I’ll say it at the top: I’m talking about slow-played impeachment proceedings, with encores for every juicy tidbit that comes up in the course of said proceedings. Nobody wants a quick and dirty process that ends up in the Senate before November 2020. Stop arguing as if anybody wants that. Nobody does. Nobody.
Having said that, the 2020 Presidential Election — indeed the entire 2020 slate — is going to be The President Trump Show. It can’t not be. The media loves him too much, as even the so-called mainstream news outlets not only cover him endlessly, but cover for him anytime the most bizarrely euphemistic spin could keep the gravy train running. So forget about selling the public on the bold new legislative agenda, and a vision of tomorrow, and the usual campaign staples. Oh, certainly have those things, but as Senator Warren is proving, you can be the smartest, most experienced, policy proposin’-est candidate out there, and you’re gonna get ignored. It’s not fair, but that’s the way it is.
So, it’s going to be about Trump. The only question is, who is driving the narrative? If it’s Trump — and anything less than impeachment proceedings is ceding wheel to him — then we’re all going to lose again. He’ll lurch around and lie and make faces and take credit for the economy he inherited (and is still trying to destroy); he’ll say and do outrageous things, and the cameras will never point at anything else but his stupid, orange face.
But if he’s running while being impeached, then that is what the election will be about. The media is lazy and greedy and complicit, but they’re the first two more than the last. Impeachment is money in the bank to the press, and they’ll eat it up, yum. Line up the star witnesses and the juicy-sexy crimes, and time them with each news cycle, so every time he tries to use the tool he won with in 2016, someone is asking him about the latest developments in his impeachment proceedings.
Does anybody think he’ll react well? Does anybody think he’ll stay cool under pressure, and show heretofore unseen grace and panache? No. He’ll implode. It will be gloriously entertaining, and the press will never want to stop covering it. Now, I know a taped confession to sexual assault didn’t hurt him, but that was over and forgotten in less time than it took to say “locker room talk”. But impeachment proceedings don’t just go away, especially if last cycle he was obstructing, and this cycle it’s dirty payoff money, and next cycle, it’s the pee tape, and the one after that…
I’m not even going to get into the the desperate yearning for a Democratic Party that fights, or the rule of law. Boo. Boring. Nobody but the base cares, and they’re locked in. Opponents of impeachment like to point to polling, because opinions and polls never change or something. I don’t care about polling. To me, it’s simple: unless Democrats seize the narrative in 2020, they lose. And the only thing the press will ever find sexier than Donald Fucking Trump is Donald Fucking Trump being impeached. Period.
I’m not saying impeachment is a winner. I’m saying it’s the only way the Democrats win in 2020. Right now, the Republicans are pursuing a strategy I think of as Cucking The Dems Right In Front Of America. Pardon the MRA terminology, but properly describing their attitudes requires their kind of language. And it’s a winner. I can tell because they’re winning. 2018 happened because people wanted a check on Trump, and since then, they’ve received nothing for their vote. AOC’s Twitter account and Nancy Pelosi’s golf clap are not the accountability people voted for. Robert Mueller didn’t deliver (yes, yes, I heard you the first 17 times — now ask the average voter if Mueller delivered). So the Republicans have been winning ever since, and the only way to change momentum right now is impeachment. It’s also the only path to victory in 2020, not counting miracles.