Spencer Critchley

impeachment

Running From the Polls, Democrats Stumble Into Leading on Impeachment

by

As I’m not the first to point out, when Democrats see bad polls, they run from them. When Republicans see bad polls, they change them, through persuasion.* With polls showing a dramatic swing in favor of impeaching President Trump, Congressional Democrats have stumbled into leading on the issue, now that leading and fleeing point in the same direction.

On Friday’s “Morning Joe” (Sept 27, 2019), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi explained her new support for impeachment: her position hasn’t changed, the situation has changed, because the glaring clarity of Trump’s abuse of power in the Ukraine scandal has made the case for impeachment so easy for the public to see and understand. She quoted Abraham Lincoln’s famous assertion (from his first debate with Stephen Douglas):

With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed.

I respect Pelosi, and I often agree with her choices of pragmatism over purity. But here’s what’s missing from her precis of politics: the rest of what Lincoln said.

…Consequently he who moulds public sentiment, goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions. He makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to be executed. [Emphasis added.]

The case for Trump’s impeachment was made a long time ago, certainly by the time Robert Mueller released his report and came as close as he could to calling for it in the face of the Office of Legal Counsel’s directive against indicting a sitting president. But Congressional Democrats couldn’t rise to the challenge of making the case to the public.

They had to wait for Trump to do that for them.

All smart politicians check polls, often daily. But there’s a difference between checking polls and being led by them. Leadership means standing in front of the crowd, not behind.

Democrats in Congress now find themselves in front of a crowd, one that’s growing. All they need to do is to keep moving forward. Hopefully they’ll get used to the feeling.

*I think I first heard Bill Maher say this, but I’m not sure if he originated it.

The Time for Impeachment Is Here

by

House of Representatives chamber
The chamber of the House of Representatives (public domain)

I think they were right to wait, but it’s now time for House Democrats to move forward with impeachment. Yes, it’s almost certainly doomed in the Senate by the Republican majority, which long ago chose power over patriotism. But sometimes doing what’s right requires doing what’s hard, and may even require accepting defeat.

If the rampant corruption documented by the Mueller report were to be accepted as unimpeachable, it would establish a terrible precedent and do further damage to our democracy.

And it may not be as politically costly as some fear:

1) The process begins, not ends, with a vote to impeach, and even that follows the proceedings that lead up to the vote. The airing of the evidence will take a long time. That time will not go well for Trump or his enablers.

2) The Trumpist strategy has been to count on the death of reading and overwhelm the public with video. Impeachment will turn the 400-plus pages of the Mueller report into months of very compelling video.

3) Yes, the Republicans will claim the impeachment vote was driven only by politics, but of course they will. If it’s not one lie, it’ll be another. Politics has always been rough, but the modern GOP is an ethical catastrophe.

4) In voting No to impeachment, Senate Republicans will put the failure of their integrity on the record — not just for this election season, but for all of history. Voters will be presented a clear choice (made much clearer by all those clips).

5) It will be a clear choice if, that is, Democrats don’t look like they too are afraid to stand up when it counts. If they do, they risk endorsing the core of Trumpism: nothing means anything, except power. Furthermore, they risk looking weak, which is as politically costly as it gets.

6) If and when impeachment is voted down in the Senate, yes, of course Trump will claim it as vindication. But he’s claiming vindication now. The Senate’s “vindication” will ring even more hollowly, and hopefully that doleful sound will wake up a few more voters.

But in the end, if voters have had every possible opportunity to see what Trump is and they still choose him again, that will be their democratic choice. We’ll have to accept that he really is what they want. As important as it is to defeat Trump, defending democracy is the reason.