In October 1944, the situation for the Japanese looked desperate, enough for them to use the most desperate of all weapons, the kamikaze. The Japanese welded bombs to planes the kamikaze pilots flew into the superior U.S. Navy. The pilot typically died in the attack, along with whatever sailors he managed to kill in the crash.
Kamikaze attacks sank 34 ships during the war. At Okinawa, an island Japan considered part of the homeland, they inflicted the greatest losses ever sustained by the Navy in a single battle.
Impeachment feels a lot like a political kamikaze attack on President Trump. I’ve been searching for a rational explanation for why Democrats would pin all of their political hopes on a trial in the Senate. As far as I can see, the best possible outcome for Democrats after a Senate trial will be to distract and annoy the president until the Senate delivers a “hung jury” of more than 50 senators but fewer than the 67 needed to get him removed.
Even if Democrats did succeed in a trial in the Senate, the outcome would barely precede the 2020 election, which could reinstate Trump right back to the White House. As noted by Business Insider, “While the constitution lays out a mechanism to remove a president from office, it doesn’t prevent a president or other ‘civil officer’ removed from their office by the impeachment process from running for office or being elected to federal office again.”
What will be the turnout of Trump’s supporters if they are given the opportunity to overturn a swamp-based removal? In an electorate that typically turns out at around 50-60 percent in presidential elections, turning up the intensity of Trump voters could magnify their impact in the election.
To date, the Democrats have had total control of all major aspects of the process. Impeachment leader Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., used his gavel to shut down every single witness called by the Republicans (but not the Democrats). The legacy media coordinated the public relations message, running nearly 100 percent negative commentary between the handpicked anti-Trump witnesses.
Yet the hearings have failed to recruit any new support for impeachment. This is likely the high water mark for public support for impeachment. It’s reasonable to believe it will only decline from this point. I told my friends the Democrats would come to their senses. I predicted that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., would kill impeachment in committee to instead resort to a resolution of admonishment or censure. Logically, that seems like the best possible outcome from Democrats.
Those of us who follow politics have been looking carefully for some plan or a hole card that might justify this audacious risk. Have they already secretly flipped Never Trumper senators? That seems very unlikely. Even Sen. Mitt Romney, a man who seems to hate Trump with the intensity of a thousand suns, has tempered his usual anti-Trump rhetoric with a bland criticism of Trump’s interest in Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election.
Romney told constituents he wasn’t paying close attention to the day-to-day hearings. That’s really bad news for anyone hoping to flip 18 Republicans to get to the magic number of 67.
Is there a bombshell scandal that they’re keeping in reserve, like the Christine Blasey Ford surprise at the end of the Brett Kavanaugh hearing? People have been predicting that various “bombshell” reports would take down Trump since he announced his candidacy. A new one has come out every 45 to 60 days for the past three to four years. Maybe the next one will be different. But probably not.
When Trump asked about the Bidens in the Ukraine call, he fulfilled a campaign pledge to disregard the immunity that elitists like Biden have come to expect. Trump promised his voters he would drain the swamp. The chants of “lock her up,” were expressed frustration at the two-tiered justice system.
Names like Clinton, Epstein, Kennedy, McCabe, Podesta, and now Biden seem to never fear any exposure to the laws under which the rest of us peasants must live. That’s not fair. And that’s not the rule of law.
Notwithstanding that Biden is a “political opponent” of Trump, how would Trump’s voters have reacted if he had shrunk from inquiring into the Burisma-Hunter-Joe golden triangle that made Joe Biden’s son millions in apparent exchange for Joe’s intervention to have a prosecutor fired? Trump voters would have felt outraged and betrayed by a swamp-drainer who kowtowed to elite privilege.
But, the narrative goes, the allegations against the Bidens are “debunked” and “discredited.” Oh? When was that trial? To remove Trump for asking about the Biden golden triangle, you will need to prove that Trump was totally off-base in following his nose to their very stinky arrangement.
If we’re going with a “bribery” or “abuse of power” theory, the Democrats will have to show there’s no legitimate law-enforcement interest in looking at the Bidens. If Trump is not allowed to call Hunter and Joe to show why there were legitimate corruption concerns, it will not be a fair trial.
We can now add to the mix the very sketchy actions of Schiff, who promised secret evidence that he never delivered. He made those promises in the court of public opinion. It will not be a fair trial if the president is not given the opportunity to cross-examine Schiff on those claims.
Further, Schiff is interfering with the president’s right to have effective assistance of an attorney by publishing logs of Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani’s calls. That chills potential cooperation from sources and leads who might want to stay anonymous. Where did Schiff get those logs? I think the president has a right to ask him that under oath. It should concern us that the chief of the intelligence oversight committee is himself spying.
When you see Joe Biden explode during a town hall in response to very foreseeable question about the Joe/Hunter/Burisma arrangement, you’re not watching a man eager to appear in the Senate to explain all of this. And when you see Pelosi explode over being asked whether she “hates” the president, you’re witnessing an unguarded glimpse of the cauldron of anxiety and fear that boils within her.
Why can’t Pelosi peel off at least one Never Trump Republican in the House? Because, Pelosi said, the Republicans have failed to meet the standard of honoring their oath of office. Oh, so vote with Democrats or you’re a traitor? That doesn’t seem like a recipe for bipartisan persuasion.
This is going badly for Democrats. Still, I will pray for Pelosi and her Democrats this Sunday. It’s not my desire to see them suffer. Maybe somebody can talk them out of the cockpits of their impeachment kamikazes before they permanently harm the country in a spectacular political suicide.
