I don’t think the Democratic Party wants to remove Donald Trump from the Oval Office anymore. If they did, there’s just no way this impeachment strategy they’re chugging along with would be the plan. Why on Earth are they doing this? It’s going to blow up in their collective faces so dramatically.

Remember: When you’re betting on politics , the only thing worth caring about is the probabilities of various outcomes occurring. It’s not about what you believe is right or wrong, or what you’d like to see happen. In this article, I’m in no way defending Donald Trump or saying that he doesn’t deserve to be impeached. I’m arguing that strategically, it’s a wrong move for the Democrats if they at all care about winning the White House in 2020.

This week has been more of the same, with expert witnesses passionately making the case to impeach the President – seemingly completely unaware or unbothered by how futile their efforts genuinely are. Fortunately, for those of us who enjoy wagering on politics, all of this bluster will add value to some already fairly generous betting lines.

Will Donald Trump Be Impeached and Removed Before the 2020 Elections? Market Odds

Yes +185

No -265

As you can see, the bookmakers at Xbet are aware that Trump isn’t going anywhere – at least not via the impeachment process. And while –265 is a relatively steep price to pay, I’d argue that betting on the favorite in this case is worth the risk. Hell, you might even consider it generous once you calculate what the Democrats would need to overcome to get the President removed from office successfully.

Thus far, not a single Republican has broken rank on impeachment – and the Democrats can’t remove Trump from office without convincing at least 20 GOP Senators to do just that once this trial takes place.

Why on Earth would any of the strategists on the left have any confidence that those numbers will change? Do they believe they can shame their right-wing counterparts into betraying their party loyalties?

Democratic candidate Andrew Yang went on the Useful Idiots podcast and explained it perfectly:

“I’m pro-impeachment, but this is going to be a loser. Not a single Republican has given any indication that they’re in fact-finding mode. They’re all in defend-the-president mode. You need literally dozens of Republican senators to switch sides when the trial starts, which we’ve gotten zero indication is going to happen. The more this drags on, the more danger there is of two things: Number one, Donald Trump comes out of this and is vindicated, totally exonerated. Number two, we are wasting precious time where we should be creating a positive vision that Americans are excited about solving the problems that got Donald Trump elected, and beat him in 2020. If all that happens is all of the Democrats are talking about impeachment that fails, then it seems like there is no vision. It seems like all we can do is throw ineffective rocks at Donald Trump, and then it ends up leading unfortunately toward his reelection.”

This is where things get interesting from a betting perspective. Sure, you can wager on the impeachment results themselves, but this trial is going to have enormous implications for the 2020 election. Based on what I’m seeing, it’s as if the Democrats are doing everything in their power to ensure Donald Trump’s reelection.

I recently wrote an article in which I predicted that the Democrats would decide not to impeach for these very reasons. There’s more to gain from using the hearings to rile up their supporters and then leaving it to the American public to decide next November. Maybe blame GOP leadership and admit that impeaching is pointless if they know they won’t have the votes in the Senate anyway.

Yet, they seem to be moving full steam ahead with this outrageously bad strategy nonetheless. Yang touched on this in the conversation with Matt Taibbi as well:

Matt Taibbi: “After 2016, the first thought I had was, ‘Well, this is going to inspire a rethink in the Democratic Party. They’re going to re-argue their case. They’re going to find a way to tell people how they’re going to fix the problems of ordinary people across America.’ : “After 2016, the first thought I had was, ‘Well, this is going to inspire a rethink in the Democratic Party. They’re going to re-argue their case. They’re going to find a way to tell people how they’re going to fix the problems of ordinary people across America.’ Immediately they point to Russiagate, now impeachment….They’re focusing on this thing that, to a lot of people, is an internecine phenomenon, a Washington drama.” Andrew Yang: “Unfortunately, Matt, my team and I have been part of some of the planning sessions, and that’s not changing. Their take on it is, we argued against Trump wrong last time — this time we’re going to really stick it to him by talking about this. You’re like, ‘Oh, my gosh. We’ve learned nothing.'”

What is There to Gain?

The Democrats have put themselves into a corner – there’s no real way forward for them that ends with a positive outcome.

1) They could cut their losses now and vote not to impeach, and maybe win the PR war by blaming the Republican Senators and their inevitable decision to acquit the President, but that gives lots of ammunition to the other side as well. Trump will boast that it’s proof that the Dems never had anything real in the first place, and undecided voters and independents will likely resent the DNC for wasting everyone’s time.

2) They could move ahead with impeachment and hand over control of this whole process to the GOP-controlled Senate. With the inquiry hearings, the Democrats got to call the shots and largely control what the public got to hear. In the Senate, they’ll be allowing Republicans to force people like Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, and the Ukraine whistleblower to testify publicly.

All they have to do is use the opportunity to make the Dems case look bad. Even if the GOP Senators frame their questions to the witnesses in an intellectually dishonest way, it doesn’t matter because the trial ends with a vote to acquit the President either way. And now, once again – Trump gets to parade around as an “innocent man,” and the DNC probably loses one of their leading presidential candidates (more on this soon).

3) The Democrats could decide to impeach and miraculously convince 20 Republican Senators to break party lines and vote to remove Trump from office. It doesn’t seem so far-fetched to assume the President isn’t all that popular among his fellow party members behind closed doors. Well, here’s why that’s nothing more than a DNC pipe dream.

The numbers show that this entire impeachment process has done absolutely nothing to change anybody’s mind about anything. The only way the Democrats were going to be able to flip those votes was if Republican voters were so supportive of impeachment that it would cost GOP politicians their spot in the Senate not to remove Trump. The opposite is true.

Perry Bacon Jr from FiveThirtyEight points out:

“With no evidence of a public backlash, congressional Democrats seem to be leaning fully into impeachment. At the same time, congressional Republican opposition has not softened, as GOP members see polls showing their rank and file strongly behind Trump. Perhaps the most telling moment of the two weeks of public hearings came not from the officials testifying but from Rep. Will Hurd of Texas, a fairly moderate Republican and occasional Trump critic who is not running for reelection next year. Hurd, who heard all of the testimony up close as a member of the House Intelligence Committee, declared that he would not support impeachment before the hearings had officially concluded. If Hurd isn’t going to break with Trump (and isn’t bothering to even really consider the decision), I think it’s safe to assume very few, if not zero, House Republicans will support impeachment.”

How Will This Backfire?

Beyond looking stupid and wasting the country’s time on yet another failed Donald Trump scandal, the Senate trial will also severely damage the field of Democratic presidential candidates for 2020.

Democratic Candidates Affected

Joe Biden – The former Vice President will be called to testify and forced to respond to accusatory questions about his son’s involvement with Burisma, a Ukrainian natural gas company, and whether Hunter was placed on the board to incur favors from the US government.

Sure, the media has already tried to say these are “Russian talking points,” which is used to conveniently disregard any information that Democrats don’t like these days, but he’ll still be forced to answer them. Have you seen how Joe Biden has been performing recently?

How about the video of Joe fighting with a man at an Iowa town hall over this very issue? He immediately lost his cool, called the guy “fat,” and challenged him to a push-up contest. Can you imagine the meltdown on a bigger stage during the trial?

The Senate will also be calling Hunter Biden to testify. If you’ve ever read up on him, you already know how that’s going to go.

Here are a few highlights from his resume:

hooked up with his deceased brother’s widow (while cheating on his then-wife),

was kicked out of the Navy Reserve for testing positive for cocaine,

according to his ex-wife spent over $120,000 in two months on “drugs, alcohol, prostitutes, strip clubs, and gifts for women with whom he has sexual relations.”

You can kind of see why some people raised their eyebrows at a guy like that being selected for the board of a Ukrainian energy company. I’m beginning to wonder if people attack the messenger and bring up “the Kremlin” when it’s more convenient than attempting to dispute the facts. I anxiously await hearing his testimony.

Bernie Sanders – Bernie will be forced to be in Washington DC for this whole show, costing him valuable time on the road when he should be campaigning. The trial will likely take place just before the first few primaries. Pundits have mentioned that Republican Senators are incentivized to drag the proceedings along as slowly as possible to deal maximum damage to Democrats. Senator Sanders polls better against Trump than any other DNC candidate, so this trial is a coup for them.

Elizabeth Warren – Also a Senator, Warren will be tied up during this trial as well. That’s two progressive candidates among the top of the primary field forced to waste precious time – all for an impeachment trial for which we all already know the final result!

I should note that I know Cory Booker is a Senator as well – I’m just not sure he’ll still be a candidate by the time the trial happens. He’s struggling to build enough support to participate in the next Democratic debate and will likely run out of money and announce his departure sooner than later. He’ll still be a valued potential choice for Vice President if a moderate wins the nomination.

So, if you’re keeping score at home – that’s one presidential frontrunner wiped out either by details of his corruption coming to light, his inevitable humiliation during witness testimonies, or his dufus kid; two leading DNC candidates forced off the campaign trail at the worst time imaginable for what’s essentially a predetermined outcome; and one incumbent President reaping all of the rewards.

Like Don King used to say, “Only in America!”

Misdirection?

Wait a minute…let’s revisit that list of Democratic candidates who will be forced to take a break from campaigning in order to sit through the Senate’s impeachment trial. What do we know about how this will play out and who will ultimately benefit?

We know that this trial will do nothing to hurt Trump since he’s getting acquitted no matter what.

We know – based on the daily videos of his bizarre conflicts and fights with supporters – that Joe Biden isn’t going to handle being grilled by GOP Senators very well and will almost assuredly meltdown in some way that will finally tank his campaign. Watch how he handles being questioned about his son’s business dealings in Ukraine.

We know that the two most prominent progressive candidates in the field will be stuck at this Senate trial just as the primaries are getting started.

Because I’m desperately trying to look for any logic behind these moves other than Democratic strategists being moronic – and since I’m half-a-conspiracy-theorist most of the time – I wonder if there’s a hidden motivation at play here.

It’s become glaringly obvious that the DNC and mainstream media are desperately trying to prevent any of the progressive outsider candidates from winning. The efforts that they’ve gone to ignore or discredit Bernie Sanders, Tulsi Gabbard, and Andrew Yang are comical in their blatancy.

While everyone is focused on Donald Trump and Ukraine, could this trial be serving another purpose? For however long it lasts, only the non-Senatorial candidates will be free to hit the road and campaign like normal. That’s Pete Buttigieg, Andrew Yang, Tulsi Gabbard, Michael Bloomberg, and a few others.

We know the DNC isn’t scheming to assist Tulsi and Andrew, but what about the others? Maybe this period will be when Hillary Clinton finally jumps in the race.

Or maybe I’m just giving them way too much credit, and it’s far easier for stupid people to ascend to positions of power than any of us ever realized. All I can do now is enjoy the train wreck and do my best to profit off it.

Here are my favorite bets associated with this whole charade: