The spectacle of impeachment presented to the world by America’s Democratic Party has finally reached the conclusion that they have so long sought. For the first time in history, a President has been impeached on purely political grounds. The conclusion of this saga is yet to be determined, but I don’t believe anyone seriously thinks that President Trump will be convicted by the Senate. Perhaps more important though is whether this sleeper of a controversy will do anything to help, or more likely hurt, Democratic chances to unseat President Trump in the only fair way, the elections of 2020.

To the average citizen of Louisiana, and probably all over America, this Washington gamesmanship is nothing but a minor distraction as they pursue their busy lives. We are far more interested in whether we get a bonus from our job, what we are buying for Christmas gifts, or any other of the many things that we do than to watch politicians do exactly what we have come to hate.

But it really does have real time implications when viewed through the lens of Louisiana politics. In the recent gubernatorial elections Governor Edwards, by saying the whole thing was a distraction to the nation, took a political position that would not offend the many Trump followers in Louisiana. Since re-election he has changed his position by now saying that he has just not kept up with it all. In that he is hiding from both the Democratic and Republican sides by trying to be neutral. Is that honest to the Trump voters that he cozied up to? No, but no one really thought that he was a conservative anyway.

Clearly at a national level the line of demarcation between conservative and Progressive/socialist politics has never been more defined. Here in Louisiana the same is true but in our case the voters have made clear their choice. As I have written before, our elections of 2019 resulted in a clear mandate; by electing an overwhelming number of Republicans to the legislature the people have made clear that they favor a conservative state government. Based upon those elections and augmented with conservative furor over the Democrats’ obvious attempt to invalidate their vote for Trump, I feel confident that if the election of 2020 were held today the President and what he stands for will win overwhelmingly in Louisiana.

The key phrase in my last line was “what he stands for.” The members of the new legislature ran on the promise of a conservative philosophy. Though in many cases unspoken in their campaigns, this is the same philosophy that President Trump governs by. It is the same philosophy that on a national scale has delivered record stock market and job gains, record unemployment and wage gains, and remarkable results for minorities and women.

By their recent actions in supporting the candidacies of certain Senators and House members for leadership positions and the resulting names being floated for committee chairmanships, there is no doubt that our 2019 elections do have consequences. The very same philosophy espoused by President Trump and our new legislators will become de rigeur in our legislature. Gone are the days when compromise meant that a few true conservatives had to accept that minority party Democrats, with the assistance of faux Republicans, were given power far in excess of what the people had expected when they voted them into office. Gone are the days when the governor, despite his or her abilities, ruled with a velvet glove covered in government largesse. In are the days when a pro-growth, small government political attitude will dominate the legislature.

In the time of Trump, the nation is divided between a few, though large in population, Progressive/socialist voting states and many conservative voting states. Because of the size of the liberal states the national vote is nearly split, but it will be the Electoral College that secures a second Trump term and the brilliance of the Founding Fathers assures that the whole nation gets a say in who they elect as President. Louisiana benefits from the Constitution because we are squarely in the camp of the majority conservative states, but we get a say too.

To the average Louisianan the Democrat political show generally meant nothing or perhaps, even made them more likely to support President Trump and the new conservatives in the Louisiana legislature. To Governor Edwards, the democrat kangaroo court was just something he knows he must hide from. If he applauds the Democrats, he loses the majority of Louisiana; if he applauds the President, he loses his base. So, hide he must.

The Democrats in Washington have had their day. The American people will decide their fate in November. But in Louisiana the people have already spoken and all that went on in Congress was a reaffirmation to them that a new day has dawned in Louisiana. I suspect that the “impeachment” will end up being a great political thing for Republicans nationally and in Louisiana, and more important to us, it will finally place a dagger in the heart of the politics that have held our state down for so long.