March 11th 2019
Nancy Pelosi once again demonstrated today the utter worthlessness of centrist Democrats when she said, “Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path, because it divides the country. He’s just not worth it.”
Pelosi, do you not think TRUMP is dividing the country? Saying that impeaching the motherfucker would divide the country is like saying we shouldn’t let a skunk wander into one of those gawdawful pig factories because it would make the place smell bad. Trump is ripping the country to shreds, and as Republicans make utter disgraces of themselves going along with it, Democratic centrists are nearly as bad, looking woeful and sighing, “There’s nothing to be done for it.”
Pelosi doesn’t want to jump on the “Impeach the motherfucker” bandwagon, and I get that. She has to appear fair and willing to hear Trump’s side of the story.
“There’s nothing to be done for it.” The line is from Samuel Beckett’s paean to existential despair, “Waiting for Godot.” (Godot is pronounced ‘Goddo’ for those of you who didn’t get the joke.) In the play, Vladimir (no relation to Trump’s Vladimir) is trying, without luck, to pull off one of his boots. His companion, Estragon, is watching him struggle, and ruminating on the hopelessness of hope and the hope of hopelessness, or words to that effect, and concludes, “There’s nothing to be done for it.” And at that moment, the boot pops right off.
Beckett was being a smartass when he had Estragon say that.
The Dems say it with no sense of irony.
“We mustn’t put up a fight. We mustn’t shout, or make demands, or punish wrongdoers. We might upset the sort of idiot who thinks fighting for what is right is exactly equal to fighting for what is wrong, like Trump and his minions are doing.”
It’s a defeated, placatory attitude that delights Trump and his fascists, and disgusts people who vote Democratic on the basis that someone has to oppose Trump.
Pelosi should have said something like, “I want to see what Mueller’s office and the various House and Senate committees come up with. They have to make a good case for impeachment. If they cannot, then I won’t consider it a viable option, because I’m not Newt Gingrich and Henry Hyde, and won’t impeach a man just because he’s a pig.
“On the other hand, if there is a solid case, we’ll come after him with everything we’ve got, and paint every newspaper and media outlet with our evidence, and god help any Republican who dares to stand in our way.”
One big problem that undermines that is the last time she was offered that option, she ran for her life, taking impeachment (of Bush, Cheney and other war criminals) right off the table. So even if she had given a better answer, I would be suspicious. Like most centrist Dems, she doesn’t seem to know how to fight, doesn’t want to fight, and is scared to death that Fox News would convince the country she’s being mean to that nice Mister Trump.
When she realized she might face an intraparty challenge for the speakership last December, she said, “We have to wait and see what happens with the Mueller report. We shouldn’t be impeaching for a political reason, and we shouldn’t avoid impeachment for a political reason. So we’ll just have to see how it comes,” Now it sounds like she’s backpedelling on that.
“He’s just not worth it.” Pelosi, do you understand that’s been a favorite phrase of people backing down from a fight for centuries? It’s right up there with “Too proud to fight” as an excuse for not getting your fur up and showing some teeth. Given your background on punishing Republicans for criminal actions, you’ve just sent a huge lightning bolt of doubt and uncertainty through the Democratic Party, many of whom were cultivating a hope you would bring this fight to Trump and his criminal cabal.
Now, somewhere in your political calculations, you probably realize that by showing weakness now, you are probably encouraging Democrats who are willing to ‘impeach the motherfucker’ to walk away from the party, along with millions of voters, many of whom have tepidly supported your decades-long line of conciliatory centrist who promise to work well with the fascists. At some point, you might have even wondered how much damage it might do in the next election.
If we can’t raise the gumption to challenge Trump now, there’s a pretty good chance there won’t be a ‘next election.’ You won’t have to worry about damage to the party through bad optics from your utterly imaginary centrist voters because the whole fucking country will be trashed, and ‘opposition parties’ will have gone the way of the Weimar Republic.
So I’ll just close with a reworking of a speech some English bloke, facing someone even more duplicitous and vicious than Trump, said back some 75 years ago: “…we shall surrender on the seas and oceans, we shall surrender with growing confidence we can outrun our adversaries, we shall defend our optics, whatever the cost may be. We shall surrender on the beaches, we shall surrender on the landing grounds, we shall surrender in the fields and in the streets, we shall surrender in the hills; we shall never fight,”
You deserve Vladimir’s boot, Pelosi. The Vladimir that owns your President.
