Tom Steyer is being disingenuous, and he needs to stop it.

He got a Lincoln Continental, he got a El dorado too   Bad, Bad Leroy Brown   Jim Croce

You know, for a long time, I considered progressive billionaire Tom Steyer to be more of a curiosity than anything else. Steyer hopped aboard the “Impeach Trump” express early, and he decided to put his money where his mouth was, spending millions of dollars on nationally televised ads pushing for the impeachment of Trump. Personally I thought that a better use of that money would be electing Democrats, but Steyer pledged $100 million to elect Democrats in 2020, so that’s that. I just hope that some of that swag goes into electing Democrats to state legislatures, to flip state houses in time for the 2020 census redistricting.

And actually, Steyer’s ads were pretty kewl. In each one Steyer laid out the case nicely, looking earnestly into the camera, and using facts and logic. Also nice was the fact that Steyer’s ads were non partisan, he didn’t solely call on Democrats to take action, he called on congress to do its damn job. And apparently he has had some success, claiming some 6-7 million signatures on his online petition to send His Lowness back to his gilded birdcage in Manhattan. But to be fair, 6-7 million signatures in a country with an average of about 135 million voters isn’t exactly a tsunami of protest, especially considering how simple an online signature is.

But Tom Steyer’s latest ad promoting sending the Plush Bottom Poltroon packing is misleading almost to the point of deceit. It isn’t that his litany of grievances are wrong, they’re as factual as ever. And it isn’t his use of “real people” to make the point instead of directing his comments to the camera himself. It’s the last third of the ad that goes off of the rails factually, and in a way that isn’t helpful to the cause of impeaching Trump, or in defeating him in the 2020 election.

In that segment, the people speaking are clearly angry, upset, and disappointed, saying things about impeachment like, “This is what we knocked on doors for, this is what we knocked on doors for, this is what we gave money for, this is what we voted for, and now you’re telling us to wait for the next election?!?” The thrust of the argument is clear, that the Democratic base is angry and upset that the representatives that they voted for, explicitly to impeach Trump, are dragging their heels now that they’re in office.

This is NOT true! While there were a handful of progressive firebrands like Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Rashida Tlaib who campaigned on the promise of impeaching Trump, they are in the minority. The vast majority of Democrats who flipped the 40 seats in the House last November did not loudly advocate for the impeachment of the Cheeto Prophet. In fact, most of them studiously avoided the subject of impeachment. The majority of the House seats that were flipped were in conservative leaning swing districts, talk of impeaching Trump could have been injurious, if not fatal to their campaigns. Instead, these candidates campaigned, and campaigned hard on issues like infrastructure, healthcare, and education. What those Democrats promised their constituents they would do is to provide oversight to the shenanigans of Trump and his administration, something which had been sadly lacking. And that is exactly what the Democrats in the House are trying to do right now. But oversight is not a synonym for impeachment, and never has been.

Normally, one would say, “Who cares? It’s just a stupid ad!” But not this time. because what Steyer is doing is to try to subliminally influence the thinking of incumbent Democrats in congress, attempting to make them believe that they are letting their constituents down, and that their chances for reelection are endangered by their lack of effort. And as far as I can see, there is no statistical evidence to back this up. The most recent poll I have seen finally showed impeachment edging out non impeachment, but by a slim margin of 45-42% in that poll. And until you can get that number over the 50% threshold, as they said in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, “It’s just jerkin’ time.”

Personally, I would like to see impeachment hearings begin, and most riki-tik. because the way I see it, putting the word impeachment in front of the word hearing would mean that more people would finally tune in and pay attention, and in doing so, would finally learn the kind of lame shit that Trump and his merry band of freebooters have been pulling for the last 2.5 years. And once that happens, you’ll start to see support for impeachment rise dramatically. But that’s just me, a private citizen, and I have no direct knowledge of any of the other calculations and considerations that go into making such a decision, and neither do any of those other people in the Steyer commercial yelling indignantly at the camera.

So please Mr Steyer, if you want to continue to push for the impeachment of The $1 Store Caligula, be my guest, and godspeed to you sir. But please don’t misrepresent public sentiment just to score your point. If that’s how the constituents feel, they’ll be more than happy to let their representatives know in town halls and phone calls, which thankfully the Democrats welcome having. Because, if we fuck this up, instead of giving Trump the Denver boot, we could end up giving him four more years. And that would kill the country you love so much. As Aretha Franklin said in The Blues Brothers, “You better think about the consequences of y’actions!”