Let’s check in first with where the White House was last week: Trump told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos that as he’s gearing up his reelection efforts he would be happy to listen to foreign governments if they came to him bearing dirt on his political opponents.

For several months now, congressional Democratic leaders have resisted the growing calls to impeach Donald Trump by insisting that the ultimate accountability for the president should come at the ballot box in 2020.

Days later, Trump dismissed a call by the Office of Special Counsel (no not that one) to fire White House adviser Kellynnne Conway for repeatedly violating the Hatch Act, which forbids government employees from participating in political campaigns.


All this is the White House’s way of saying, “Yeah, let’s settle this whole impeachment issue in 2020, but keep in mind, we plan to cheat.”

For those holding out hope that congressional Republicans would say that Trump has gone too far — clearly, congressional Republicans will never do that.

Not only did few members of the GOP caucus criticize Trump’s statements about foreign interference, some actually endorsed his position. Take, for example, Representative Chris Stewart of Utah, who argued that since “there might be valuable information that comes from one of our allies . . . it would be foolish not to take that information.” Amazingly, Stewart is a member of the House Intelligence Committee.

So in just a few months the GOP talking points have gone from “no collusion” to “you’d have to be an idiot not to collude.”

Meanwhile in the Senate, majority leader Mitch McConnell is blocking every legislative effort to safeguard the 2020 election from foreign interference. This includes anodyne measures like providing states and local government with $1 billion to strengthen voting systems against foreign intrusion, incentivizing the use of paper ballots, or simply tasking the Department of Homeland Security with developing a strategy for stopping such meddling.


These are measures that have broad popular support, but McConnell and his fellow congressional Republicans remain unmoved. It doesn’t take a deeply conspiratorial mindset to conclude that their opposition is rooted in the fact that foreign interference helped Trump and the GOP in 2016 — and it can help again in 2020.

Of course, ongoing efforts in red state America to limit voting access or in places like Tennessee to criminalize registration drives, are continuing. In Florida last November, two-thirds of the state’s voters supported a constitutional amendment that would allow former felons to vote. The GOP-controlled legislature cratered the measure by, in effect, adding a poll tax to it.

Yet, with all this happening, Democrats are still holding dear to the notion that the best means for holding Trump accountable is at the ballot box.

Never mind that his core group of supporters are immune to the facts about his law-breaking and that few Americans have read the Mueller report or paid close attention to its conclusions. From nearly every available piece of evidence it is clear that the GOP, with Trump leading the charge, is willing to violate every norm, all the while cheating, lying, and stealing to keep hold of the White House in 2020.

That’s not even taking into account Trump’s increasingly troubling statements that any poll showing him losing is “fake news” and his Twitter musing that “the people would demand that I stay longer” after his term is up. The possibility that Trump will disregard a losing outcome in 2020 and refuse to leave office is something that we increasingly need to contemplate.


It’s true that impeachment won’t necessarily stop Trump and the GOP’s efforts to win by any means in 2020.

But that doesn’t mean impeachment can’t serve as critical tool for educating the public on his law-breaking, corruption and collusion with the Russians in 2016 — detailed in the Mueller Report — while forcing GOP members of Congress to go on the record about Trump’s actions. Indeed, Trump’s reluctance to hold Russia responsible for its interference in the 2016 election (or even acknowledge its role) and to harden America’s defenses against another incursion should be an element of the impeachment argument against him. At the least, Democrats should be spending every day trying to pressure Republicans to pass these election security measures — not just because it’s good for the country, but as a measure of self-preservation.

The impulse to see the voters as the ultimate backstop to an authoritarian and law-breaking president is understandable. It is rooted in American mythology about the sanctity of our elections and the supposedly good judgment of voters. But when an American president — and his congressional enablers — have shown repeatedly that they will cheat and lie to win an election, it’s time to consider other measures. Believing that another election will close the book on Trump’s law-breaking and ensure that he and his party are held accountable for their actions is not just dubious politics, it’s downright delusional.


Michael A. Cohen’s column appears regularly in the Globe. Follow him on Twitter @speechboy71.