OPINION:
Roughly half of Americans think the Russia collusion charges tailing President Donald Trump will dry up and disappear before the end of the year, according to a new Politico/Morning Consult poll.
Given the failure of investigators to come up with anything concrete — anything concrete on Trump, his former campaign team or Republicans, that is — this is likely a poll to take to the bank.
The whole matter’s been partisan and political from the get-go. And that’s largely how the American public sees it, as well.
By the numbers: 48 percent of all 1,988 respondents guessed it “very likely” or “somewhat likely” Trump would be cleared before the end of the year. Another 37 percent saw that scenario as “not too likely” or “not at all likely.”
But the breakdown by party affiliation is more insightful.
“Democrats and Republicans have drastically different views on whether Trump will be cleared of wrongdoing in the Russia probe led by special counsel Robert Mueller,” said Kyle Dropp, the co-founder of Morning Consult, in Geobeatrs. “Three in four Republicans, 74 percent, say it’s likely Trump will be cleared of wrongdoing in the Russia probe this year. But only 32 percent of Democrats say the same thing.”
Yes — and that’s pretty much how the entire investigation has run, from start to finish. Democrats have called for Trump’s impeachment over the Russia collusion affair, jumping right over due process and determination of guilt to demand the proverbial head on a plate.
It’s no wonder these leftists deny the potential for Trump to be cleared.
Still, the fact that even 32 percent of Democrats think it likely the investigation of Trump will end this year — and, according to the same poll, that fewer than one-third of respondents think Trump will leave the White House by the close of 2018 — is significant. It shows chinks in the party’s armor.
It shows the once-widespread, widely accepted call for impeachment and cries of Russia collusion are starting to be seen as fringe arguments.
It’s too soon and no doubt too optimistic to say Democrats are starting to come around to a saner side of political reality, the one that points out just how ridiculous demands for impeachment-absent-impeachable-crime sounds. But that there are some who are confessing to pollsters the unlikelihood of a Trump collusion conviction, and a Trump impeachment, is a dramatic shift.
It wasn’t but a few months ago that Black Lives Matter, antifa, and pink-hatted feminists were driving Democratic talking points. Now at least, some on the left seem to have moved more moderate and come to the conclusion: This is the president we have, this is the president the American people elected, and this is the president who’s going to stay to 2020.
Perhaps now Washington can now get down to the business of serving the American people, minus the angry contortions and petulant demands from the special interests and radical progressive-minded on the left.
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