Pressure is growing on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to impeach President Trump, no matter how much she denies it. With an increasing number of House Democrats and 2020 hopefuls calling for beginning impeachment proceedings — and now even a House Republican supporting impeachment — House Democrats are holding a closed-door meeting Wednesday to sort through the situation.

Pelosi’s reluctance to go down this path is clearly a political calculation. She has emphasized that impeachment is a divisive process for the country and said Trump is “just not worth it.” It’s pretty apparent that she and others believe it could blow back on Democrats, especially given that a majority of Americans are opposed to impeachment at this point and it’s highly unlikely to succeed in actually removing Trump from office. And much of the punditry and analysis on this topic seems to agree that there’s more potential downside than upside.

But what if those assumptions are wrong?