NANCY PELOSI DOESN'T WANT TO IMPEACH, AND I'M NOT SURE IT MATTERS

Nancy Pelosi, in a Washington Post interview:

I’m not for impeachment. This is news. I’m going to give you some news right now because I haven’t said this to any press person before. But since you asked, and I’ve been thinking about this: Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path, because it divides the country. And he’s just not worth it.

I'm going to take "unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan" as a huge asterisk. I know that doesn't impress many of you -- you think impeachment is important (necessary!) even if winning conviction in the Senate (by a two-thirds vote) is impossible.

I go back and forth on this. The last impeachment established, for the foreseeable future, the premise that impeachment happens whenever an emboldened party in Congress feels like impeaching a president of the opposite party, for any reason. Because I believe that a large portion of the U.S. population will continue to ignore objective reality in its assessment of Donald Trump, I think a failed impeachment could be assessed the same way, no matter how overwhelming the evidence looks to us. (I'd like to add "or to history," but I believe history is written by the victors, and I'm not at all convinced that's going to us.) A successful impeachment is worth it, even under those circumstances, because at least you drive the sonofabitch out of office. If the point of an unsuccessful impeachment is to establish that high crimes have been committed, I question whether that can be established if 40+ percent of the country doesn't believe the case.

But I don't see any evidence that Pelosi intends to shut down efforts by House committees to try to establish that Trump is unfit for office. Therefore, she's not the last word on this. I think those committees will uncover compelling, overwhelming evidence of Trump's criminality and contempt for the Constitution, and will reframe evidence uncovered by other investigators in a compelling way. What the country will do with this is anyone's guess.

I'd like to believe that Pelosi's words will lull Trump into believing that Democrats are giving up. That's certainly what Trump's ideological and intellectual peers in various right-wing comments sections believe. Here are the Breitbartniks:

You mean, you can't impeach him, as there is nothing to impeach him for, and you have to give up...

Tell the truth, Nancy.

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And it looks like the verdict is in,,,
The Democrats have squat, nothing, nada.......

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Doesn't Nancy know that there aren't ANY Impeachable offenses against Trump. Mueller is wrapping it up with ZERO offenses too.

But they've argued that there's no case against Trump when investigators are aggressive (the Judiciary Committee's sweeping demand for documents is seen as proof that Democrats have nothing and need to cast an even wider net to find fake crimes), and now they're arguing that there's no case against Trump in response to this. To them, Trump's innocence is a matter of theology.

Citizens of Red America will probably never believe what's in front of them, but I'd like to see it, and -- this interview notwithstanding -- I'm sure we will.