I & I Editorial

The impeachment of President Donald Trump, far from being a long national nightmare, was an extended Washington-based tantrum by Democrats. It’s going to be interesting to see how the public treats them in the November elections.

Many will be reelected without drama. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is safe in her San Francisco seat, as is Rep. Adam Schiff, who won his wealthy, bright blue Los Angeles district with more than 78% of the votes in 2018. Rep. Zoe Lofgren, one of the seven impeachment managers, took nearly three-fourths of the votes from her district, which sits partly in Silicon Valley in the single-party state of California.

Rep. Jerry Nadler will have no trouble in his New York City district. He’s been in the House since 1992 and won two years ago with more than 81% of the vote.

But others who don’t represent exclusive, elitist enclaves might find that voters, weary of the impeachment charade, the promise of permanent impeachment, and the waste of public resources to sate revenge-minded politicians, dole out harsher treatment in 2020.

Naturally the conventional media, and the “analysts” they consult with, believe that it will be the other way around, that the Senate Republicans who didn’t vote to remove Trump from office, and felt they had heard enough without demanding more witnesses, might be in trouble.

“For the handful of senators who face tough reelection battles this year, their vote to acquit or convict Trump, or even to call witnesses in the trial, could loom large when voters consider whether to give them another six-year term,” Reuters said last month.

The hard-left British Guardian was happy to report a few days ago that “grassroots activists are planning a massive ‘payback project’ designed to punish Republican senators at the ballot box.”

Meanwhile, columnist Andres Oppenheimer called American University political historian Allan Lichtman, who told him that impeachment might cost Trump “dearly in the November elections.” For his part, Oppenheimer admitted that he is “afraid” the entire impeachment chapter “may be long forgotten before the election.”

What won’t be forgotten, because Trump won’t let it, nor should he, is on the eve of his acquittal, Pelosi made a show of ripping up her copy of his State of the Union address. It was an act of disrespect not often seen. If it was an attempt to score political points, it failed to produce the effect she was looking for.

“I’m a Democrat, but I no longer will vote Democrat,” a caller told C-Span shortly after the speaker’s theatrics, which were as much about the hatred that ignited the impeachment as they were about Trump’s address.

Another said, “I’ve been a Democrat for 70-some years and what I saw tonight was appalling to me. … What I’ve seen tonight of the Democrat party, I am changing my mind. … I’ll probably stay home.”

Yet another admitted “I used to be a Democrat.” But now she is “no longer.”

The impeachment of Trump was nothing more than ugly partisan politics. And as Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said from the Senate floor Wednesday, “the people of the United States are fed up with this crap.” Expect the fed-up voters of deep red Alabama to express their anger when Democratic Sen. Doug Jones, who voted for conviction, is on the fall ballot for reelection. Alabama voters favored Trump over Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016 by a 63-35 margin, but Jones by fewer than 2 percentage points when he won the 2017 special election to replace Jeff Sessions.

“I know that if I’m the senator from Alabama and I vote to throw Donald Trump out of office and off the ballot,” Scott Jennings, a GOP strategist, told the New York Times, “my chances” for reelection “drop from whatever they were to zero.”

The carnage might also spill over to the House, where the Democrats hold a 35-seat majority. They can take no solace in polls that showed the public narrowly split on impeachment and removal. For one, the trend isn’t encouraging for them. Impeachment and removal faded from large support for last fall to a small gap in Trump’s favor. They also know the “fed up” voters are likely to be more motivated to go to the polls than those who might still be sulking that they couldn’t get rid of Trump.

Democrats also have to deal with high congressional disapproval ratings. This is more of a problem for them than Republicans, because they own the House, where every member has to run for reelection every two years.

“We feel very, very confident that come November [voters] are going to make the right decision and Speaker Pelosi’s term as speaker of the House will not go beyond this year,” House Republican Conference Chair Rep. Liz Cheney, Wyoming’s lone House member, said Wednesday.

Odds are good voters will reject, as well, the Democratic presidential nominee in favor of Trump. He or she will simply be an extension of the House Democrats’ get-Trump cabal.

Voters should also oust the likes of Pelosi, Schiff, Nadler, Lofgren, and the other Democrats behind the farce for dragging the country into their filthy hogpen. They of course won’t. But if they did, it would be the start of a better era.

— Written by J. Frank Bullitt

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