As the Democrat-controlled House Judiciary Committee has approved its two articles of impeachment against President Trump, I decided to do something too few pundits will, unfortunately, bother with before shooting off tweets or writing up hot takes. I read the actual text of the articles of impeachment. Twice.

I’m walking away utterly unconvinced. I'm not exactly a big fan of Trump, but I just don’t see anything in the Democrats’ case for impeachment that comes even close to meeting the high threshold warranting the removal of a sitting president. To preempt the will of the electorate from being heard in 2020 over the charges described in these articles would be ludicrous.

For all their promises and grandstanding, and despite having had since November 2016 to plan this impeachment, the Democrats have completely failed, in their most important document, to articulate what actual crime the president has committed.

On the very first page of the articles of impeachment, Democrats say they are “impeaching Donald John Trump, President of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors.” But nowhere in the following pages are “high crimes” or “misdemeanors” clearly laid out.

Article one charges that President Trump committed an “abuse of power” in his dealings with Ukraine. The second article alleges that he has “obstructed Congress.” Concerning as it may be, “abusing power” is not itself a crime, although obstruction of Congress can be.

Yet, it’s ridiculous to argue that a president should be tossed out of office for ignoring congressional subpoenas. So, too, it’s mind-boggling to think that launching an impeachment investigation into a president that does not involve an actual crime then becomes impeachable just because the accused doesn’t bend over backwards to comply with the congressional campaign against him. Refusal to comply with subpoenas is a separation of powers issue that comes up quite often, actually. Typically, Congress pursues a remedy in court.

This is a sad joke. It rises nowhere near the level where we could justify upending our democracy and tearing the country apart along partisan seams.

None of this is to say that Trump is innocent. The president did indeed abuse his power by pressuring the Ukrainian president to investigate the Bidens over Hunter Biden's shady, if not illegal, business in Ukraine. Trump was certainly wrong in only releasing congressionally approved aid to Ukraine after he’d been caught leveraging it for political purposes. This is indeed an abuse of presidential power, and it might be worthy of a formal censure.

Yet nowhere in these impeachment articles do Democrats bother to make the case that this presidential misdeed is a “high crime.” Democrats accuse Trump of “compromising national security” and say he “ignored and injured the interests of the Nation.” But that’s an argument they need to make to voters as to why he’s not the best representative of their interests. Bad policy is not a crime, let alone an excuse for preempting an election that Democrats seem afraid they might lose.

Politicians “abuse their power” every day, and it’s an inherently subjective charge. That Trump abused power simply isn’t enough in itself to warrant his removal.

For instance, President Barack Obama flagrantly abused his power by making illegal recess appointments, an act for which he was repudiated by a unanimous Supreme Court that included two of his appointees — nobody considered impeachment as the remedy. He also arguably abused his power by attempting to rewrite immigration laws through executive fiat via the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which sought to protect “Dreamers” who came to the country illegally at a young age. Obama deserved to be rebuked in the courts, and he may soon be , but this didn’t warrant the Democrat getting thrown out of office.

If we start impeaching every president who arguably “abuses” power, an inherently subjective, nonlegal characterization, we will literally end up impeaching every future president. In our hyperpartisan age, members of the opposing party will always think the president is abusing his or her power in one way or another. Setting the precedent that abuses of power are impeachment-worthy is a recipe for tearing the country apart and will only further worsen Washington’s partisan gridlock.

For those who set partisanship and tribal loyalties aside, the proper solution here is clear. In the absence of any a high crime emerging, voters should simply be allowed to decide in November whether they still want Trump as president.