Speaker of the House Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) speaks during her weekly news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington on Dec. 5, 2019. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Suppose They Threw an Impeachment and Nobody Came?

Commentary

Perhaps the most telling moment of the last few years—at least psychologically—occurred just the other day when reporter James Rosen asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), “Do you hate President Trump?”

You don’t have to be Sigmund Freud to have seen the extreme defensiveness of the speaker’s response. It practically hit you in the face.

Wrapping herself in the mantle of her Catholicism and with the rigidity of a central casting schoolmarm, she informed us she loved all humanity, hated no one, prayed for President Donald Trump all the time, even that day, and then excoriated Rosen for daring to ask such a question, before stomping off in a distinctly impious fashion.

But what Rosen was asking was far from inappropriate—it’s the signal question of our time. We are in an era of almost unprecedented mutual hate at the same moment we are experiencing unprecedented economic success (unemployment at 50-year lows for all sectors, salaries up more than 3 percent, and so on.)

Yet, everywhere, there is anger, families riven as never in our lifetimes, friendships strained, workplaces subject to a code of silence lest one be fired or ostracized, whole communities despising each other. Maybe we should change the name of the country to the United States of Can’t Stand Prosperity.

And now, in the Christmas season and maybe beyond, we have to look forward to an impeachment in the House and possible trial in Senate. (“’Tis the season to be UNjolly!”) All this with an election less than a year away. Was this even remotely necessary?

As we know, the impeachment of Trump was contemplated even before he was elected. The Washington Post had a headline saying it had begun minutes after his inauguration. It’s as if Comrade Beria’s famous line, “Show me a man and I’ll show you the crime” had morphed into “Show me a president and I’ll show you grounds for impeachment.”

And indeed, is there any president whose activities a clever lawyer/politician couldn’t twist into such grounds? And, if the first round didn’t work, they’d find others. Such was the case with Trump, in which the causes went on and on until they settled on, of all things, Ukraine. Perhaps I should withhold the “settled,” because it could be something else by next week—or even by the time you read this.

So what do we gain by all this, my fellow Americans? If Pelosi, Schiff, Nadler, & Co. were to succeed in impeaching and removing Trump, what would they inherit? Not the wind, but something worse—the whirlwind—a country split beyond comprehension, even on the brink of civil war. What an accomplishment!

The gang at CNN, MSNBC, and so on should be very proud. That’s what they wanted, isn’t it? (I wonder if they ever think about that.)

And what if the same group were to go through with the impeachment, but it misfires, fails in the Senate, as seems likely? What then? Trump is reelected but the hate remains, probably increases, even doubles or triples.

During his second term, are there constant demonstrations in the streets? Does Antifa grow, with window-smashing in half the downtowns in our country? Do all our shopping malls turn into war zones? What a terrific thing to look forward to.

Of course, there is another way. It’s called saying no. It’s going back to the business of government, passing the USMCA, and working on infrastructure, maybe figuring out a rational immigration system that everyone could stick to, or doing something serious about all our brothers and sisters overdosing on fentanyl.

We could do all that, or even some, but unfortunately, it’s probably too late.

Award-winning novelist and screenwriter Roger L. Simon’s new book is “The GOAT.” Simon is The Epoch Times’ senior political analyst.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.