On a conference call with congressional Democrats, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi curbed talk of impeaching President Trump, cautioning “we’re not there yet” and deflecting “if the path of fact-finding takes us there, we have no choice.” This measured path of caution is surprising to Americans that have been paying attention to the Democrats for more than two years saying that the president is unfit to hold office.
From the moment Trump took office, impeachment has been the Left’s biggest motivation, the resistance’s reason for being. He was declared a racist with “they’re not sending their best,” a sexual predator at worst, a misogynist at best after the “Access Hollywood” tapes, and a corrupt mob boss who colluded with the Russians to gift himself the 2016 election. The Democrats told the public that the Mueller report would end the Trump presidency, implying in liberal fan fiction that the president and his family members would be escorted out of the White House in handcuffs and sanity and the rule of law would be restored.
Surely, the reckoning is at hand. The Mueller report was delivered to Attorney General William Barr and absent procedural redactions, the public and the Democratic Party have in their possession the evidence against Trump. Yet, Pelosi balks at impeaching the president.
The reason why is quite obvious — either the existential threat the president poses isn’t that serious or existential, the politics of impeachment will weigh poorly for the Democrats ahead of the 2020 election, or their grave concern over protecting democracy from a president who they allege committed high crimes and misdemeanors isn’t grave concern at all. In any case, the only viable path forward for the Democrats to maintain their credibility is to bring forward articles of impeachment.
For if the president is an existential threat, how could any patriotic congressman wait even one second from impeachment proceedings if they genuinely thought the president was a crook who stole his office? Rep. Val Demings, D-Fla., says the president “blatantly violated so many laws.” Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., has been calling for Trump’s impeachment for more than a year now. So, why the hesitation? Pragmatically, the Democrats have the votes to pass by a simple majority articles of impeachment in the House.
Perhaps wisely, Democrats are worried about the political fallout they would sustain should they attempt impeachment. According to a Washington Post-Schar School poll, 61% of Democrats support impeachment as opposed to 41% of all voters. Also, in possible hubris, Pelosi may see Trump as a useful idiot to campaign against riding a wave of confidence following the midterm triumph of flipping the House. With a large field of 2020 contenders, maybe Pelosi feels that one among them can vanquish the populist Sun Tzu. Leaving it up to the voters absent impeachment might be the proper political course.
Some talking heads and politicians have even tried to nudge the conversation that way saying that the voters should decide in 2020 to oust the president, as if this would be more honorable rather than going the congressional route.
But there are two problems with this for Democrats. One, the vast majority of voters will never read even 1% of the Mueller report, much less understand the legal role that Mueller actually served in the probe. Second, Democrats and 2020 Democratic candidates have been attacking the fairness of the Electoral College. If Pelosi and Democrats were sincere in their desire to oust Trump and serious in their denigration of the Electoral College, it logically follows that they can’t leave the possibility of kicking Trump out of office up to something as supposedly unpredictable as voters and archaic as the Electoral College.
Or perhaps the explanation is that the Democratic Party is simply the party of rhetorical hyperbole. Recall the confirmation hearings of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, when Democrats promised to keep investigating Kavanaugh and pursue impeachment. Months later, there’s been nothing but silence on that front.
In any case, if any serious person believed the weight behind these words, one would hope a party would do more than throw their hands up and surrender. But the Democratic Party did so on Kavanaugh, has on impeachment, and will on many other issues.
The explanation is simple: Either Democrats lack the political courage to act on their convictions or they don’t believe with conviction what they said to the public. In either case, they become a party that cries insincerely into the void. Frankly, it’s getting tiresome.
Tyler Grant (@TyGregoryGrant) is a Young Voices contributor, who completed a Fulbright Fellowship in Taiwan. He also writes movie reviews for the Washington Examiner.
