Capping months of mind-numbingly repetitive “debates,” the Democrats in the House of Representatives voted on Dec. 17 to impeach President Donald Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The votes on each charge were nearly identical and almost entirely along party lines.

The Democrats’ impeachment case against the despicable Trump regime had nothing to do with what actually makes it despicable. Trump is openly racist, sexist, anti-environment, anti-labor, homophobic, anti-poor, anti-homeless, anti-Palestinian and more. But the Democratic party leaders’ impeachment strategy deliberately ignored all of that and instead revolved around the ludicrous charge that Trump weakened “our national security” by delaying a shipment of anti-tank missiles, sniper rifles, and other military equipment to Ukraine for war against Russia.

No mention was made in the whole impeachment process of immigrant children held in cages, massive attacks on the environment, huge cuts in food stamps, the seven U.S. wars currently underway, the viciously anti-people sanctions on Cuba, Iran, Venezuela, North Korea and many other countries.

Largely lost in the massive mainstream coverage of impeachment was that on Dec. 17, backed by the Democrats’ leadership along with the Republicans and cleared by the House the previous week, a record $738 billion Pentagon budget, larger than the next 10 countries in the world put together, was passed by the Senate and sent on to Trump for signing. It included massive funding for a whole new branch of the military that Trump and the war makers demanded, the Space Force. The aim of the Space Force is to gain nuclear war-fighting superiority, posing a heightened danger to life on Earth.

Even while they fight with each other over who will control the state and governmental apparatus with all the power and wealth that confers, the Democrats and Republicans are united in defense of the Empire.

The overall effect of the impeachment fiasco has been to strengthen the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies politically. Military officers, intelligence agents, and imperialist diplomats have been praised to the skies and presented as heroic “defenders of democracy.”

The neo-con ideology of a new war against Russia has been promoted, and Ukraine, where Obama, Biden and the State Department worked with outright neo-Nazis to overthrow the elected government in 2014, held up as a “democratic ally.”

Now that they have impeached Trump, the Pelosi/Schumer Democrat leadership appears confused about what to do next. The Republican leaders in the Senate, where the actual trial of Trump must take place, have made it clear that they are ready to quickly vote to acquit. Pelosi shocked her supporters by stating, on the day after the House vote, that she might hold off on delivering the impeachment articles to the Senate for as long as a year! Trump himself appears to want to drag out the process, seeing it as helping his re-election campaign.

Impeachment, truly a road to nowhere.

To read a previous article: For the people’s movement, impeachment offers road map to nowhere