excalibur
Mayor
Many reasons why the fauxpeachment failed.
Many Democrats and their allies in the press were calling for the impeachment of Donald Trump long before the infamous call with the president of Ukraine had even happened. Countless mainstream newspapers and magazines developed elaborate rationales for why the president should be impeached. Most of these, however, did not argue that Trump had committed impeachable offenses. Rather, they assumed as established fact that he had done so, with assertions that were usually supported by nothing other than the adverb “clearly,” as in, “the president has clearly crossed the threshold for impeachment.”
At that time, let’s assume that half the country agreed that Trump had “clearly” committed impeachable offenses. That judgment rested only on their original character judgment of Trump, and a bunch of conspiracy theories of varying degrees of preposterousness, which they were trying on for size randomly, as if shopping for cowboy boots in a vintage store.
Meanwhile, the other half the country did not share the Democrats’ character judgment. Indeed, they were rapidly becoming convinced of the opposite. Many Republicans who were Trump skeptics at first, and more than a few Never Trumpers, were concluding that the president, for all his objectionable traits and habits, was turning out to be a better president than many of them expected, and was perhaps more well-meaning than he liked to let on. As one accusation after another turned out to be false, former Trump skeptics became increasingly skeptical of Trump’s opponents. On top of that, the Left’s accusations often swept all conservatives in with the president; they were accusing conservatives’ neighbors and family members of racism and other such nonsense simply because they had voted Trump.
Hence, the Democrats pressed forward in their zealous campaign to unseat the president just as sympathy for the president was strengthening among the very Republicans the Democrats needed to convince in order to prevail. Then the Democrats made a fateful mistake: They launched an impeachment proceeding based not on explosive allegations of impeachable conduct (as with Nixon), or credible evidence of actual criminal behavior (as with Bill Clinton), but on the basis of factual allegations that were at worst highly ambiguous.
...
Third, the Democrats’ reflexive position of “heads I win; tails, you cheated” is incredibly counterproductive. Every time they fail to convince a majority of Americans to agree with them, they blame the process. They lost in 2016 because they failed to understand what was at stake in the election and fielded a terrible candidate. But instead of reckoning with their failure, they invented, and somehow got CNN to propagate nonstop for more than a year, among the most stupid and preposterous conspiracy theories in the history of American politics, namely that an American presidential candidate had colluded with Russia to subvert the election.
Finally, the Democrats’ habit of blaming every defeat on the other side’s corruption of the process undermines faith in our democratic institutions — the very thing they claim to be fighting for. The democratic system doesn’t require that everyone will agree on everything — it presupposes that they won’t agree broadly on almost anything. But in order to work, the society at large has to agree on common principles, such as the Constitution. We have to agree on a common set of procedures. We have to trust those procedures and accept the results when they go against us. If every time you lose an election, or a court case, or an impeachment proceeding, you say that the other side corrupted the process, what you are saying is that the process is corrupt. If people eventually believe you, they will lose faith in our democratic institutions.
The impeachment fiasco appears to be benefiting the president so far, particularly among former Republican skeptics. But at the end of the day, it has left us all poorer, and Democrats most of all.
www.nationalreview.com
Trump’s opponents have a habit of covering up their own shortcomings with false accusations against their political opponents. That tendency doomed impeachment — and is undermining the democratic process.
Many Democrats and their allies in the press were calling for the impeachment of Donald Trump long before the infamous call with the president of Ukraine had even happened. Countless mainstream newspapers and magazines developed elaborate rationales for why the president should be impeached. Most of these, however, did not argue that Trump had committed impeachable offenses. Rather, they assumed as established fact that he had done so, with assertions that were usually supported by nothing other than the adverb “clearly,” as in, “the president has clearly crossed the threshold for impeachment.”
At that time, let’s assume that half the country agreed that Trump had “clearly” committed impeachable offenses. That judgment rested only on their original character judgment of Trump, and a bunch of conspiracy theories of varying degrees of preposterousness, which they were trying on for size randomly, as if shopping for cowboy boots in a vintage store.
Meanwhile, the other half the country did not share the Democrats’ character judgment. Indeed, they were rapidly becoming convinced of the opposite. Many Republicans who were Trump skeptics at first, and more than a few Never Trumpers, were concluding that the president, for all his objectionable traits and habits, was turning out to be a better president than many of them expected, and was perhaps more well-meaning than he liked to let on. As one accusation after another turned out to be false, former Trump skeptics became increasingly skeptical of Trump’s opponents. On top of that, the Left’s accusations often swept all conservatives in with the president; they were accusing conservatives’ neighbors and family members of racism and other such nonsense simply because they had voted Trump.
Hence, the Democrats pressed forward in their zealous campaign to unseat the president just as sympathy for the president was strengthening among the very Republicans the Democrats needed to convince in order to prevail. Then the Democrats made a fateful mistake: They launched an impeachment proceeding based not on explosive allegations of impeachable conduct (as with Nixon), or credible evidence of actual criminal behavior (as with Bill Clinton), but on the basis of factual allegations that were at worst highly ambiguous.
...
Third, the Democrats’ reflexive position of “heads I win; tails, you cheated” is incredibly counterproductive. Every time they fail to convince a majority of Americans to agree with them, they blame the process. They lost in 2016 because they failed to understand what was at stake in the election and fielded a terrible candidate. But instead of reckoning with their failure, they invented, and somehow got CNN to propagate nonstop for more than a year, among the most stupid and preposterous conspiracy theories in the history of American politics, namely that an American presidential candidate had colluded with Russia to subvert the election.
Finally, the Democrats’ habit of blaming every defeat on the other side’s corruption of the process undermines faith in our democratic institutions — the very thing they claim to be fighting for. The democratic system doesn’t require that everyone will agree on everything — it presupposes that they won’t agree broadly on almost anything. But in order to work, the society at large has to agree on common principles, such as the Constitution. We have to agree on a common set of procedures. We have to trust those procedures and accept the results when they go against us. If every time you lose an election, or a court case, or an impeachment proceeding, you say that the other side corrupted the process, what you are saying is that the process is corrupt. If people eventually believe you, they will lose faith in our democratic institutions.
The impeachment fiasco appears to be benefiting the president so far, particularly among former Republican skeptics. But at the end of the day, it has left us all poorer, and Democrats most of all.
Why Impeachment Failed | National Review
Trump’s opponents have a habit of covering up their own shortcomings with false accusations against their political opponents.
www.nationalreview.com
