Why Are House Democrats Pretending to Be Sad About Impeachment?
The point of a victory dance is to draw attention to your victory. Also, no one is buying it.
“Don’t Cheer. Keep it Solemn.”
If there is one thing Democrats seem to be excelling at in 2019, it is snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
Mueller had 18-months, $35 million and a team of 14 Democratic lawyers to get Trump; he didn’t. Democrats in the FBI, though we are assured their motives weren’t political, tried to get Trump; they failed.
Democrats have had three years, a beholden media, and the constant boogeyman of Donald Trump; the best they’ve managed to come up with is the “sleepwalking into disaster” campaign of Joe Biden.
The Democratic National Committee is broke, in debt, and has managed to put together, out of the most diverse field of Democratic candidates in history, four white candidates- each with a bigger albatross hanging around their neck than the last.
The left has probably already eaten its most promising candidate, Kamala Harris- the one Democratic contender who struck fear into the hearts of Republican campaign consultants. It is now in the process of destroying its second most promising candidate, Pete Buttigieg.
Democratic voters are very, very worried. And they should be. The DNC chair Tom Perez isn’t happy; he knows no one else is happy either. Even the Washington Post is starting to entertain the very real possibility that Trump will win reelection in a landslide in 2020.
A victory, and attention to that victory, is exactly what Democrats need right now more than anything.
For weeks, months, and some, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, would say years, Democrats have been trying to impeach this President. Pelosi- who has gone from no impeachment, to prayerful inquiry, to solemn constitutional duty- and her House Democrats have thrown around every conceivable offense from paying off women like Stormy Daniels to insulting Greta Thunberg on Twitter.
Yet, after all this time, even with a media carrying so much water for Democrats that it is indicted alongside the FBI and damned as a co-conspirator by the Horowitz Report, Democrats just haven’t managed to move the needle on Trump.
Or rather, they have moved the needle of public opinion on Trump; just certainly not in the way they’d hoped.
In the wake of impeachment, Trump has become more popular. Impeachment, on the other hand, has become markedly less- especially with independents and on-the-fence voters in the crucial swing states Democrats must win in 2020.
Democrats have instead been feeding a fed horse: Loyal Democratic base voters who detest Trump are watching the proceedings with great approval. But they were going to vote Democrat anyway.
This is why the news from several sources that Pelosi has strictly instructed her caucus to refrain from acting happy at the impeachment announcement makes even less sense. This entire process of impeachment has, ostensibly, done little to damage Trump and hasn’t won over any voters. It has instead proved a cash cow for the Trump campaign and Republicans. And, as everyone knows, Trump will be acquitted in the Senate.
What was it all for if not to inspire and fire up the Democratic base?
Why give these instructions to Democratic Representatives who, by their own public admission, want to impeach the mother@#$%?
Telling people who have been working to this end for years “Don’t cheer, keep it solemn” sounds more like “Go out there and lie your faces off.” Why?
Everyone knows that House Democrats are thrilled to have impeached this particular President, with the possible exception of Freshmen Democrats elected in 2018 from districts Trump won by large margins in 2016.
Those Democrats really are in trouble.
Democrats are extremely happy they have managed to slap together an impeachment, they shouldn’t lie about it; they should own it. Democrats can’t counter Donald Trump’s assertion that Nancy Pelosi is only doing all this because she hates his guts by pretending to be upset about impeaching Trump. Nor do Democrats need to.
Their captivated audience of progressive-liberal Democrats and the Twitterati will absolutely love it. They want to see House Democrats take a victory lap.
Maybe if House Democrats start acting like they’ve achieved something, independent and undecided voters might actually start believing they have achieved something.
(contributing writer, Brooke Bell)