While all that is being laid on President Trump for not only the demonstration-turned-riot on Capitol Hill, but for the increase in civil tension across the nation – including the prospect of more to come– Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her more radical Democrats are doing their part to escalate the situation.
It would appear that her strategy is to provoke more violence that can be blamed on not only Trump, but on Republican public officials and millions of Republican voters. Her stereotyping of all Republican voters – even those Republicans who may not have even voted for Trump – as enemies of the state, is an effort to damage the Republican brand for political gain in the 2022 midterm elections.
Nancy Pelosi saw what happened across the country on Election Day 2020.
Apart from the outcome of the presidential election, Democrats took a drubbing – especially in her own House chamber. Her onetime dominant majority has shrunk to now where she has only a margin of five votes. In other words, the Democrats 2018 blue wave has been crushed.
No matter what one thinks of Trump, there was no public benefit to engaging in a meaningless impeachment at this time.
First of all, it was IMPOSSIBLE to undertake a fair and legitimately motivated impeachment in the remaining few days of the Trump presidency. There is no time for proper investigation – no time for deliberation by both sides. Pelosi’s action is not about removing Trump from office before the end of his term. It is all about political posturing and pandering.
Nancy Pelosi feigned reluctance to take up an impeachment — and would only do so if Vice President Pence and the Cabinet did not invoke the 25th Amendment to declare Trump incompetent and strip him of his powers. Pelosi knew that was not going to happen. She has already dangerously weaponized impeachment as a partisan political procedure in 2020. And she tried to do the same with the 25th Amendment.
By grossly exaggerating the circumstances – that Trump is a clear and present danger to the very existence of the Republic – to justify her rush-to-judgment impeachment, Pelosi increased the angst and anger of Republicans. She also incited irrational hatred from the left. I am not just referring to the extreme nutcases in the Trump base – and there are some. I am referring to the millions of Americans Pelosi maligns in words and deed.
She also signaled to the anti-Trump nutcases that their angry and aggressive actions are warranted … justified …. Pelosi is literally poking both sides into confrontation. We already see it on social media.
The angry threats are NOT coming from just one side of the political/philosophic divide as the media would have us believe.
Death threats are increasing against Republican politicians and conservative activists.
Pelosi recognizes that impeachment will overshadow the inauguration of President Biden. She also knows it will further putrefy the political atmosphere in the first 100 days of the Biden administration. Pelosi still pursued a second meaningless impeachment. Like the first one, its sole purpose was to influence an election.
Pelosi contends that Congress and deal with impeachment and the launching of the Biden presidency. She is wrong. The Senate trial will such most of the oxygen out of the troom. Trump, himself, will make sure of that.
The impeachment dashed a hope for a real effort by Biden to reach across the aisle to seek unity and cooperation – if that be his sincere intent. It will mean that, one way or another, the pending trial will influence the deliberations of almost every nomination Biden sends to the Senate for advice and consent.
There are also non-political negative ramifications resulting from the impeachment.
It thwarts efforts to restore unity and comity to the body politic. The increase in confrontation – especially if it reaches the proportions we saw in the 1960s – will have a negative impact on the slowly improving economic. The record-breaking stock market is likely to be the first to suffer. Jobs will suffer. Small business will suffer – some directly if rioters do what rioters do. Getting America back to normal will suffer.
Pelosi encouraged people to take to the streets by subtly provoking both sides to feel a personal necessity to publicly demonstrate. By doing this, she will be creating innumerable super-spreader events resulting in an upsurge in Covid-19 cases – and deaths. While Pelosi should be promoting calm and continuing to encourage folks to stay home, she is doing the opposite.
Whether from violence or disease, Pelosi’s reckless action will inevitably lead to more dead Americans.
She and the Democrats will – as they often accuse Trump – have blood on their hands.
In her broad-brush partisan attack on the Republican brand based on mendacious political narratives – and on millions of good Americans across the nation who voted for Trump — Pelosi is putting a torch to the tinderbox. If we again see the kinds of Days of Rage that marked the 1960s, Pelosi will be as culpable as anyone.
If they believe that Trump’s words were intemperate – and I personally believe they were — then they could have gone for a censure. Put the indelible mark on his legacy and move on. The primary purpose of impeachment is removal from office. It is absurd to tie up the federal government removing from office a person no longer holding that office.
A censure would avoid a prolonged constitutional debate. Would not abuse the power of impeachment. Would not have heightened the tension in the nation. A censure might even have produced a convincing bipartisan vote that would have reduced public tension.
Nancy Pelosi – with her strident partisan lust for power – has made a bad situation worse. Trump is out. Now we have the problem the Pelosi is not.
So, there ‘tis.