The House impeached President Trump this week because, Louisiana and a few other states aside, a Democrat generally cannot win the general election without first winning the Democrat primary:

Future Democrat primaries are also the reason the Democrats in the House brought up everything from Russia to kids in cages in the debate before the impeachment 

There was a two-count indictment against President Trump being debated by the House:

1. Orange man bad (abuse of power)
2. Orange man mean to us (obstruction of Congress)

Clearly, neither of these counts has anything to do with Russia. Count one had to do with Ukraine. Neither count has anything to do with kids in cages, nor with pictures from the Obama administration of kids in cages at the border.

Still, if you are a Democrat, even one in a district that President Trump won in 2016, you must get on the record voting for impeachment to avoid being primaried.  Thus, you will want your reason for support of impeachment to appeal to the views and prejudices of the people who will be voting in your future primaries.

If the Democrat primary voters in your district believe the Russia hoax, then Russia it is when you talk about why you are voting for impeachment.  If Russia is what your base wants, then you give your base Russia in your debate speech before the impeachment vote.  If the Democrat primary voters in your district believe that the Obama-era pictures of kids in cages mean that President Trump is bad, then kids in cages is what you give them in your debate speech before the impeachment vote.  If there are a mix of reasons why Democrats in your district hate Trump, you give them a mix of reasons why you are voting to impeach — even if that mix has nothing to do with the actual impeachment counts.

Once again, the unfocused debate on the impeachment counts shows from another angle why Democrats in the House had to have an impeachment vote or be viewed as part of problem by Democrat primary voters.  Russia and kids in cages in the debate show how unserious this impeachment effort has been and how little it has to do with President Trump and anything he actually has done.  Still, if you, as a member of Congress, must run in future Democrat primaries, you had to vote to impeach President Trump, regardless of whether it will hurt you in future general elections or not.

Image: Vladimir Putin via Flickr.