The Democrats’ incompetence throughout the impeachment process showed itself again during Wednesday’s official House impeachment debate.
Wednesday was their chance to make one final, compelling case in favor of impeachment. Instead, speakers by the dozens repeated the same hackneyed talking points, broadly but ineffectively thematic, in a way that would convince nobody even remotely on the fence on impeachment, much less change any minds. How many times can representatives say “constitutional duty,” “abuse of power,” “sad day for America,” “conscience,” “solicitation of foreign interference in our elections,” and “the facts are clear?”
Rather than asserting that the facts are clear, why not actually take the time to review the facts?
Yes, this would require organization and coordination among Democratic members, each of whom is afforded only about 90 seconds to make his points. On a matter this serious, though, the effort should be made. Most people did not watch committee hearings. Many still aren’t clear why President Trump’s offenses merit impeachment. Very few have heard a concise summary of the evidence the Democrats repeatedly say is so weighty.
Indeed, confusion reigns. Again and again, I hear intelligent people, without partisan leanings, tell me “this is complicated; I’m not sure I understand even now what this is all about.” Congressmen in their bubbles, enveloped in all the details for two months, might not realize it, but much of the public has only snippets and impressions. The Democrats did nothing during the debate to elucidate matters.
This is in line with their fumbling performance throughout these two months, some of it through incompetence and some through partisanship so blatant as to create a backlash. They held hearings in the wrong committee, with the wrong chairman, in secret rather than in the open, without a formal vote to open an impeachment investigation, and without giving the president’s team the chance to participate through most of the process; they used shifting and misleading accusations (such as “bribery”) for what offense Trump supposedly committed.
All of this played directly into the hands of Republicans claiming it was all an unjust witch hunt. Republicans were able to muddy the waters with discussions about the fairness of the proceedings rather than about the evidence being accumulated.
Democrats’ tactics were not only substantively wrongheaded, but also disastrous from a public relations standpoint. From the earliest days of the scandal, a large majority of the public has told pollsters they believe Trump acted improperly, and a steady plurality and sometimes a majority have said he deserves impeachment and removal. From that base, the Democrats in recent weeks have actually lost support for removal, even as the evidence weighed more strongly in their favor.
Wednesday was the last day House Democrats could change that trend. Instead, they mouthed platitudes, expressed false “sorrow” at feeling compelled to vote for impeachment, and sounded like broken vinyl records. They actually had a good case they could have made, and they behaved with considerably more decorum than Republicans did, but all they produced was white noise. As usual, they have made Trump extremely fortunate to have such adversaries.
