CommentsCAL BUZZ--Tom Steyer, the billionaire entrepreneur and Democratic activist, is right that the only way to get rid of President Donald Trump is to impeach him.
But Steyer is dead wrong – and his millions invested in his impeachment petition compound the problem – that now is the time for all good men and women to come to the aid of their country.
“The Founders gave us impeachment to answer a reckless, lawless, and dangerous president and every day that his behavior is accepted, every day that you don’t oppose it, it becomes enshrined as the way things are done. You have normalized this presidency, you have normalized his behavior,” Steyertold Politico recently.
True. But accepting Trump and failing to oppose him are not the same as providing aid and comfort to those who would perpetuate his presidency. And that’s what’s wrong with Steyer’s impeachment drive. It’s strategically self-defeating.
Is Steyer Secretly Working for Trump? No matter how many signatures he gathers, no matter how many people feel validated by signing his petition, until Democrats take control of the House of Representatives, and hopefully the Senate as well, Trump will not be forcibly removed from office.
So before Steyer’s call for impeachment can even be considered, Democrats must take back the House. Which is why Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi is right to warn that “impeachment is not a policy agenda.”
Democrats have shown in campaigns for Doug Jones in Alabamaand Connor Lamb in Pennsylvaniathat the ticket to winning in regions where Trump voters represent a sizable portion of the electorate is to concentrate on issues that people care about: the economy, jobs, education, public safety, national security and – to some extent – corruption in government.
Use those Millions WiselyCalling for impeachment of Donald Trump is not a winning campaign issue for Democrats. Which is exactly why Trump is out there warning his supporters that unless they elect or re-elect Republicans to Congress, the Democrats will impeach him. It’s Trump’s best argumentright now.
“We have to keep the House because if we listen to [U.S. Rep.] Maxine Waters, she’s going around saying ‘We will impeach him!’ ‘We will impeach him’,” Trump told a rallyin Michigan recently. “Then people said, ‘He hasn’t done anything wrong,’… Oh, that doesn’t matter, we will impeach the president’.”
Steyer ought to pull the plug on supporting the very cause his nemesis prefers as a campaign issue and re-deploy those millions of dollars to elect Democrats to the House.
(Jerry Robertsis a California journalist who writes, blogs and hosts a TV talk show about politics, policy and media. Phil Trounstineis the former political editor of the San Jose Mercury News, former communications director for California Gov. Gray Davis and was the founder and director of the Survey and Policy Research Institute at San Jose State University. This piece appeared in CalBuzz.
-CW
