Donald Trump will likely be re-elected in 2020. The economy is strong, the Democratic candidates are weak, and impeachment is a colossal liability. That’s not even to mention the fierce popularity Trump still enjoys with his base and the lockstep approval he’s obtained from party leadership. 

It may not be obvious from polls (which consistently underrepresented Trump’s support in 2016) that he is in a good position, but if Democrats continue to beat a path left and fully commit themselves to impeachment, they will almost guarantee the Trump administration four more years to “Keep America Great.”

Someone who fell asleep in 2015 and woke up to watch the 2020 Democratic candidates’ debate would be shocked. Proposals which not so long ago were on the far fringes of policy discussion, like reparations, mandatory universal Medicare, a wealth tax, and packing the court, are now mainstream. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, two of the leftmost political figures in the party, are among the frontrunners. 

Regardless of the merits of these candidates and their proposed revolutionary changes, one thing is certain: they do not appeal to most Americans.  A late November Quinnipiac University poll put approval for universal single-payer healthcare at 36 percent. A July PBS poll put support for reparations at 27 percent.

There is a reason Donald Trump was elected in the first place. Ordinary, hardworking citizens are fed up with inside-the-Beltway shenanigans, liberal elites treating them like toddlers, tax money vanishing into thin air, and having their jobs shipped overseas. 

Now, don’t get me wrong, I do not think that Trump is a good solution to the problems of Middle America. Far from it. In fact, Elizabeth Warren would do more to help Trump voters than Trump ever could, if she were elected. 

But that’s the catch: Elizabeth Warren is an entirely unpalatable candidate. She would get demolished in the general election. Meanwhile, Bernie has a foot in the grave, Buttigieg has no appeal to racial minority voters, Biden can’t go five minutes without a gaffe, and Bloomberg supported stop-and-frisk. The rest of the candidates’ days are numbered, barring an early-state miracle. There is no clear frontrunner, no solid opponent to Trump. The field is weak and the President is strong.

Where does this political strength come from? To begin with, the economy is stable. We added jobs in November and the unemployment rate held steady. If the economy keeps its current pace, Trump has a very convincing argument to make. It’s difficult for a Democratic challenger to advocate significant economic reform when the country has been making money and adding jobs for the entire tenure of the administration. 

Second, conservatives have done an excellent job of creating progressive punching bags. They have seized the antics of the Squad (a group of hyper-progressive Democratic congresswomen) and the foolishness of the PC movement to paint the entire Democratic Party as a bunch of crazed radicals bent on eradicating straight white men. This stereotype plays well to a base which has been marginalized and belittled for many years and is amplified by sensationalized news coverage of Twitter “blue checks” and of out-of-control political correctness on university campuses. Regardless of the veracity of many of these claims, conservative figures and politicians have successfully convinced vast swaths of America that Democrats want to take both their tradition of static gender and of guns, which is a significant hurdle that a potential Trump challenger will have to overcome. 

Lastly, Democrats have shot themselves in the foot with impeachment. It’s obvious that what the President did with Ukraine was improper. Great. But the Senate will never vote to convict. 

Impeachment is a fool’s errand with an extremely predictable outcome. Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff are wasting their time on a dead end that only serves to increase the national divisiveness and energize the President’s fundraising. Impeachment lends credence to the claim that Democrats and the deep state have been trying for years to reverse the 2016 election and strip power away from average Americans. The parade of career diplomats and coastal elite law professors doesn’t help much, either.

 Ultimately, impeachment will fail and some poor Democrat will have to carry the political weight while he or she fights an already-uphill battle to beat Donald Trump. Of course, American politics are constantly changing, and bombshells can alter the course of an election in an instant. All I can say is that the environment looks very good for Trump. There is always a chance that he loses, but if the political cycle continues in the same way, Donald Trump won’t leave the White House for quite some time.