Bob Lonsberry

Bob Lonsberry

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LONSBERRY: Impeachment Says More About Pelosi Than It Does About Trump

The impeachments of Donald Trump say more about Nancy Pelosi than they do about Donald Trump.

               Both were vindictive, both were unnecessary, one was baseless.

               Don’t get me wrong. If I had been in the House yesterday, I would have voted to impeach. If the question is: Did Donald Trump do things which contributed to the storming of the Capitol, and could those things be considered high crimes or misdemeanors and merit removal from office? the answer is yes.

               But it is a question that, in that form, never should have been asked.

               Impeachment exists to protect the Republic from malfeasant or sinister federal officers. If someone is bad, and you need to get rid of them, the Founders gave us impeachment to do that.

               You can argue that Donald Trump in recent weeks has been malfeasant or sinister, that his actions might have risen to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors. And you can argue, no doubt, that those actions deserve sanction and shame.

               But the tool to address them is not impeachment.

               Why?

               Because impeachment is about removing someone from office, about protecting us by getting rid of him.

               And that is not necessary.

               The voters and the Electoral College have already taken care of that.

               At noon next Wednesday, the Constitution will show Donald Trump the door. He is about to step away from the seat of power and return to his status as an ordinary citizen. You don’t need a tool for removing him from office when he is already leaving office.

               And the notion that a Senate trial to convict him of this article of impeachment and remove him from office would be held after he has already left office is ridiculous.

               Or, more to the point, it is vindictive.

               And petty and divisive.

               It is about the cult of Trump hatred that has come to define the Democratic Party over the last four years. It is as if loathing and attacking this one man is the glue that holds together the Democrat coalition.

               And breathes life into its speaker.

               The decision to impeach Donald Trump – both times – was solely in the hands of Nancy Pelosi. The first time, the entire thing was bogus and baseless, the effort of small people to weaponize our constitutional system to fight their political war. It was a misuse of power which itself was deserving of impeachment and removal from office.

               Instead, it ginned up the rabid bitterness of the Democratic Party and its politics, radically deepening the nation’s political division and contributing to the progressive political violence that defined 2020 and which, horrifically, spilled over into the conservative political violence at the Capitol last week.

               With yesterday’s impeachment, Nancy Pelosi has gone back to that caustic well, almost gleefully dooming America to months of further division and rancor, assuring that the disputes of yesterday derail the promises of tomorrow.

               The week before the president-elect of her own party plans to hold an inauguration on the theme “America United,” Nancy Pelosi has assured that such a uniting is nowhere in our near future. As the country desperately needs to get on with the opportunities of the new president, she is assuring that we continue to struggle with the challenges of the old president.

               And that is a crime against the country.

               Committed in order to vent the political spleen of the howling pack of haters that is the Democratic caucus in the House of Representatives, and to feed the echo chamber of progressive antagonism toward Republicans in general and Trump in particular.

               Just so she could have the thrill of signing her name to what she believes will be another assault on Trump’s place in history, just so she can claim victory in the personal dance of contempt between herself and the president, just so she can throw raw meat to people in her own party who practice the politics of rage.

               That’s all on Nancy Pelosi.

               She had to do her end zone dance.

               Without seeming to notice or care that this unnecessary impeachment will only make Trump more of a martyr to his remaining supporters, galvanizing even further their messianic belief in his political importance. This doesn’t hurt Trump, it helps him. In the minds of those who still stand with him, it changes the narrative from the assault on the Capitol to the assault on Trump, the years-long war against his election and administration waged by Nancy Pelosi and her progressive soldiers in politics and in the press.

               The impeachment was unnecessary, and its impact will be ugly.

               Because it was the wrong tool used for the wrong reason.

               Trump should have been censured, or his actions condemned by some other resolution of Congress. That would have been bipartisan, it would have been deserved, and it would have calmed troubled waters.

               But that’s not what Nancy Pelosi wants.

               She and her party hold power by riding the tiger of hatred, and Trump has been the glue that has held her coalition of the angry together over the last several years. Yesterday she had a chance to serve the nation or to serve her own political bitterness.

               She chose bitterness.

               And earned a place in history.

               She is the only speaker of the House to have used impeachment not once, but twice, to serve her own political ends.


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