It’s Now or Never: Delay on Impeachment Weakens Democrats

Time’s running out for impeachment

The argument against impeaching Donald Trump gets stronger every day.  Check out liberal pundit Nathan Robinson giving pro-impeachment liberals a scolding in the pages  of The Guardian. Robinson is wrong that impeachment of Trump is a bad idea. But he’s right that counting on Mueller’s congressional testimony to turn public opinion in favor of impeachment was foolish.  Polls still find support for impeachment below 40 percent among the general population, although above 60 percent among Democrats.  Mueller’s testimony didn’t change many minds on either side of the partisan divide, and the center has seemed not to care very much before, during, and after.

In making the case against impeachment, Robinson trots out the  tiresome argument that “the Democratic obsession with the Mueller investigation was symptomatic of a party that has lost touch with the real concerns of working people.” Again, Robinson is both wrong and right.  Wrong that the party has lost touch with the real concerns of working people.  (He knows better—he’s just venting.) But he’s correct that the hype of the Mueller report—primarily on the Left—has given the appearance of a party that has lost touch. That’s not the fault of the Democratic Party, it’s the fault of the media that thrive on whipping up emotions. Their best bet for ratings has been to run juicy Trump-outrage stories to get the liberal tribe thirsting for blood.

Here’s the problem for Democrats who want impeachment: the time to strike was when the iron was hot—when the full Mueller report was first released back in mid-April and after William Barr was shown to be the President’s lackey. Everything needed to begin an impeachment investigation was there in black-and-white. But the political will was lacking, thanks to Nancy Pelosi declaring, against logic, that the Mueller report was insufficient to begin an impeachment investigation.   She has steadfastly maintained that the multiple investigations by the House would need to turn up glowing red smoking guns in order to take such a political risk.

Running out the clock: a Right and Left strategy

On the administration’s side, they are running out the clock throwing out every possible legal argument to thwart the House investigations under the specious guise of “executive privilege.”

On the House side, Pelosi has been running out the clock, counting on the pro-impeachment forces exhausting themselves. By now it’s obvious that Pelosi does not want impeachment of Trump, ever. Her premise is that the public will turn against the Democrats for wasting valuable time and taxpayer money in a doomed attempt to bring down the President. Republicans will trash impeachment hearings as a “circus” (if you want to hear a threadbare political metaphor, this is the threadbarest).

The Pelosi warning about voter backlash gains strength the closer we get to the 2020 election. If an impeachment inquiry had begun in April and were now in full cry, the whole process of impeaching and a Senate acquittal could be over by October—an entire year before the general election—and we could count on the electorate’s short memory to have let this issue fade into a dim  past. But beginning an impeachment inquiry now could push its completion into next year, with the political risk growing by the week.

One thing Trump has capitalized on, is the appearance of decisiveness. (Never mind he takes back half his decisions within days, either because they are simply bad or he forgets why he made them; it makes him look strong for a few key political moments; his followers can blame his ineffectiveness on opposition by the leftist media and the Deep State.) The Democrats can neutralize his pseudo-decisiveness with some real decisiveness by impeaching the S.O.B.

(For some history on impeachment activities, this piece by David Fahrenthold in the Washington Post is instructive.)

Two underrated arguments for impeachment

There’s an argument for impeachment on principle, first given voice  among Democratic presidential candidates by Elizabeth Warren.  I discussed this in an earlier post,  Good Politics versus Good Government. The reasoning is plain: Donald Trump has violated the law and it’s the duty of Congress to hold the President responsible through the mechanism of impeachment. That has become even more important now that the Justice Department has this patently absurd policy that you cannot indict a sitting president.  For anything(!?)*

The downside of the argument on principle is that due to the failings of our current education system, most Americans have little sense of what the principles of good governance are, and couldn’t care less.  Outcomes, not process, are what they are interested in. Good economy? Low taxes? Who cares if the President is a gangster?

The second argument, Nancy Pelosi notwithstanding, is political. If impeachment is the only means by which to bring gross malfeasance by the chief executive to the public’s attention—which seems increasingly the case—then might as well go at it full on.  The alternative path  of having ineffectual investigations limp along  in the face of wall-to-wall obstructionism by the administration will wear just as thin on the public’s patience and last that much longer.

By delaying on impeachment, the Party looks weak—and weakness is exactly what Trump is counting on. Every day the Congress fails to impeach emboldens him further, while frustrating the Democratic base. More and more he seems to regard Nancy Pelosi—whom he once seemed to respect—as a paper tiger. It has finally penetrated his clumsy understanding of government that Mitch McConnell can hold the line legislatively, to make ANY progressive legislation from the House die an invisible death in committee. This is having the effect of making the Democrats appear impotent and reinforce the image of them as not in touch with “the real concerns of working people.”

Two-pronged assault required

Should the Democrats begin impeachment they will gain, if nothing else, serious attention—a wake-up call to the public,** and a war cry for the base.  I’m betting that once the Democrats go fully on the offensive, they will get respect across the political spectrum. The Right may call foul, “circus,” “witch hunt,” and the rest, but they will get a shock to find that the House Democrats have the confidence to grasp the bull by the horns.

That’s not enough, though, as Nathan Robinson showed with his remark about Democrats supposedly not caring about working people. There needs to be a campaign to call out Mitch McConnell—perhaps as dangerous an enemy to democracy as Donald Trump—as the slimy schemer that he is. In the shadows cast by Trump, McConnell has manipulated the rules of the Senate in the interests of the rich and powerful such as to create a Swamp more corrupt, more subservient to the ruling class, than any I have seen in my lifetime. He has squelched every attempt at progressive legislation coming out of the House since he took the post of Majority Leader. With Trump on the defensive, Moscow Mitch will have fewer places to hide.  If the Democrats were to go after him with a zeal  comparable to those who went after Hillary Clinton, they might throw him on the defensive as well.  Exposing Trump makes exposing McConnell as Trump’s enabler that much easier. It’s time to try, and that time is now.

A wiser voice than mine has more to tell you

The Washington Post‘s Eugene Robinson (no relation to Nathan in The Guardian), made a solid case for impeachment way back on July 11, when he opined that Pelosi’s holding back from impeachment was actually riskier politically than pushing forward.  Since Robinson has been around the political block far more times than I have, you might find his arguments more persuasive than mine.  One of his cardinal points is “the overall effect [of delay] on the Democratic Party — including its eventual presidential nominee — of the House appearing to spin its wheels impotently while Trump continues to do whatever he pleases, trampling constitutional norms in the process.”

By “overall effect” he means demoralizing effect. While I’ve been sitting on this post for the last two weeks, the number of House Democrats calling for impeachment has grown to a majority within the Party. These folks want action!

That’s right—come fall of 2020, the morale of Democrats could be as decisive a factor as Republicans trying to portray them as witch-hunters.  After all, if the hunt exposes a real witch, isn’t it worth the effort?

========== footnotes =============

*Could we  expect to see William Barr, if the President were to order mass imprisonment of all the President’s political enemies, go ahead and carry out the orders? I think we might—and that’s the ugliest part of this, that people like William Barr, once considered a moderately decent fellow, has become so closely allied with this gangster that he will follow wherever the gangster leads.

** If the public would rather go back to sleep, then maybe they deserve Trump after all. This idea haunts me constantly.