There’s been a lot of back and forth lately about whether Democrats should campaign on impeachment this fall. It’s something the media brings up quite a bit, implying as they do that Democrats can’t stop talking about it. Democratic consultants meanwhile, are urging Democrats to stay away from it and concentrate solely on economic issues. Of course, those same consultants would advise staying away from Medicare for All, because …. well, because despite the fact that about 70% of everybodyis for it, it is our bounden duty as Democrats to speak in numbing generalities that excite absolutely no one. If there is a more overpaid, underperforming group than Democratic consultants, I would like to know about it. On the other hand, of course, the DCCC will continue to recruit DINOs in their endless quest to get some of those NRA votes.
The correct approach seems fairly obvious. The fact is that the Trump Administration is already the most corrupt administration in American history. It has also done the most to increase inequality in this country, while destroying the environment, our health care system, voting rights, etc., in the process. The grounds for Trump’s impeachment and the political abuses of his administration are inextricably intertwined. It is his chronic criminality that got Trump involved with Russia in the first place. A candidate need not talk about impeachment explicitly; all he or she need do is connect the dots that proceed from his criminality, and that of his cabinet officersand assorted hangers on, to the economic situation in which we find ourselves. A candidate need not stop there, the recent travails of Duncan Hunter and Chris Collins are Exhibits A and B for the proposition that the Republican Party is rife with corruption. The Republicans are not just enabling Trump, they are enabling each other.
Almost half the country wants Trump impeached, and that includes almost half of all independents. As the evidence mounts, those numbers will increase. You don’t have to use the word, but you can still deplore the criminality and corruption, and strike a chord with the voters that you need to turn out to win.
The question still remains: should the Democrats impeach Trump if they take over the House? I think they should, but only if they can agree on the correct messaging. They should concede in advance that the Republican Party is too corrupt to provide any votes in the Senate, no matter the nature of the evidence. In fact, they should repeatedly use that as evidence of the rank corruption and degeneracy of the Republican Party as a whole. They should gather the evidence, which will be massive, present it to the nation clearly and comprehensively, and impeach the man as a statement of principle, as a sort of “sense of the House”, and, at that point, sense of the nation. They should make it clear that’s what they’re doing, and they should time it so that it happens at the most opportune moment. The Senate Trial, properly conducted, would be great theater and could be a great propaganda exercise. The optimum result would be a fatally wounded, but still president, Very Stable Genius limping to the finish line in 2020, with Pence politically dead and the country ready to throw the bums out.
Do I think the Democrats have the capacity to pull this off? No, nor do they have the vision.
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