Nancy Pelosi has said repeatedly that Donald Trump has gone “rogue,” placing America as we know it in danger. But it is the speaker who has cast aside every scruple and norm to impeach the president — and according to columnist Peter Lucas, her party will soon suffer for it.
“House Speaker Nancy Pelosi calling President Trump a rogue president is like the pot calling the kettle black,” Lucas wrote in a Wednesday column for the Boston Herald.
“Pelosi goes rogue”
Throughout 2019, Pelosi repeatedly accused Trump in dramatic language of precipitating a “constitutional crisis” and betraying his oath of office. As Lucas notes, Pelosi didn’t reserve such terms for Trump himself, but has also used them to describe White House staffers and Cabinet members, especially Attorney General Bill Barr, who she claimed went “rogue” to protect Trump over the Constitution, according to RealClearPolitics.
But Pelosi is projecting, according to Lucas — it is she who is running roughshod over America’s norms to pursue the president in a partisan abuse of power. In spite of her own past warnings about impeachment without bipartisan support, Pelosi allowed far-left Democrats pressure her to impeach Trump with zero Republican backing, “trivializing” the impeachment process that she had made out to be a “solemn” and prayerful affair, Lucas notes.
Pelosi isn’t just hurting the country, though — according to Lucas, she has “outsmarted herself” by setting Trump up for a victory lap with her ill-considered political games. The House speaker, who was long sensitive to political blowback on some 30 vulnerable Democrats in districts that Trump carried, has set her majority up for a reckoning by sending those Democrats in Trump districts on a political suicide mission.
“The people who are going to be hurt in 2020 are Pelosi and the Democrats, especially the 30 or so freshmen Democrats who were elected in 2018 in districts Trump carried in 2016,” the columnist argued Wednesday.
“Trump ought to consider the House Democratic impeachment a campaign contribution,” Lucas added. “It will help him win re-election by a wide margin no matter who the Democrats nominate.”
Democrats’ kamikaze mission
All but three House Democrats voted to impeach Trump last month, and all Republicans voted against, according to The New York Times. (Hawaii Democrat Rep. Tulsi Gabbard voted present.)
The Dems are not expected to fare much better in the Senate, where Pelosi has tried to avoid the inevitable by withholding impeachment articles. She has tried to gain leverage by shaming Republican leaders to provide “fairness,” but Republicans and President Trump have argued that Pelosi is afraid to make a move because she lacks faith in her case — and Senate Republicans have been clear that they are ready to vote and move on.
But if Pelosi’s plan is to influence the 2020 election by placing a black mark on Trump’s presidency, the electorate won’t care about an impeachment without a conviction, Lucas argued Wednesday. If anything, Trump will use impeachment to embolden his base — and though Lucas didn’t mention it, the president is already doing that, to say nothing of the campaign money he’s raised off the charade.
Meanwhile, there is evidence that impeachment is failing with independent voters, who may be seeing Trump as a more sympathetic figure as Democrats focus on removing him from power rather than working on policies to help Americans. Recent polls have shown support for impeachment dipping down while Trump’s approval has ticked up.
Well played, Pelosi.
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