The world’s oldest political party is evidently suffering from senile dementia. The Democrats are now pursuing what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi mischaracterizes as “an official impeachment inquiry” without evidence of presidential wrongdoing and precious little support from the electorate. The unredacted transcript of President Trump’s July conversation with Ukrainian President Zelensky debunks the latest conspiracy theory about a quid pro quo arrangement between the two involving the 2020 election. Moreover, public opinion polls show that the majority of voters are against impeachment. Yet the Democrats seem confused about what these facts mean and have responded to them in a way that is irrational and self-destructive.

Their refusal to heed public sentiment regarding impeachment, for example, suggests that they have lost their capacity to make rational political judgments. The latest public opinion survey asking voters about impeachment was conducted by Quinnipiac University from September 19 to 23, after the much-hyped “whistleblower scandal” broke and was released Wednesday morning. The poll reveals that only 37 percent of registered voters favor impeachment and 57 percent are against it. More ominous for the Democrats, enthusiasm for removing Trump was even lower among Independents, only 34 percent of whom support impeachment. The Quinnipiac poll confirms the latest Monmouth University Poll, which produced similar results:

Just over a third (35%) of Americans feel that Trump should be impeached and compelled to leave the presidency while a clear majority (59%) disagree with this course of action.… Monmouth started asking this question in July 2017, with the current results at the low end of that range. Opposition to impeachment has been between 53% and 59% during the same time.

In other words, two years of polls have clearly demonstrated that the public is against impeachment. What the public wants, according to a September survey by McLaughlin and Associates, is congressional cooperation with the president. When respondents were asked if they agreed with the following statement: “Democrats in Congress should focus on working with Republicans to solve our nation’s problems rather than on trying to impeach President Trump,” an overwhelming 66 percent agreed. Only 29 percent disagreed. In fact, the ongoing harassment of the president has translated into a backlash in the form of campaign donations to Trump and the RNC. Wednesday afternoon, Trump’s 2020 campaign manager Brad Pascale tweeted,

In the 24 hours since news of Nancy Pelosi’s impeachment announcement, @realDonaldTrump’s campaign & @GOP have BLOWN OUT fundraising! $5 million combined in 24 hours. Donors in all 50 states. Huge groundswell of support leading to Trump landslide in 2020!

By 2 p.m. Wednesday afternoon, the RNC fundraising push inspired by Pelosi’s announcement that Democrats would pursue their unjustified inquiry had also produced $1 million in contributions for various GOP congressional candidates. Since the Democrats captured their meager 18-seat House majority in 2016, the speaker has worked diligently to tamp down talk of impeachment by publicity-seeking Democrats like AOC. Pelosi’s Tuesday pirouette indicates that her tenuous control over her caucus has all but disappeared. It also demonstrates that she still doesn’t have enough Democratic votes to pass a House resolution authorizing a genuine impeachment inquiry. As the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, Doug Collins (R-Ga.), put it:

Today isn’t what impeachment looks like, and this afternoon’s press conference changes nothing legally. There has been no House vote to authorize a formal impeachment inquiry.… No matter how many Democrats subscribe to the fantasy that the House began an impeachment inquiry … neither Chairman [Jerrold] Nadler nor Speaker Pelosi have unilateral authority to launch one.

This is why Pelosi, knowing full well that Collins is right, nonetheless insisted on calling the Democratic jihad against Trump “an official impeachment inquiry.” She’s attempting to create the illusion of legitimacy. The last time the House held an actual vote to authorize a genuine impeachment inquiry was on July 19. The motion crashed and burned 332-95. Consequently, when the “news” media claims that Democratic support for impeachment has suddenly reached 217, remember that 122 of these frauds headed for the tall grass when it came time to cast their votes. Pelosi’s Tuesday language was carefully calculated to permit these poltroons to tell their constituents they support removing Trump without forcing them to vote for impeachment.

Likewise, the Democrats had to recalibrate their impeachment strategy on Wednesday when President Trump voluntarily released the unredacted transcript of his July conversation with Ukrainian President Zelensky. When Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, demanded that President Trump turn over the transcript, he was probably not prepared for Trump to do it without a fight. When Trump promptly released it, Schiff realized that it contained no gun and no smoke, so the chairman was reduced to tweeting moronic comments such as the following: “The transcript of the call reads like a classic mob shakedown.… Nice country you got there.… It would be a shame if something happened to her.”

Evidently, Schiff read a different transcript than the rest of us got. Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) claimed that the transcript alone validated an inquiry: “In this telephone conversation, the president of the United States made an extraordinary request to the president of Ukraine, to investigate Trump’s political opponent and aid President Trump’s reelection campaign.” Trump did nothing of the kind, of course. There was virtually no information in the transcript that President Trump hadn’t already told us about. He asked Zelensky to look into corruption involving Hunter Biden’s business dealings with an energy company and the circumstances surrounding the precipitous dismissal of the investigating prosecutor.

In other words, the allegations made by the mystery whistleblower appear to have been false, and the phone call between Trump and the Ukrainian president was well within the president’s constitutional powers as they relate to foreign policy. The claim that it is grounds for impeachment is even more absurd than similar claims involving the Mueller report. That the Speaker of the House has finally been forced to endorse what she knows is a politically suicidal impeachment investigation suggests that her caucus is now controlled by the looniest elements of the loony Left. The Democratic Party is obviously in its dotage and can no longer be trusted to handle important issues. It’s time to take the keys away from the world’s oldest political party.