Shooting Down One Argument

A Democratic congressman from Massachusetts offered this argument against impeachment hearings:

It would be disastrous — and Speaker Pelosi has hit on this — if we proceed with impeachment and we fail in the Senate just as people are going to the polls. That will be a vindication of Trump and it will help him in the final election,” Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) said.

Rep. Lynch apparently thinks the televised presentation of loads of evidence for impeachment, and the news coverage that will generate, won’t do much. He must think we won’t come to a decision about the president’s unfitness all on our own. Instead, we’ll wait to see the results of a trial in the Senate, as if we believe the senators will all act like disinterested jurors making a reasonable, impartial decision. Perhaps Rep. Lynch doesn’t remember the O. J. Simpson trial. It received massive publicity and convinced most of America that Simpson was guilty, despite the jury, which wasn’t even made up of politicians, acquitting him. And who knows, a majority of senators might actually do the right thing and vote for his removal (even though the required two-thirds of them probably won’t).

Adam Jentleson, who used to work for Senator Harry Reid, gave an expert’s response to Rep. Lynch:

This answer from [Rep. Lynch] contains multitudes of learned helplessness and miscalculation.

First, on what planet is it bad for [Republican senator] Susan Collins to vote to protect an impeached [DT] right before the election? Remember, [the nomination of] Kavanaugh [to the Supreme Court] was a much bigger driver for Democrats than Republicans in 2018.

The idea that Trump will be “exonerated” in the public eye by a Senate vote to keep him in office reflects a massive degree of learned helplessness. Democrats have a huge stack of evidence and bipartisan voices attesting to his crimes. If we can’t win that argument, we should hang it up.

There’s a lot of angst about how Senate Republicans still evade accountability for being Trump lackeys. But you counldn’t invent a better way to tie every single Senate Republican to Trump than having them vote to let him off the hook for high crimes. This isn’t brain surgery!

Imagine [senators] Collins or Gardner on camera, being pressed on which of Trump’s many crimes they think should be permissible for a president.

It’s not a good thing to have to explain why you are letting a criminal off the hook. Again, if we can’t win that debate, we should hang it up.

And yes, Collins and Gardner will almost certainly vote to protect Trump. If they don’t, their base will abandon them overnight. In 2018, Dean Heller never recovered from mildly criticizing Trump over health care. Ditto Joe Heck in 2016 over the Access Hollywood tapes.

Meanwhile, we’ll have a presidential nominee. Ask yourself: if you ran for president, would you like your opponent to be on trial for high crimes and misdemeanors? If you answered yes, the good news is, you’re right! The bad news is you’re now disqualified from being a Democratic consultant.

What this boils down to is that people like [Rep. Lynch] are engaged in an exercise of unparalleled groupthink. It’s stunning to witness intelligent people convince themselves that *actually* it is good for a president to get impeached. It’s really quite something.

The group thinkers have also convinced themselves that the pro-impeachment side hasn’t thought through the endgame, when in reality it’s the reverse.

There is no endgame for non-impeachment. It will be a year of Democrats looking like deer in the headlights trying to explain why [DT] did impeachable crimes, but doesn’t deserve to be impeached. Everyone knows Democrats think he should be impeached. They look ridiculous trying to punt.

The endgame for impeachment is impeachment, then a Senate trial where Democrats can win the debate if and when the Senate votes to protect Trump. Then we run in 2020 on the validated idea that the ballot is the only way to remove him, against Senate Republicans who fell in line to protect him.

As the man said, this isn’t brain surgery.