Terrible timing, or perfect timing? It depends on your view.

The meek shall inherit the earth. But only after everybody else is dead.   Anonymous

Break out the band! Raise the flag! Send in the clowns! Gimme a beer! Our national sanity break is here. As of this moment, we’re on a six week hiatus from the dimwitted machinations of Washington D.C. They’re on their summer recess. You know what that means, don’t you? It means that for the next six weeks, they can spend their time boring their families, friends, and constituents silly instead of the rest of us. Oh yeah, and they have to spend their own money, instead of ours.

Normally, like any other summer vacation, the congressional summer recess is looked forward to by all. But this time is different. This time there is deep trepidation over the timing of the summer break for Democrats. Because the break started two days after Robert Mueller’s congressional testimony, and this whole to impeach, or not to impeach. That is the question thing is supposed to be coming to a head.

Political pundits, commentators, and the other flotsam and jetsam of the media who are incapable of driving a truck, fixing an air conditioner, or soling a shoe to make a living, are all bemoaning the fact that the recess is going to deprive the Democrats of any momentum that Mueller’s testimony may have given them to move the impeachment needle. And as usual, as a quasi pundit, who still has 12 functioning brain cells, since I’ve never been interviewed on national television, I strongly disagree.

Because, despite their desperate hopes and wishes, not every important national decision emanates from inside the beltway. Politicians still have to make at least a passing attempt to listen to their constituents if they hope to be reelected, and their summer break is chock full of things like town hall meetings with constituents, and accidental meetings with same in places like grocery stores and shopping malls. And therein lies the possible salvation of the Impeach Trump! movement.

Being an old fart, I can remember a decade ago. Hell, I’m damn near old enough to recall the creation of dirt. And ten years ago, once he stopped the global economy from recreating the final scene of Thelma and Louise, then President Barack Obama turned to what was to be the signature piece of legislation for his first term, the passage of The Affordable Care Act. As with the Trump impeachment, the Democrats initial explanation was as fuzzy as a badly tuned TV. But it was the top item on the legislative agenda when congress went on its summer recess.

Which turned into a nightmare for Democrats. Almost nightly for three straight months, television screens were full of images from one congressional town hall or other, filled with screaming “constituents,” ranting about “death panels for Granny!” and “socialized medicine!” Forget the fact that half of those screaming idjits were actually GOP plants, specifically sent into those town halls to disrupt the proceedings and get televised. The fact of the matter is that those protests at the events moved the national needle on the popularity of the bill!

And it could happen again, and it ties into my little quip at the top of the article. Because, while many, many people may vote, many fine people so to speak, it’s the activists who get things done. Why? Because they’re freakin’ active, that’s why! The squeaky wheel gets oiled, and if there’s one thing activists know how to do, it’s how to squeak louder than a cage full of mice with a cat prowling around outside.

If the Impeach Trump! activists are smart, and I think they are, then they’re going to show up en masse at every town hall meeting they can find, and they’re going to shanghai it. They are going to scream to impeach Trump so long and loud that the congressman gets fined for not getting a rock concert permit before holding the event. And those hysterical scenes are going to be on the evening news, both locally as well as nationally. And you know what happens when they do? Well, Carl and Cindy Clueless in Pencilneck, Idaho look at each other across the living room sofa and say, “Holy shit! I didn’t realize this was that serious! We better start paying attention!” And the beauty of it is that even FOX will show the footage, because they think it will show how insane the Democrats are, but it will get their viewers thinking. And when that happens, the interest in, and support for, impeachment hearings will start to grow in the national polls.

Or it won’t. But either way, decision day is here. First the Democrats said, “Wait for the Mueller report.” And then, when Tubby the Ewok turned the Mueller report into a Picasso painting, they said, “Let’s wait to hear from Mueller personally.” And now that they worry that Mueller didn’t provide enough bang for their buck, it’s “Let’s hear what Don McGahn has to say.” Enough already! If this continues the way it is, then people will start to think that the Democrats are engaging in sour grapes for screwing up a slam dunk election in 2016.

And even an impeachment attempt that fails in the Senate doesn’t have to be fatal to the Democrats. Trump becoming President doesn’t suspend the political rules, in politics a week literally is a lifetime. If the Democrats commence impeachment hearings when they return in September, the entire thing could be wrapped up by the holiday recess. This would leave almost an entire year before the election. How many times have you heard that a government shutdown, or a risked debt limit default was going to be the death knell for the GOP in a coming election, only to not have it cost them a single vote a year later? Memories in politics are as short as a goaltenders memory when he gives up a goal. It has to be, because there’s always the next shot. Especially with one Donald Juan Trump, the ultimate distraction machine. Trump will make the country forget a Senate acquittal in less than a month, just as sure as God made little green apples. And the impeachment hearings and trial will only highlight and cement Trump’s criminal and immoral shenanigans in voters minds heading into the election.

One way or the other, the impeachment die will be cast in the month that congress returns from their August recess. In 2018, the Democrats, with Indivisible‘s guidance, used the Tea Party’s playbook to flip 40 seats in the House and take it over. In 2019, they can use the Tea Party’s town hall tactics to try to drum up national support for impeaching The Cheeto Prophet, or at least try. Because this can’t go on indefinitely.