For the past two years, special prosecutor Robert Mueller has been sitting on a political powder keg; in an eight-and-a-half minute statement on Wednesday, he decided to light the fuse. By giving Congress the green light to impeach Donald Trump, he has detonated a political explosion that will continue to rock Washington and the nation for the next decade, and far beyond the 2020 election.

And watching it all, and celebrating it all, will be the men who govern the worst and most oppressive regimes in the world.

Today America confronts a trio of revision powers – Russia, Iran, and above all China – determined to shove America into the shadows. They have joined forces to support the world’s most oppressive and dangerous dictators from North Korea and Syria to Venezuela. Only America has the resources to stop them.

The danger we now face is that an America trapped in a perpetual political crisis, and a chief executive hobbled by a bitter impeachment battle, won’t have the will or strength to prevent this new Axis, like its pre-World War Two predecessor, from creating an authoritarian world order.

MEDIA FLOODED WITH IMPEACHMENT STORIES, DESPITE TEPID BACKING ON CAPITOL HILL

The danger we now face is that an America trapped in a perpetual political crisis, and a chief executive hobbled by a bitter impeachment battle, won’t have the will or strength to prevent this new Axis, like its pre-World War Two predecessor, from creating an authoritarian world order.

The shame is that Mueller could have used his statement on Wednesday to defuse that political crisis. He could have simply said, “Everything we have to say is contained in our report. We had to conclude there’s no evidence of collusion with Russia in the 2016 election; my team, which included top Hillary supporters and leading Trump haters, could find no probable cause to make the case President Trump obstructed justice, either. For our nation’s future, it’s time for all of us to move on, as I have.”

Unfortunately, that sort of nobility of spirit was beyond Bob Mueller. Instead, he took one last swipe at the president he despises, as he urged Congress to continue to look for crimes the facts say didn’t happen – and the law says can’t be proved.

Thanks to Mueller, impeachment by a Democrat-led Congress is almost certain; the defeat of impeachment in the Republican-dominated Senate is just as certain. This process will satisfy no one; it will leave us more divided than ever, with an ever-diminishing faith in our governing institutions to secure justice or to handle a national crisis.

On the world stage, however, this leaves America in a far worse state.

China, in particular, will see America’s weakness as their opportunity to checkmate Trump’s trade and foreign policy initiatives, which are aimed at stopping China’s drive to displace the United States as the world’s superpower. The men in Beijing understand that Trump is the first president in a generation to “get it” about China’s effort to create a new world order that depends on the Chinese economy, Chinese technologies, and China’s grand strategic vision outlined the Communist Party document “Made in China 2025” – in other words, a president who has to be stopped in his tracks.

A weakened Donald Trump will play directly into Beijing’s plans. Even more insidiously, perpetual turmoil in Washington reinforces China’s propagandistic campaign to the world that it, not America, has found the secret to democracy in the 21st century. Beijing routinely touts the so-called China model, i.e. a top-down system where the communist party recruits and rewards an elite drawn from all classes of society while excluding and punishing those who resist the party line, the true “democracy” of the future. Chinese party leaders extol their version of democracy as embodying stability and predictability, compared to the uncertainty and chaos of American democracy – a contrast which we’re managing to confirm.

Now, some believe getting Donald Trump out of office is going to somehow restore faith in our political system, and clean the slate. Others –largely Trump supporters – think exposing the effort by high-level government officials, including in the FBI, to derail Trump’s candidacy and then his presidency, will do the same thing, and allow the president to finally govern in peace.

Both sides think if they win this nightmare will be over. Both are wrong.

Democrats and NeverTrumpers will never stop believing Trump’s election was a swindle and the triumph of bigotry and hate. Trump supporters will continue to believe that impeachment is a swindle, and the triumph of the other side’s lies and corruption.

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Bob Mueller had his moment in the limelight to suggest this head-on collision isn’t the only option for America. He let it pass; he even did his level best to inflame the passions on both sides.

America, not Donald Trump or the NeverTrumpers, is going to be the big loser in what’s coming. And America’s enemies are looking like big winners.

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