The "impeached forever" Democrat fallacy.

Democrats have repeatedly showed their cards, removing any doubt they're just playing politics, including with comments by Pelosi and others confirming that they just wanted to brand Trump with the "impeachment" mark.

But that petty, myopic obsession is similar to a phenomenon in chess known as "pawn grabbing", where you focus too much on a small goal at the expense of the bigger picture.

What Democrats fail to appreciate is multifaceted:

Trump will be acquitted forever. Democrats have cast themselves as the villains of the piece, pure partisans who will fail in their effort and are on the wrong side of history. That will make Trump's "impeachment" mark more of a badge of honor than anything. Even Clinton undeniably committed crimes. But Trump is the wrongly accused, innocent of any crime, who will survive the blustering, impotent impeachment push and likely emerge stronger judging by trends so far through this process. As in the House, it's more likely that Trump will get Democrats voting against removal than Republicans voting for it. It's almost impossible to picture Manchin, for example, voting to convict.

That's all aside from the strong possibility that Democrats' reckless abuse of the system will lead to making impeachment routine and meaningless anyway, as they've scrapped countless other stabilizing traditions for perceived short term gain (e.g. not politicizing judicial nominees; partisan politics stopping at the water's edge).

If this precedent is followed then any president would be impeached whenever the opposing party controls the House. In a few decades there might be 10 presidents on the impeached list, mostly likely there for purely partisan reasons, so being "impeached forever" won't mean anything anyway.

But to the extent it might for a while, Trump being acquitted forever will be bad for Democrats and good for him.