With Democrats currently outpolling Republicans for the upcoming midterm elections, a lot of us have been counting our chickens in anticipation of the big Blue Wave where we recapture the House and even the Senate and then begin impeachment proceedings against the Traitor-In-Chief. Not so fast.
Republicans are now hard at work trying to make the impeachment talk backfire. They’re seizing upon the issue to fire up their base, get out the vote, and hold onto control of both houses. Republicans are out there telling voters that, if the Democrats win, they will definitely start impeachment proceedings against the president, spinning it as a leftist “coup”.
The appeals have become a surefire way for candidates to raise small contributions from grass-roots conservatives who are devoted to Mr. Trump, veteran Republican fund-raisers say. But party strategists also believe that floating the possibility of impeachment can also act as a sort of scared-straight motivational tool for turnout. Last week, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas used his re-election kickoff rally to introduce a video featuring a faux news anchor reading would-be headlines were conservatives not to vote in November.
“Senate Majority Leader Schumer announced the impeachment trial of President Trump,” one of the anchors says.
The 2018 midterms have been seen as a contest between an energized Democratic party and a splintered, demoralized GOP. Focusing the campaign on impeachment has the potential to change that scenario and make the election more competitive. Says Corey Lewandowski:
The threat of impeachment is something that unifies everybody in the party, even if you’re not a big Trump supporter.
The question facing Democrats is whether it’s better to try to minimize impeachment talk and try to make the issue go away or to embrace it head-on to further energize the base. The party seems to be split on the issue.
Democrats have lost elections in the past because the Republican Party is better at distracting voters from the issues that affect their lives than we are at focusing on them. Our best strategy is to show the voters how Democrats will work to make their lives better.
But if Republicans want to make impeachment an issue, they have Fox News and the rest of the right-wing propaganda machine ready to hammer on it endlessly regardless of Democratic attempts to push it into the background. If that’s going to be the case, we’d better have a clear and convincing message on this issue.
A lot, of course, will depend on the Mueller investigation. Until Mueller releases his findings, talk of impeachment is premature. And that should be the message. Along with that should be the argument as to why the investigation must proceed unimpeded to its conclusion.