Article: 11 crucial things Nancy Pelosi gets wrong about impeachment [View all]

[bdamomma]

https://www.alternet.org/2019/06/here-are-11-crucial-things-nancy-pelosi-gets-wrong-about-impeachment/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=307&recip_id=21760&list_id=2

Snip of article:

At one point, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s reluctance to pursue impeachment could certainly be defended as both politically and constitutionally prudent, even if President Trump had clearly committed impeachable offenses. Waiting for Robert Mueller’s final report (even in redacted form) before moving forward was a defensible, deliberative position.

But that time is gone, and Pelosi’s position no longer makes any coherent sense. “Trump deserves impeachment — so let’s defeat him at the ballot box” is not a sound argument, especially from an institutionalist perspective. There’s also no guarantee it will work, as Adam Jentleson, former chief deputy to Sen. Harry Reid, points out at GQ: Remember how Democrats cleverly chose not to fight for Merrick Garland’s Supreme Court nomination, relying on defeating Trump in 2016 instead?

More:

If one ignores the threat of democratic backsliding, then it could be rational, pragmatic and even principled to be guided by fears of a political downside to impeachment, and to view everything through that lens. But that’s a threat one cannot ignore: Even if you view the argument in Pelosi’s terms, the political downside of refusing to impeach is potentially far greater than the downside of impeachment itself.

There are more immediate downside costs as well, as Jentleson’s bluntly-titled GQ article, “The Political Costs of Not Impeaching Trump” reminds us. “Being in the minority limited our options for overcoming McConnell’s blockade” of the Garland nomination, Jentleson writes. “But whenever we started to contemplate more aggressive tactics, they were dismissed on the theory that the upcoming election would sort everything out. Why rock the boat, we told ourselves.”


I still think impeachment inquiries should begin. Why wait till Nov 2020 I feel that would not be a wise decision.