Impeachment vs. Winning

First, up front, let me state that this is a personal opinion and not an approved position of the local Democratic Party.  We Democrats are in a quandary over the impeachment question and understandably.  The question on whether to impeach the current President of the United States is one of the those cases in which something is obviously justified, but just as obviously wrong. 

The hearing is over, and Robert S. Mueller, true to predictions, did not provide the landmine, the smoking gun, the testimony that would move any member of the Republican Party closer to voting for impeachment.  Republicans remain craven and hypocritical, and are unpatrioticly ignoring foreign interference in our elections.  One has to wonder if so many are tainted by Russian money, here's looking at you Moscow Mitch, that they can do nothing else. So the obvious question.....what should Democrats do? My instincts are to go with the one who brought you to the dance..... Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

The pragmatic Speaker has been through enough Washington wars to know that idealism, untempered by realism, is dangerous.  You do not spend your political capital on a losing cause, even if justified.  Let's state the obvious, the Republican Party is no more, it is now a Personality Cult for Donald Trump.  Let that sink in, a Personality Cult, not a Party of ideas, policies, positions, but one solely tied to Donald Trump, the leader.  And the leader that can do no wrong.  The leader can unilaterally disregard the constitution, but still be supported by the Party.  On family planning, on fiscal policy, on the environment, on trade policies, on national security the President has shredded decades of Republican Party policies.  But they still follow lock step in a movement toward fascism.  How do you deal with the Republican Party when your Speaker Pelosi?

You certainly do not give them a victory, and impeachment would be a Republican victory.  No Republican, and even some Democrats will vote to impeach President Trump.  Even if the House acted, Senator McConnell would kill it in the Senate (look up Merrick Garland for the game plan).  So, political capital spent, at the cost of an embolded Trump, the base fired up by his victimhood and his always-to-be aggrieved followers, possible loss of the House and Senate in Republican hands.  Does this sound like winning?

We Democrats need to focus on the future by repudiating  this disgraceful chapter in our history.  To do that we must select the strongest possible presidential candidate that will have the broadest appeal to all Americans.  After that work hard in canvassing and getting out the vote.  Impeachment just gives the President another issue that he can use to dominate the news cycle.  The political consequences of a failed impeachment attempt could well mean another four years of Trump.  Better for the voters to throw the bum out of office than work for a failed impeachment.