House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is upset. She let her caucus impeach President Trump on dubious charges with a narrow partisan majority and without taking the time to gather evidence that she now believes must be heard in a Senate trial as it might convince a skeptical public. And now, huge surprise, the Republican Senate appears poised to send the resulting impeachment articles straight to the circular file.

As of Friday, Pelosi was still withholding the articles of impeachment from the Senate. She is making demands that the Senate trial be run in a particular way, even though the California Democrat is not a senator and has no constitutional role in shaping the trial.

“Their turn is over,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky. “They’ve done enough damage. It’s the Senate’s turn now to render sober judgment.” And by that, he means the Senate will hear from impeachment managers like they did during Bill Clinton's impeachment, and then they will promptly vote to acquit.

Pelosi lashed out in response: “Today, Leader McConnell made clear that he will feebly comply with President Trump’s cover-up of his abuses of power and be an accomplice to that cover-up."

But this is just the voice of the loser. What is going on between her and McConnell is not a “standoff” or an “impasse,” as the media would have you believe. It is a straight-up defeat for House Democrats.

Having hastily impeached without gathering the requisite evidence and testimony that they are now demanding after-the-fact, Democrats are left with no good choices. They hardly sound credible whining that the Senate needs to hear from a bunch of new witnesses — after all, they didn’t need any of those witnesses to impeach, did they?

If House Democrats send the impeachment to the Senate to be voted down, then they will look weak. Trump will spend the next 10 months running around, claiming that he has been vindicated. If House Democrats instead chicken out and swallow their own articles of impeachment, then they also lose. McConnell will shrug and smirk while Trump spends the next 10 months crowing about how they tried to impeach him but lacked the guts to make their case.

Pelosi was initially correct to discourage impeachment. She recognized that a purely partisan impeachment process, conducted entirely for the sake of obtaining a cheap political boost, would work against her party and probably even strengthen Trump. But under withering fire from the extreme Left, she ultimately acquiesced. As a result, House Democrats now find themselves exposed. They already pulled the trigger, and there are no more bullets left in the gun.

If Democrats felt they had a serious case for impeachment that would convince the public, then they would be shoving the articles down McConnell’s throat right now with utter glee, excitedly looking forward to a Senate vote that would surely end the careers of multiple Republicans.

Instead, they are despondent, fearful, wondering whether their conspicuous act of political self-gratification didn't just hand Trump a second term.

Meanwhile, support for impeachment has dwindled. Trump’s approval ratings are up — to 45% according to the RealClearPolitics average, nearly the highest point of his presidency. Reputable state polls suggest that Joe Biden is the only candidate with a prayer of stopping him, but Biden is the one Democrat arguably hurt most by impeachment. The whole story, after all, revolves around an attempt to have him investigated in connection with the flagrantly corrupt dealings of his out-of-control son.

House Democrats are the dog that caught the car. Due to the supposedly urgent need to remove Trump from office as soon as possible, they went and impeached him without a case that will convince anyone outside of their own partisan fever swamps. Now that they’ve impeached — well, suddenly Trump’s removal isn’t so urgent after all. It can wait. Maybe it will end up waiting five years.