The Resistance Almost Missed Impeachment

There’s also been a degree of exhaustion among Democrats, some organizers told me. The impeachment conversation has been under way for three years now, which is a long time to be angry. “I think there’s a certain amount of outrage fatigue,” Tazewell said. That reality, more than anything else, speaks to why impeachment hasn’t inspired organic mass protests: For many Americans, Fisher explains, it just hasn’t hit the same emotional sweet spot as other protest-worthy events did.

People have been “so inured to the amount of outrageous information coming out of the Trump administration,” Fisher says, “that it would have to be an amazing level of outrageous to get people so mobilized to take to the streets in a spontaneous fashion.” Successful mass protests usually follow a major event that leaves people feeling helpless, Fisher says, such as the inauguration of a loathed president or an act of violence. Despite liberals having a variety of reasons to want to impeach Trump, there wasn’t a similarly galvanizing occasion for them to rally around.

That rang true for many of the protesters I spoke with at last night’s rally. Barb Trader, a retiree from Frederick, Maryland, shrugged when I asked why there didn’t seem to be more interest in demonstrating. “People have picked the issues they care most about and are focused on that,” she said.

Progressive organizations like MoveOn and Indivisible know that impeachment hasn’t been the most electrifying issue, Fisher says, and they recognize the likelihood that Trump will remain in office through at least 2020. The intention behind the nationwide protests, she posits, wasn’t really to advocate for the president’s removal, but to channel grassroots energy toward the 2020 election—to defeat Trump at the ballot box instead. “They’re using this as a way of building momentum and support,” she says.

It’s not impossible that Democrats’ mobilizations this week could have an effect on the Senate trial, if not the House vote, setting the stage for a lively January. Maybe their demonstrations will make Republicans and squishy red-state Democrats think twice about voting against impeachment. But more likely, in the end, the Senate will vote as expected. It will be as if the protests never even happened.

The Democrats I spoke with last night have steeled themselves for this outcome.

“I’m not here because I think somebody’s going to vote differently,” Trader told me, her face flushed from the cold. “I want Congress to know that we are paying attention. And we will turn over seats because of this in 2020.”

Elaine Godfrey is an assistant editor at The Atlantic.