Don­ald Trump’s abrupt fir­ing of an FBI direc­tor who was lead­ing the inves­ti­ga­tion of the Trump campaign’s pos­si­ble col­lu­sion with Rus­sia has sparked a new flur­ry of calls for impeachment.

Impeachment would help restore the damaged Republican brand.

The impulse is under­stand­able. Comey’s fir­ing is just the lat­est in a litany of out­ra­geous behav­ior that’s shred­ding the cred­i­bil­i­ty of the pres­i­den­cy: from the finan­cial con­flicts of inter­est to the patho­log­i­cal lying to the author­i­tar­i­an attacks on the judi­cial branch and the press.

But out­rage aside, we must keep one thing in mind: how pro­gres­sives and Democ­rats approach impeach­ment could shape our democ­ra­cy and the domes­tic polit­i­cal land­scape for a gen­er­a­tion. We must focus on what is best for the Amer­i­can peo­ple, not on what is worst for our so-called pres­i­dent. I believe it would be a major strate­gic blun­der for the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty to fall for what I call the Impeach­ment Trap — the pow­er­ful temp­ta­tion to lead the charge for impeach­ment with­out con­sid­er­ing the strate­gic implications.

Since nei­ther impeach­ment in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives nor con­vic­tion in the Sen­ate are pos­si­ble with­out Repub­li­can votes, it is a waste of time and ener­gy for Democ­rats to pro­mote impeach­ment in the absence of any Repub­li­can sup­port. I am most con­cerned about the sce­nario where one or more lead­ing Repub­li­cans come on board and entice Democ­rats to lead a suc­cess­ful impeachment.

The sim­ple major­i­ty nec­es­sary to impeach in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, as well as the two-thirds major­i­ty that is required to con­vict in the Sen­ate, can be achieved with the sup­port of most or all Democ­rats and a minor­i­ty of Repub­li­cans. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, this sce­nario would offer enor­mous polit­i­cal ben­e­fits to the Republicans.

If Trump were impeached and con­vict­ed, Vice Pres­i­dent Mike Pence, a right-wing, evan­gel­i­cal ide­o­logue, would be a much more reli­able and com­pe­tent rub­ber stamp for the con­ser­v­a­tive pol­i­cy agen­da. Trump, for all his fail­ings, can­not be count­ed on to sup­port con­ser­v­a­tive Repub­li­can ortho­doxy. While his cab­i­net picks and ear­ly pol­i­cy pro­pos­als have large­ly catered to right-wing ide­ol­o­gy, his pol­i­cy flip-flops and incom­pe­tence make him a very unre­li­able part­ner for con­gres­sion­al Repub­li­cans. In par­tic­u­lar, his posi­tions on Rus­sia, trade, enti­tle­ments, and deficits are anti­thet­i­cal to Repub­li­can dog­ma, and recent­ly Trump even applaud­ed Australia’s sin­gle pay­er health care sys­tem. And thus far, most of his attacks on immi­grants and Mus­lim refugees have been turned aside by a wall of pub­lic out­rage and judi­cial rul­ings, although we will need to remain extra­or­di­nar­i­ly vig­i­lant about an embold­ened ICE. Pence, on the oth­er hand, who was giv­en a 99 per­cent rat­ing from the Amer­i­can Con­ser­v­a­tive Union, would be much more like­ly to cut Social Secu­ri­ty, push Nation­al Right to Work, and try to restrict gay mar­riage, and would prob­a­bly treat immi­grants and refugees just as bad­ly, in order to court the Trump base.

Impeach­ment would also help restore the dam­aged Repub­li­can brand. Trump lost the pop­u­lar vote by the largest mar­gin of any incom­ing pres­i­dent in his­to­ry. His admin­is­tra­tion is mired in incom­pe­tence, chaos, and sus­pi­cion, and has already sparked a mas­sive pub­lic resis­tance. His pub­lic approval rat­ing hov­ers around 40 per­cent, by far a record low for a new pres­i­dent. If these trends con­tin­ue, his pres­i­den­cy will be a mas­sive alba­tross around the GOP’s neck in future elections.

By con­trast, the robot-like Pence — despite his extreme right-wing views — would be pack­aged as a com­fort­ing return to nor­mal­cy. The relief at no longer hav­ing an ego­tis­ti­cal lunatic at the helm could pro­vide Pence with a long and gen­er­ous pub­lic opin­ion hon­ey­moon. Repub­li­cans could claim that Trump was ​“nev­er one of theirs,” and approach the 2020 cam­paign with the ben­e­fit of incum­ben­cy and with­out Trump’s liabilities.

Demo­c­ra­t­ic own­er­ship of impeach­ment would also cement the loy­al­ty of work­ing-class Trump vot­ers to the Repub­li­can Par­ty. Repub­li­can incum­bents in swing dis­tricts could spin impeach­ment as a par­ti­san witch hunt. Trump would become a mar­tyr, and his vot­ers would blame Democ­rats. This is a ter­ri­ble out­come for pro­gres­sives who want to move the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty back to its eco­nom­ic jus­tice roots.

Most impor­tant to pro­gres­sives, Demo­c­ra­t­ic own­er­ship of impeach­ment would sac­ri­fice the his­toric oppor­tu­ni­ty to inte­grate the mas­sive anti-Trump resis­tance into a revi­tal­ized pro­gres­sive move­ment and Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty. A short-term focus on impeach­ment would divert the focus of many activists away from less glam­orous, but more impor­tant, grass­roots orga­niz­ing, coali­tion build­ing, and pol­i­cy advo­ca­cy, and decrease the like­li­hood of mass grass­roots mobi­liza­tions on crit­i­cal issues such as health care, immi­gra­tion, Planned Par­ent­hood, elec­toral reform, cli­mate change, and so many others.

For these rea­sons, I believe a suc­cess­ful impeach­ment led by Democ­rats would be a colos­sal mistake.

Of course, Repub­li­cans may well decide that impeach­ment is in their best inter­ests and lead the charge. This is a slight­ly bet­ter sce­nario for Democrats.

While Repub­li­can own­er­ship of impeach­ment still achieves the first three polit­i­cal ben­e­fits dis­cussed above — a more reli­able and com­pe­tent right-wing pres­i­den­tial rub­ber stamp, pro­tec­tion of the Repub­li­can brand, and a stronger incum­bent for 2020 — the last two out­comes would now favor Democ­rats. With Repub­li­cans own­ing impeach­ment, Trump sup­port­ers would be livid with the Repub­li­can Par­ty, some with­draw­ing from pol­i­tics alto­geth­er or splin­ter­ing off to sup­port minor par­ties, oth­ers per­haps will­ing to recon­sid­er a Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty refo­cused on eco­nom­ic jus­tice. The com­bi­na­tion of Repub­li­cans los­ing core Trump sup­port­ers and ongo­ing demo­graph­ic trends would put Democ­rats in a very favor­able posi­tion for 2018 and 2020 and beyond. Most impor­tant­ly, the ener­gy and enthu­si­asm of the anti-Trump resis­tance would not be divert­ed to impeachment.

More­over, this sce­nario gives Democ­rats lever­age, as Repub­li­cans would need Demo­c­ra­t­ic votes to get the two-thirds Sen­ate major­i­ty nec­es­sary for con­vic­tion. Ulti­mate­ly, Democ­rats will have to back impeach­ment, as it would be polit­i­cal sui­cide not to. But Democ­rats can pub­licly demand key con­ces­sions in exchange for their sup­port: First, that Repub­li­can lead­ers clear­ly own impeach­ment by draft­ing the charges and whip­ping a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of GOP votes, and sec­ond, that Repub­li­cans refrain from push­ing rad­i­cal right-wing leg­is­la­tion until after the 2020 election.

Can Democ­rats pub­licly defend a strat­e­gy of sup­port­ing impeach­ment only if the Repub­li­cans own and lead it, as well as demand­ing con­ces­sions from Repub­li­cans? Absolute­ly. Sim­ply put, Repub­li­cans ​“birthed,” enabled and elect­ed Trump. Repub­li­cans have staffed his Cab­i­net, sac­ri­ficed their prin­ci­ples to cut deals with him, and made count­less excus­es for his out­landish behav­ior. The pub­lic will under­stand that, if impeach­ment is war­rant­ed, the Repub­li­cans have the respon­si­bil­i­ty to lead the charge.

Para­dox­i­cal as it may seem, how­ev­er, the best sce­nario for Democ­rats is one in which they resist the impeach­ment trap, the Repub­li­cans stand by their pres­i­dent, and Trump, odi­ous as he may be, remains in office. Admit­ted­ly, this would extract a major toll on the nation­al psy­che and require an active resis­tance to thwart Trump’s attacks on mar­gin­al­ized groups, but the coun­try would (prob­a­bly!) sur­vive. From a pol­i­cy per­spec­tive, a par­a­lyzed Trump admin­is­tra­tion would be far bet­ter than a more com­pe­tent and reli­ably right-wing Pence pres­i­den­cy. Polit­i­cal­ly, Trump would become a black eye for the GOP, and the Demo­c­ra­t­ic oppo­si­tion would remain ener­gized, all of which would favor the Democ­rats in both 2018 and 2020. An espe­cial­ly deli­cious sce­nario is one in which an unpop­u­lar Trump insists upon run­ning in 2020, and the Repub­li­can Par­ty is torn apart by a war between Trump sup­port­ers and the Wall Street, evan­gel­i­cal and lib­er­tar­i­an fac­tions that each want to reclaim ​“their” party.

If the Trump pres­i­den­cy con­tin­ues to unrav­el and a con­sti­tu­tion­al case for impeach­ment can be made, Democ­rats can force Repub­li­cans into a per­ilous Catch-22 over whether to own it. If Repub­li­cans refuse, they will like­ly fail to achieve much of their pol­i­cy agen­da, risk per­ma­nent dam­age to their par­ty brand, and weak­en their future elec­toral chances. If they do own impeach­ment, they blow up the ten­u­ous Repub­li­can-Trump coali­tion. Either way, Democ­rats can focus their ener­gies on mass resis­tance and rebuild­ing an elec­toral majority.

Repub­li­cans are in a polit­i­cal strait­jack­et — unless Democ­rats com­mit polit­i­cal sui­cide by falling for the impeach­ment trap.

Let me empha­size that I am not argu­ing against pur­su­ing the truth about pos­si­ble Russ­ian col­lu­sion through a spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor, nor against hold­ing Trump respon­si­ble for finan­cial con­flicts of inter­est. And I agree that Democ­rats must ulti­mate­ly vote for a Repub­li­can-led impeachment.

But I am argu­ing that it would be a major strate­gic mis­take for us to focus on impeach­ment as a top strate­gic goal, there­by siphon­ing ener­gy from the pro­gres­sive move­ment. As deplorable as Trump is, we must focus our efforts in the next four years on block­ing bad pub­lic pol­i­cy and mobi­liz­ing for the future, and those goals are bet­ter served with Trump than with Pence. If the Repub­li­cans fig­ure this out, let them be the ones to expend their ener­gy get­ting rid of Trump.

It won’t be easy to resist the temp­ta­tion to humil­i­ate the worst pres­i­dent in mod­ern his­to­ry, but Democ­rats must muster the dis­ci­pline to resist the Impeach­ment Trap, insist that Repub­li­cans be the ones to take respon­si­bil­i­ty for their shame­ful pres­i­dent, and mobi­lize to build real grass­roots demo­c­ra­t­ic pow­er for 2018, 2020 and beyond.