In nature lots of things happen all of a sudden after a critical threshold has been reached. Nuclear fusion, neural action potentials, and the breaking point of various materials are good examples. I've been an attitude researcher for two decades now and I am convinced that social attitudes form and grow in the same way: when a critical mass is acquired the strength and rate of growth of an idea grows sharply. The problem is that nobody knows where that threshold lies for any given attitude.
This is why I spend a lot of time worrying about impeachment. Right now the conversation about impeachment is being tightly controlled, and for good reason. It's an explosive issue that could have unpredictable consequences. If it were up to me, I'd love to see Bush and Cheney condemned as forcefully as possible. In my dream of dreams they would both be behind bars for their crimes.
More below, plus a poll...
Still, what about this critical mass concept? Has anybody really thought through what the game plan should be in the event that the impeachment idea reaches critical mass and catches fire? Is it possible for the impeachment idea to run away from us and trash our 2008 strategy? I don't know, but it seems prudent to map out a strategy for riding a populist wave favoring impeachment.
The funny thing about critical mass events in the public opinion arena is that you get no warning that it's going to happen ahead of time. Things just build up at what seems like a normal rate and then "boom!" suddenly everyone seems to be on the bandwagon. This doesn't happen often in politics...we are more accustomed to seeing it in commerce (think iPod). Sometimes attitudes coalesce into consensus right away, like in the Mark Foley scandal. In the case of attitudes about the war in Iraq, it happened more slowly. Now that critical mass has been reached on the war in Iraq, reversing it will be difficult in the extreme.
So how close are we to an impeachment critical mass event? We can only guess. I'd say we are not close since (sadly) there are still many Americans who are unaware (or don't believe) the charges against Bush and Cheney.
I'm curious what others think about the possibility of a critical mass event happening around the impeachment issue...