As President Trump makes his victory lap upon the conclusion of his “Witch Hunt,” congressional Democrats have only one thing to blame for his acquittal: themselves.

This frustration manifested itself when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) tore her copy of the State of the Union Address cleanly in half at the conclusion of the President’s speech last week. The dramatic spectacle – which came on the eve of the impeachment vote – was a sign of the rough week the Democrats were about to endure.

While the Republican senators most likely did not vote with complete impartiality, everyone knew acquittal was inevitable in the Republican-controlled Senate – except, it seems, Representative Adam Schiff (D-Calif) and the House Democrats who impeached the President with so much gusto.

Pelosi foresaw acquittal. She delayed handing off the articles of impeachment to the Senate. She knew permission for witness testimonies was a long shot. But Schiff and his cronies in the House were steadfast in their determination to remove Trump from office.

The impeachment proceedings continued the narrative that Democrats have been pushing for three years: Trump is unfit for office.

It started immediately after the 2016 election, when the investigation into potential collusion with Russia began. That continued until the Mueller Report settled nothing, as both sides interpreted it to best fit their own opinions. That was subsequently overshadowed by a Department of Justice report in December which revealed that the FBI had committed several errors in its surveillance of former Trump campaign aide Carter Page.

For over a year now the House Ways and Means Committee has been in a legal battle to obtain Trump’s New York state tax returns, as well as his business and personal federal tax returns. House Democrats claim they need the returns to conduct oversight and ensure that he hasn’t performed any illegal tax maneuvers.

While Trump’s refusal to share his tax returns is shady, the battle is simply another example of the Democrats’ constant search to go to whatever means necessary to bring down the President. Yes, Trump’s polarizing personality gives him a lot of enemies, but at some point at least one of the sides has to decide to grow up and take the high road.

Then there is the phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the event that led us to this point. The President may claim that his phone call with Zelensky was “perfect,” but it wasn’t. While it did not directly result in an investigation into the Bidens or prevent Ukraine from receiving military aid, the President threatened to leverage his power.

The exchange was a big deal. It resulted in only the third impeachment trial of a president in US history.

But how could the House Democrats expect a completely impartial trial in the Senate after three years of spewing their utter disdain for the Trump Administration? How could they not foresee acquittal and a massive political victory for Trump less than a year before the general election?

Those elected officials in Washington are human — despite what one may think — and humans crave revenge. So how did the GOP exact vengeance after three years of ridicule from the Democrats for bringing the orange Twitter troll into office? They kept him there.

No matter how concerned any of the Republican senators who voted against removal from office were by Trump’s Ukrainian dealings, the Democrats’ narrative had worn them down.

The Democrats had cried wolf one too many times.

The constant attacks on Trump mitigated the severity of the trial for the GOP and led to an impeachment vote without witness testimony that fell almost exactly along party lines.

The impeachment backfired on the Democrats. But it also teaches a crucial lesson to all of the elected officials in Washington whose hands we put the fate of our country in: our union cannot function on the extreme and childish partisanship we are experiencing.

It was evident in the impeachment. Trump and the GOP called the trial a “partisan hoax” while the Democrats claimed that the vote to block witnesses in the Senate was a gross display of partisanship by the Republicans.

It was evident at the State of the Union. At the beginning of the address, Trump avoided shaking Pelosi’s hand. This wasn’t terribly off kilter from the President’s typical volatile behavior, but Pelosi decided to steal the show at the end. How did she handle the realization that Trump was about to be acquitted and receive a major boost to his campaign?

She shredded the speech.

These are two of the most powerful figures in the most powerful country in the world behaving like children in a culmination of three years of partisan bickering. We elected these people to promote the common good and foster growth, yet they can’t even look each other in the eye and have a conversation.

If our nation’s leaders can’t interact with those from the other side of the aisle, it is then that we are screwed. Why try to fix problems when we can just whine about who’s sitting in the Oval Office or post Twitter rants about our political rivals? Why even attempt to resolve conflict?

If you don’t like something, just shred it.