Professor Who Correctly Predicted Last Nine Elections Says Donald Trump’s Impeachment Is ‘Inevitable’
American University history professor Allan Lichtman, who correctly predicted the last nine elections, said last month that Donald Trump‘s impeachment would only help Democrats. On Sunday, he appeared on MSNBC’s Weekends with Alex Witt show and made another prediction: Donald Trump will be impeached by the House.
“Impeachment is now inevitable,” he told Witt, according to Newsweek. “The Democrats would never have taken it this far — we know how cautious Nancy Pelosi is — without actually voting articles of impeachment in the full House.”
According to Lichtman, the only question as of now is the “scope and content” of the inevitable articles of impeachment.
Although the 72-year-old professor said he was not ready to predict the 2020 election just yet, he claims that the Democrats have “helped themselves” with their decision to move forward with impeachment. He later suggested that Trump’s impeachment by the House will harm his chances of being reelected.
“When Donald Trump becomes only the third American president to be impeached by the full House, that scandal key will have flipped against him, and diminished his chances for reelection.”
To make his predictions, Lichtman uses 13 factors in what he calls the “Keys to the White House” prediction system. The “scandal key” is one such factor and suggests that an incumbent dealing with a major scandal has a lower chance of being reelected.
Lichtman also used his MSNBC appearance to highlight the impeachment proceedings against former President Richard Nixon due to the Watergate scandal. He suggested that there are two lessons to be learned by such analysis — that one can’t put a time limit on impeachment, and that one needs to “look at the whole picture” of Trump’s record in office. In particular, Lichtman pointed to Trump’s purported foreign policy failures, such as his abrupt and controversial withdrawal of troops from northeastern Syria, an act which ostensibly left the Kurds vulnerable to an attack from Turkish forces.
.@ALLANLICHTMAN who predicted #Trump would win… also predicts his impeachment. Joining #AMJoy now… pic.twitter.com/i3kHfCMjrL
— Formerly 'AM JOY' on @MSNBC (@amjoyshow) April 23, 2017
Lichtman previously said that the idea that impeachment could harm Democrats was not accurate. Instead, he suggested that the process is a vital part of Democrats re-taking the White House via the 2020 election, The Hill reported.
“It’s a false dichotomy to say Democrats have a choice between doing what is right and what is constitutional and what is politically right,” he said, adding that impeachment is both constitutionally and politically right.
Back in 1998, there was a popular theory which purported that impeaching Bill Clinton could hurt Republicans, an idea which Lichtman disagreed with. Later, when George W. Bush won in the next election, Lichtman noted that he did so under the message of restoring integrity to the White House. The professor stated that Clinton’s impeachment was advantageous for the Republicans.
