Watching cable news and surfing Facebook this past Wednesday, an outside observer might be excused in thinking that the Democrats won something. There were the members of the mainstream media lauding what they repeatedly referred to as an indelible mark on Donald Trump’s presidency. Facebook and Twitter users lit up in some misperceived triumph. Collectively the left cheered when, finally, after three long years of trying, President Trump was finally impeached. Perhaps it was the excitement of the moment, the culmination of a three-year vendetta, but Democrats far and wide seemed so jubilant in their perceived victory, that they displayed an absolute ignorance of the reality in which they were living. That being, absolutely nothing has changed.
Just as when they woke up on November 9, 2016, and just as they sat stoically on January 20, 2017, Donald Trump is still their president, and Democrats still don’t like him. Quite literally, nothing was changed by the House Democrats’ formal vote to impeach the president, a formal vote to say nothing more than, “We don’t like him!” Nothing has changed except for the fact that Democrats have a fresh opportunity to lose with some dignity intact, an opportunity that they thus far have been reluctant to embrace.
If a tree falls in the woods, and there’s nobody around to hear it, does it make a sound? What if the House voted to impeach a president, but failed to send such impeachment to the Senate, does the impeachment even matter? Yes, House Democrats have formally voted in favor of two articles of impeachment against the president, yet Speaker Pelosi has yet to deliver those articles to the Senate. The Speaker feels, quite incorrectly, that by withholding the articles from the Senate, she somehow gains leverage over what she erroneously believes to be an unfair process. As juvenile as it is, threatening to take your ball and go home, only ever works if the other side really wants to play. To believe, as Speaker Pelosi evidently does, that withholding the articles could somehow compel the Senate to cater to her partisan demands is to overlook the fact that the Senate never wanted this impeachment farce in the first place. Mitch McConnell, President Trump, and Republicans throughout the country could be just as content to see an entirely partisan impeachment fall apart simply because the champion of such impeachment is afraid to bring it to an open trial. A loss for the House Democrats to be certain, but not one with any semblance of dignity.
Speaker Pelosi, her allies in the Senate, and Democrats throughout the social media universe have charged that Mitch McConnell, and any Senate Republican who does not sign off on the demands of Chuck Schumer, is a hopeless partisan and somehow unfit to be a “juror” in any would be trial. Are we then to accept that, by implication, Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler, and the rest of the House Democrats who have been on a three-year quest of impeachment in search of a reason are impartial purveyors of truth? Are we to forget the Russia collusion narrative and Adam Schiff’s fraudulent claim to have proof of such collusion? Should we overlook the baseless claims of obstruction of justice towards the Mueller investigation? A fair “juror” would, necessarily, keep in mind the “prosecutor’s” demonstrated history of vindictive and fraudulent prosecution. And are we to overlook the fact that other “jurors” would include Kamala Harris, who just weeks ago tweeted “See you at your trial” before the House even voted on impeachment? Or what about Elizabeth Warren who famously lied about her ancestry to advance her career and falsely claimed to have been fired over pregnancy to advance her presidential campaign? Are these the examples fair and impartial jurors the left would like to populate a Senate trial?
Democrats have been on an endless three-year quest to arrive at this point, regardless of reason and in absence of merit, a partisan driven vendetta whose promulgators now charge their opposition with hyper-partisanship. This is eerily similar to the classic fairy tale movie, The Princess Bride, when the conniving crime boss Vizzini decries, “You’re trying to kidnap what I’ve rightfully stolen!” Having nothing left to advance their hopes of removing Trump from office, Democrats now accuse Republicans in the Senate of the very immoralities they themselves are guilty of. That sounds a lot like a phrase Speaker Pelosi has popularized, “beneath the dignity of the office."
To be sure, the articles of impeachment will fail if they ever reach the Senate. The first article, alleging abuse of power, is not only unsubstantiated, but an act House Democrats have openly committed by spending all of their time and exerting all of their influence to harass the president and his family through endless, and baseless, investigations. The second article, accusing the president of obstruction of Congress by exerting executive privilege and challenging subpoenas has already been taken up by the Supreme Court with regards to the subpoenas for his tax returns. The very fact that the Court is looking at the question means that it is a valid question and not sufficient grounds for impeachment. The ill-advised impeachment is rightfully dead on arrival in any body that is not partisan.
Democrats wanted to put an indelible mark against Donald Trump’s name and an asterisk next to his presidency. What they have done is placed an indelible mark against this Congress and a permanent asterisk next to this impeachment. They have lost and there exists no way for them to change that. Still, they can lose with dignity by dropping this charade now before they do any further damage to the institutions they claim to be defending.