Billionaire Tom Steyer is swinging for the fences, and could care less that Nancy Pelosi believes it might cost her a chance at winning the House. Wait, Steyer does care, he just believes Pelosi is dead wrong, and that not campaigning on impeaching Trump will cost Democrats millions of votes. Who is right? Who knows? The only “known” is that the stakes in the strategy could not possibly be higher. The House must go Democratic, even by one seat, for the entire complexion of government to change.
Steyer believes it is not just Nancy Pelosi is wrong, he believes every Democrat standing with her is wrong. Not campaigning on impeachment, according to Steyer, puts the country at risk, and puts the Democrats long-term future at risk, according to a fantastic article in Politico.
Steyer’s reasoning is solid, even if the political calculation remains “iffy” at best.
“The Founders gave us impeachment to answer a reckless, lawless, and dangerous president and every day that his behavior is accepted, every day that you don’t oppose it, it becomes enshrined as the way things are done. You have normalized this presidency, you have normalized his behavior,” Steyer said. “And then at the end of four years when you come out and, you know it’s inevitable, ‘It’s outrageous what he’s done.’ Really? Because for the last 1300 days you’ve kind of gone along with it. … How much credibility—I think there’s a question here.”
I’m not taking sides in this one, both have far more political experience than me. But, I do find it important to point out that Nancy Pelosi’s track record over the last 3 Congressional elections is not “stellar.” Plus, though Pelosi’s office did not agree to speak on the record regarding this article, she has spoken to the topic before. I am not sure which universe she spoke of when addressing the issue in the past:
She’s repeatedly said that she hasn’t yet seen a solid case for impeachment, and maintains that fewer people are talking about it now for Trump than were for George W. Bush in the heat of the Iraq War fallout in the run-up to the 2006 midterms romp she led, when Democrats picked up 31 seats and flipped both the House and Senate. Democratic leaders worry that even raising the topic of impeachment this year threatens to make swing House districts unwinnable and all but erases the chance of retaking control of the House.
Look, it is true that Mueller hasn’t released his report. On the other hand, we know the FBI warned the Trump campaign that Russians were making efforts to infiltrate the campaign, and Don Jr. still set up a meeting with the highest of the high in the campaign with …a damn Russian (“I love it”), and we know they had to think the meeting was dicey, because “guess who” supposedly didn’t attend the meeting? Use of Russian material or attempted coordination with a conspiracy to defraud the United States, Count One.
Count 2? Available to anyone who watches the damn news! Trump admits to NBC Nightly News that he fired Comey because Comey wouldn’t stop the Russian investigation, in direct contrast to the memo HIS Justice Department wrote.
That’s two, Nancy. And there’s been a lot of “talk.” It is true that war crimes committed by Bush should well have been grounds for serious impeachment review, very few discussions about the issue came about.
Steyer also has numbers, and they are mighty convincing:
Steyer and his staff have crunched their own numbers off the nearly 5.4 million people who’ve signed up with his “Need to Impeach” initiative. By their count, there are 10,000 people in each of the 75 most hotly contested House districts who are on his list—enough to swing a close race—and two-thirds of them are sporadic voters. By shooting down every question about impeachment, Steyer says, Pelosi is writing those voters off.
Now, I won’t cast judgment on Nancy Pelosi, again, she’s been a great leader, if not a great asset in elections. I will cast judgment on the never-to-be-damned-enough DCCC, which has announced that none of its candidates will run on impeachment. Disingenuous at best, since everyone knows that the election most certainly will be a referendum on Trump.
Who’s right? Again, who knows? We do know the stakes.
Oh, and there’s also the Russians, the ones we’re doing nothing about to prevent another attack on our elections? Those guys, tough to factor in their impact, since our government won’t talk about them, much less do anything.
