When billionaire hedge fund manager Tom Steyer isn’t lobbying politicians to make poor people pay much more on their energy bills, he’s flying across America.
But Steyer isn’t on vacation, he’s a man on a mission – an evangelist for the impeachment of President Trump. As part of his “Need to Impeach” campaign, Steyer is traveling to thirty different town hall events. He hopes to galvanize liberals in the effort to remove Trump from office.
According to Steyer, “From California to Florida, Americans across the country are outraged by Donald Trump’s lawlessness and are demanding his removal from power. At every single town hall that we have held, we hear directly from American patriots who are frustrated with this administration and the lack of leadership from members of Congress who are overlooking the will of voters who put them in office. Their time to act is now. American voters demand it.”
But do they really demand it? Or is it just Tom Steyer and far-left activists who demand it?
While it’s certainly true that many Democrats, a fair number of independents and some Republicans hold Trump in low regard, there is little appetite on Capitol Hill for impeachment proceedings. The fact that this is an election year makes that dynamic especially interesting. After all, if Democratic leaders in Congress thought that calling for Trump’s impeachment was a vote-winner, they would be doing just that. But apart from a few interesting individuals like Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., they are not.
Instead, they are focusing on an election message of opposing Trump’s legislation and proposing massive increases in spending (which, some would argue, isn’t a great policy platform). Regardless, Democrats are adopting this message over impeachment because they recognize that the legal justification for Trump’s impeachment is non-existent at present.
That speaks to something else about Steyer. He’s a far-left outlier, even in an increasingly left-leaning Democratic Party. He’s also someone who carries less credibility with Democratic voters than he would like to think. His endorsed Democratic candidate in the recent California Senate primary, Kevin De Leon, was annihilated by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., 44 percent to 12 percent.
Of course, Steyer will keep traveling and talking because he needs to be recognized as someone of moral purpose and political import. But he really isn’t. He’s just very rich and has lots of time on his hands.
