Waiting For Nancy

I have been solidly in favor of Pelosi's cautious stance on impeachment, and still am, because winning matters most, unity is the way to win, and she’s the one who seems to have the tyrant’s number. 

But the ground has been shifting rapidly. Trump's stonewalling seems to be forcing the hand of the Democrats, but that looks like a potential Pyrrhic victory that may only strengthen the case against him. He has been suborning contempt of Congress by ordering aides to defy subpoemas, and he has refused to work with Democrats until they give up oversight altogether. If he refuses to do the nation’s business until we quit investigating, what does the House have left to do BUT impeach him? And won’t most voters see that he is the one who has yet again prevented desperately needed action on infrastructure, immigration, health care, and all the rest? That’s what happened with the government shutdown early this year.

Meanwhile, the ground has shifted dramatically with Mueller’s public appearance this week. Both the left AND the right have interpreted his brief statement to mean that the Report is a “referral for impeachment.” Which is why the shrieking White Kids Chorus at Fox has been frantically condemning it, and him. In a lovely little vacation from the world of 1984, where we’ve been living since 2016, everyone now seems to admit (in rousing delivery of the Lie Direct to Bill Barr, disappointment for the ages that he is) that the report does NOT exonerate the grifter in chief. And that it might be a good idea to actually read the damn thing.

Another portent almost equally cheering has been the wonderful turnabout of Justin Amash, R-Michigan, who all on his little lonesome read the report, reflected, “Well, duh,” and began calling for impeachment, into the teeth of a Republican party now of course screaming for his blood, placid Trumpist Stepford Wives to the man. Better yet, when Amash took the issue home to a town hall, he got a standing, you read that right, ovation from his right-of-center constituents. Anyone who remembers The Emperor’s New Clothes can see how this might play out.

So the new burning question may be, not whether to impeach, but how to manage impeachment, up to and through an acquittal by the quisling Senate that seems inevitable, in a way that enhances Democratic prospects for 2020 rather than hurting them. This seems like a doable thing. Somewhere along the line, the conventional wisdom ruled that a “failed” impeachment would play out as it did for Clinton in the nineties, with the country more riled at the president’s gibbering accusers than at the Lecher in Chief himself. But a couple of months back, in an Atlantic cover story, Yoni Applebaum pointed out that the country went into the Nixon impeachment hearings with roughly 20% of the country in favor, and came out at something like 70%, with a solid consensus won over by what they had heard in seven months of hearings and testimony and related news coverage. The same thing could happen here, and seems even likely to happen if, like me, you believe that Trump is far dirtier and more dangerous than Nixon ever was. The key will be for the Dems to do their homework, and to avoid coming across as a big gaggle of petty, partisan, jockeying, Jesuitical, self-serving, fault-finding, back-stabbing ideologues, never an easy thing for us. 

But it’s possible, possible. So far nearly half the 2020 Democratic Presidential hopefuls have come out in favor of impeachment hearings, with Buttigieg, Booker, Gillibrand, Hickenlooper, and Harris joining the club most recently. The idea seems to be taking hold that, hang it, when you can’t seem to calculate your best advantage one way or the other, you might, damn it all, just fall back on doing the right thing. Elizabeth Warren says that impeachment is a now a constitutional obligation, in a way that makes me believe that she really believes it. I’m still waiting for Nancy, but waiting with increasing eagerness, convinced that she’s waiting too, looking for the right moment, and that she’s the right person to bring this off.