Interpretations of the Zelensky phone call are just that-interpretations. Stipulate the worst: Trump tried to wheedle some personal political benefit from a foreign leader . Shocked! Shocked! Are we?
Really? Does anybody think that, if we read through the transcripts of every conversation between US presidents and foreign leaders over the last fifty years, we wouldn't find scores of such transactions? And, uh, Hunter Biden, not to mention the Clinton campaign and Foundation. The Republicans can bat that phone call away, and they will face no political groundswell among their voters, or even the general public, to take sides in a family feud among different corrupt factions of a corrupt political elite.
To say nothing of the most outrageous examples of using foreign leaders to political advantage. Richard Nixon conspired with the leaders of South Vietnam to prolong the Vietnam War, and LBJ knew it. Ronald Reagan conspired with the leaders of Iran to prolong the confinement of American hostages, and a bipartisan commission covered it up. But they weren't presidents at the time? Really, that's an argument for dismissing these cases? What do you think these guys did when they were presidents? No, Nancy, now that I'm president I cannot seek a political benefit from a foreign leader! And why were these cases ignored and actively covered up, except because they were considered-even if a little extreme-SOP in US politics?
The success of the Democrats' impeachment drive depends on one thing: getting enough Republican senators to vote for conviction. No, nothing in the Trump-Zelensky phone call or anything like it is going to move Republicans to temper their defenses against the Democratic onslaught, let alone move enough of them in the Senate to vote to remove him from office.
If Republicans do stop defending him against that, it will be because they have become radically disafnfected with him about something else.
That something else is real, though it probably will not be explicitly stated in impeachment charges. It's the simmering bipartisan concern about Trump that has been brought to a boil by recent series of events and decisions: his unreliability as a trigger-puller, his aversion to ordering big military attacks. This is certainly a damning fault in the eyes of most Republicans (as well as Democrats), a disqualifying failure or responsibility from the warden of the US empire. That's the impeachable offense that could well get enough Republican votes to convict him.
During the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump expressed his opposition to wasteful foreign interventions clearly and repeatedly enough, and was skewered by the Democrats whenever he did, as they promoted lies and war and lies about war (specifically about Ukraine, as I noted) for their political benefit.
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