Democrats Should Not Impeach But Get Shit Done in Congress
Over the last few months, some cable networks travel to certain swing states to learn from voters how they feel about the impeachment inquiry and the 2020 election. One common question, "Do you think Congress should pursue impeachment of President Trump (DJT)?" Another common question, "Should Congress forget about these proceedings and focus on making America better for all Americans?" One predictable response by Republican voters and some independents include, "they are wasting taxpayer dollars by doing this inquiry. Congress should do their job and get things passed to help average Americans." When a voter mentions this, my first question involves whether the House can do an inquiry and at the same time attempt to pass legislation. Do these voters' responses realize there are certain Congressional committees who are involved in the inquiry? In other words, many others in the House are involved in actual legislation so both of these things can occur simultaneously.
Second, how many of the American electorate realizes that the House has passed more than 100 bills this year and then go to the GOP controlled Senate awaiting action. In other words, they are trying to do their job but many of these bills go to the Senate and die. This is something that much of the electorate is unaware of as perhaps the House Democrats haven't done a good job getting the word out that they are trying to help the average American. You also hear Republican politicians say the same thing, that Democrats in Congress needs to do their job and not focus on the inquiry to help the average American. Does this not drip of irony that Republicans accuse Democrats in Congress of not getting anything done but it's a head Republican in the Senate who has the power to decide what bill is considered in that chamber?
Democrats Have Been Plotting To Impeach Trump For 3 Years
A common talking point recently of Republicans purports to say the Democrats have wanted to impeach Trump once he was elected and this inquiry would overturn the will of the people. (Never mind that some of the electorate would argue the Electoral College has overturned the will of the people). Back to the plot, the statement that Democrats have wanted to impeach Trump from the beginning needs some qualifying. There may have been a few in the Democratic caucus who never found Trump to be qualified for the job and wanted to boot him out of office soon after his Inauguration. However, that's only been a few, and speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, has been very cautious with her caucus and keeping them reigned in about any movement towards impeachment.
It wasn't until Pelosi saw the evidence that Trump was trying to get Volodymr Zelensky, the leader of Ukraine, to investigate Trump's rival that she felt she had no choice but to defend the constitution and start the inquiry. This was done after much agony and deliberation, knowing the public and political fallout that may ensue. Again, her agreement to proceed wasn't a policy or political disagreement with the president but it pertained to her duty (as well as the Democratic caucus) to uphold the constitution and determine if the actions by the president is an impeachable offense.
Impeachment Fatigue?
When some of the electorate are interviewed by the media about the impeachment inquiry, some say they are beginning to experience impeachment fatigue when the impeachment inquiry hearings have only occurred for a few weeks. Based on the public hearings so far, I find it fascinating and mind-blowing the amount of testimony given that appears to point to DJT trying to get a foreign leader to interfere with our election to ensure the military aid package is then sent to that leader. I find it ironic that some Americans are starting to experience 'impeachment fatigue' but fail to mention 'Trump fatigue.' We have a president who is polarizing, lacks any governing experience, lies regularly, had questionable business success and will smear any politician or government employee who disagrees with him. If that's not fatigue, either the word is not being used correctly or some of us are not paying close enough attention to Washington D.C.
No Quid Pro Quo
Many Republicans in our nation's capital have been saying that Trump is not guilty of quid pro quo because the money was eventually released and Ukraine didn't investigate the Biden's. In other words, quid pro quo may have been discussed but wasn't invoked with the President's dealing with Ukraine. Their argument is the aid was eventually released (only after the whistle blower came forward) and no investigation was done on Biden so why the inquiry? So I wonder, is attempted murder still a crime? Or attempted robbery? The bribe or quid pro quo appears to have been attempted by DJT, but many Republicans still say, no quid pro quo because this arrangement was never consummated, so it's a nothing burger. It appears their strategy is to repeat this enough times in hopes that half of all Americans will begin to repeat these same talking points.