The people I know who voted for Trump are not racists nor did they want "a racist Rottweiler." They voted for him because they were sick to death of the corruption of career politicians and considered him the lesser of two evils.
658
@Lynne. Lynne, it is unfortunate that the people you know, who supported DJT did not do any research on the quality of his promises. His life is littered with tears of investors in DJT promises. What made them think he was going to do differently than he has demonstrated his whole life?
839
@Lynne
My brother is in that category but most of the Trump supporters I've talked to do hold grudges against “others”, of what ever ilk, they blame for problems that are either of their own making or of a systemic non partisan cause.
416
@Lynne
So how is that all working out these days?
567
Let Maureen Dowd eat cake -- please!
57
Ms. Dowd, I feel your anger. But, please keep Rottweilers out of this.
44
Maureen’s most spot on column in years
146
I agree with Ms. Dowd, for once.
83
Scorpion and the frog...it’s in the nature of liberals to self defeat...
28
Your best column ever, Maureen.
79
Trump is corrupt, selling our foreign policy to whomever will help build a Trump or Kushner building. He is a serial rapist. He proves every couple of days that he is racist.
Maureen - there is a lot in the above paragraph for a columnist with a large audience to research and fill many columns between now and Election Day. That is, unless you want to use columns like this one to help Trump get elected again.
69
Wow Maureen.....I am not your biggest fan, but you so rocked it with this piece.
76
"The refusal to take sides on great moral issues is itself a decision. It is a silent acquiescence to evil. The Tragedy of our time is that those who still believe in honesty lack fire and conviction, while those who believe in dishonesty are full of passionate conviction.”
― Fulton J. Sheen.
That is Democratic party's dilemma, they lack conviction & moral strength to stand for what is right and support what rhymes with these ideas. No one can or has to agree on exactly the very same principles... you can't with such a large population, but be willing to take idealism with a good dose of pragmatism and work towards "what can be accomplished"... vs. "what you want right now, right here."
World history is ample evidence, the latter never succeeds; it just doesn't work that way.
Twitter has just turned into a rabid party of damning what "you" feel is wrong, an absolute schism of black-white agendas... life isn't like that.
A lot of times, what people forget is, it is like saying something out on the street, and everyone giving their opinions harem-scaram. Do we do this in real life... no.
In real life, we unconsciously check into a commentator's education, their experience, their approach to life, etc before we accept their opinions.
The social media creates this space of equal opportunity... but are all speakers on the same caliber mentally, educationally and in political acumen.... no.
And that is the hard part... to ignore such opinions.
But, ignore one must.
18
Dems will lose if they just wait around for people to find out how nice and moderate they are. They need to steal the thunder and monopolize the headlines and do it now. In the end, voters just get sick of the candidate that is the object of daily scandals. Impeachment proceedings will suck the entertainment value out of Trump and corner "crooked" Republicans.
37
Dear Ms. Dowd:
I grieve over what seems to be the likelihood that Mr. Trump will be re-elected, that he'll win not particularly through foreign election meddling or even perhaps through voters going MIA on election day, but rather through what seems to be an ever more vicious self-destruction within the Democratic Party.
I am 66 years old, an unrepentant liberal (which means I love freedom, not victimhood), and most people see me as a white male (thank goodness, 23andMe has shown me I'm very much a multi-colored mutt with strong Irish roots, all of which delights me). I'm also gay. I'm also an agnostic who believes churches should be taxed, and the taxes used to support childcare, both in health and in education. I'm also a believer in universally accessible healthcare (I'm also HIV+ and have been since i was 29 years old--still here, still healthy, still working and paying taxes).
I have voted in every national election since 1972; alas, my candidate usually doesn't win. I support many of the causes that so-called progressive (is it really progressive if it doesn't accomplish anything except the immolation of the few political veterans who have actually contributed something useful to human progress in this country?), but at this point I fear that the young Turks are really just a variation of Trump himself: endlessly, stridently parlous and, in the final analysis, accomplishing nothing except pitching a fit and falling in it. Will they end by dragging us with them?
127
Dear Ms. Dowd:
I grieve over what seems to be the likelihood that Mr. Trump will be re-elected, that he'll win not particularly through foreign election meddling or even perhaps through voters going MIA on election day, but rather through what seems to be an ever more vicious self-destruction within the Democratic Party.
I am 66 years old, an unrepentant liberal (which means I love freedom, not victimhood), and most people see me as a white male (thank goodness, 23andMe has shown me I'm very much a multi-colored mutt with strong Irish roots, all of which delights me). I'm also gay. I'm also an agnostic who believes churches should be taxed, and the taxes used to support childcare, both in health and in education. I'm also a believer in universally accessible healthcare (I'm also HIV+ and have been since i was 29 years old--still here, still healthy, still working and paying taxes).
I have voted in every national election since 1972; alas, my candidate usually doesn't win. I support many of the causes that so-called progressive (is it really progressive if it doesn't accomplish anything except the immolation of the few political veterans who have actually contributed something useful to human progress in this country?), but at this point I fear that the young Turks are really just a variation of Trump himself: endlessly, stridently parlous and, in the final analysis, accomplishing nothing except pitching a fit and falling in it. Will they end by dragging us with them?
18
Nothing demonstrates that you aren't elitist, privileged or spoiled in any way like taking the first sign of criticism you're received and turning it into some analogy to puritanism, likening your critics to.... oh, wait, excuse me - not likening, but actually calling them all stupid. Turning it into an attack on your perceived political opponents' entire view is just the cherry on the classy cake.
"The attempt to impeach Trump is one of the rare cases in which something obviously justified is obviously stupid."
Let's talk about "stupid" for a second, since it's a word you like to use an awful lot against anyone who dares to disagree with you or find criticism for your framing of politics as you simultaneously chide people about party unity and interview Pelosi so that she can take shots at the so-called Squad from a paper of record.
Some might say that "stupid" is acting as if an event that has twice occurred in history represents a reliable pattern that we can expect to bear out the third, fourth or tenth time it happens. And let's be honest: it's solely and exclusively the Clinton impeachment that makes "stupid" people think they know what will happen if we impeach right now.
And that's part of what makes them "stupid." They know the response to Clinton's impeachment but clearly haven't bothered with the why of it. Americans don't necessarily view extramarital sex as being on the same level as a lifetime criminal history, including during a presidential tenure.
91
“Now the Democrats are once more focused on what a terrible person Trump is.”
No. The focus is on that he is a criminal.
120
Not enough people are thriving under Dem governance. That is their Problem. They have demonstrated that they are ok with squalor.
Insulting the voters - racist! etc. and waving statistics that nobody believes in are not going to do the trick.
29
No.
First: your columns helped elect Trump.
Second: why do you care if your high heels, parties and chocolates are criticized? You are a public person and these lame critiques don't deserve a response.
Third (and most important): Ms. Pelosi is waiting for public opinion to catch up for impeachment inquiries to begin. Mr. Mueller's testimony was helpful since most people won't have the time to read his report and it has already pushed the public closer to supporting impeachment--now 44%.
Fourth (equally important): NO, Democrats shouldn't back down on anything. This just says nothing matters anymore, not the law, not morality, not norms, not decency. Dems must do all of the above.
This includes: not cow-towing to Trump supporters; spending whatever it takes to get rid of McConnell; getting out the vote; fighting election shenanigans and, yes, impeaching the criminal in the White House without worrying about the Senate.
Democrats must fight, fight, fight to save our country.
2793
@lechrist....So Pelosi is waiting for public opinion to 'catch up'? Then Madam Speaker would start leading, after following the public opinion she helps shape? She watches polls, calculates her reactions and then makes statements that reinforce what she wants.
Pelosi's continued public position of reluctance to impeach is helping to determine the public opinion she claims to wait for.
She causes people to have anxiety and doubt, no matter what Trump does or says. Our principles that should protect us, our rule of law are thus undermined.
Maureen Dowd is Pelosi's fan and reinforces her.
136
@Meredith Timing is everything. I don't believe Pelosi is reluctant to impeach, just at this moment. This happened with Nixon as well. Yes, it is anxiety-causing, like everything to do with Trump. I'm betting she'll go for it as we move from 44% wishing to impeach to 60% plus.
173
@lechrist
I don't see "voting Trump out of office in 2020" on your list. Not interested in that?
Do you think the GOP-controlled Senate will vote to convict Trump? Please explain to me why you think that could happen. I truly want to understand why anyone thinks that is possible.
217
I figured Maureen was an aristocrat when she could quote Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I in Latin; and not in corrupt church Latin for the Catholic riffraff but real Latin!
20
"Can Donald Trump be indicted once he is out of office?" "Yes." ... Honestly people, how is it not painfully obvious that this is a far better avenue if you are truly seeking justice? The goal of impeachment is justice, but it is not the only path there... and it is certainly not the most prudent.
This isn't just purity, it's myopia.
41
Ideally, the House should start impeachment hearings during the 2020 Republican National Convention and vote on impeachment the 1st week of November 2020. Covering the presidential Campaign and the impeachment hearings, that would be one wild ride.
29
The Democrats are flushing away a great opportunity to rescue our country with their infighting. Let's drop the labels and focus on the real goal. Defeat Trump.
34
This is how we got Trump in the first place. “Moderates” who couldn’t ignite any passion and we got a candidate who couldn’t win. If you don’t fight fire with fire, you lose the fight.
30
An example of what Maureen Dowd is talking about might be how the Republicans came out ferociously for Bret Kavanaugh, with an anodyne challenge by the Dems, and then the Democrats fed Al Franken to the lions.
86
The saddest part of all these comments is that the writers are not aware that now the Trump team is on the offense, no longer on the defense.
Trump said as much, that he kept all low key during the Mueller probe, so as not to look like he was interfering with the probe.
Now that the probe has ended, it is time to go after the perps, the DNC which acted like a criminal organization, Hillary who bought and paid $1 million for Russian disinformation which did manage to create havoc for 3 years, Obama and Biden who were, according to a text from Lisa Page, in the loop about all the wrongdoing and the spying with made up reasons, Hillary's man who met with the Russian team the day before and the day after the Trump tower meeting, the CIA and State Department who fed Papadopoulos disinformation and then they asked him about what they gave him, just to get to Trump.
You name it, they did it.
And they will pay for it, now. And all these disinformed people who still talk about impeachment will feel worse than in November 2016...
16
I’m late to the banquet on this one, but I will add my thoughts. Yesterday I attended a family gathering In Nassau county. Most of the guest we’re Trump voters. In the one conversation I had that broached the political, a former New York City schoolteacher, now a small business owner, upon hearing that I represent employees launched into a diatribe about how he shouldn’t be forced to hire people he did not want to hire. Of course, as he stated when I pushed him, he was talking about black people, who he complained, “always cry racism.”
I told him that the laws did not prevent him from hiring whomever he wanted, only from discriminating based on race. He spent the rest of the evening scowling at me.
The only reason I did not have the same discussion with everyone else present was that I had promised my host to avoid politics. But I can tell you with certainty that every one of those people is so steeped in a racist culture, that none knows he or she is a racist. Their racism is reflexive and irremediable. Trump says what they want to hear and they will stick with him until the end.
If progressives - and I am one - don’t realize that they must appeal to a wide range of Democrats in order to defeat Trump, Trump will be reelected. The white working class is not progressive and most Democrats are moderates. A progressive will lose, and fine points of ideology are irrelevant to the necessary goal - to defeat the man the Baltimore Sun accurately described today as a rodent.
73
Maureen, what makes you think the comments and tweets were from Democrats--progressive or otherwise? Republican trolls are hellbent on further dividing the Democratic Party and it looks as if they've succeeded in turning you. With every swipe we take at each other, they win.
32
“Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.” - H.L. Mencken
46
Doubling down on tone deafness is not a winning strategy either Maureen.
The unrest you are sensing was plenty evident in 2016 and removing Trump was the last thing on anybody’s mind. Then, you and yours looked past the corruption in your own camp and picked out a dress for Hilary's victory party.
Please listen to “the people” on the ground.
A progressive can win. Biden would lose. The whole system stinks to high heaven.
22
C'mon Maureen, you can do better than that. If you really care about 2020 you would be writing about things that would unify the party, not whining about some criticism you received for partying with elites.
The main issue with the Democratic party is that it's operating from a mindset from a time that has passed us by - when people argued among each other in thoughtful ways to come to a loose consensus of how to proceed.
The opposition, on the other hand, is unified in their blind, cult-like ignorance.
Of course, I'm not advocating that Dems become like them, but what needs to happen is that the wings of the party need to count to ten before they lash out at each other.
Save the ire for the likes of McConnell, Trump and the rest of the bankrupt leadership.
You might say "but they started it! I was just wearing heels and eating chocolate!" Yeah, OK ... but aren't you mature enough to ignore it, and devote your valuable NYT real estate to more important pursuits?
And it wouldn't be fair, I suppose, if I didn't mention to those that criticized you for this - really, folks?
All across the board - just drop the infighting, get on the same page and fight.
27
Who thinks that if the Democratic-controlled House impeaches Trump, that will immediately lead to the removal of Trump from the White House?
Please reply to this comment if that is your thinking.
7
Everyone in the world knows Americans are what Trump portrays to be. Racists immoral non purists blah blah. Hollywood has already portrayed Americans as non moralistic, driven by greed oriented gluttony, excessively grabbing everything, from mega mansions to mega cars to mega companies..to mega entertainment Disney style..the bigger the better..
Who is Trump fooling? No one. Cuz he is America, he represents what America has become. We have to accept that and not judge ourselves. All the people who voted for him knew all his flaws, his playboyness, his infidelities, his fondness for tabloid gossip, his blustery loud mouth brash style of talking. They knew it and they voted for it cuz the alternative was not American enough for them nor their vision.
Sheesh but yes that’s who we have become, and we are in denial.
13
A “racist Rottweiler” really rolls off the tongue, but I really like Rottweilers, so I am unable to endorse it as the perfect description of Trump.
9
It is with great sadness that I have forsaken the realm of Doing-what-is-right and plunged into the swamp of Doing-was-is-politically-practical. But I'm still trying to understand, at a deeper, structural level, why the need for such a change.
5
Why are you calling the radical left 'progressives'?
That's a euphemism.
They are anything BUT progressive.
They are a regressive mob, which, as you point out right at the beginning, wants to takes us back to the Place de la Bastille, figuratively speaking.
They should be pointed out as such, not labelled with contradictory and flattering terms.
Moderates are the progressives.
Progress comes in small steps, not destructive random jumps.
47
I woefully have to agree, at least in part, to this article. The voters, outside of those with an educational understanding of the nation's laws and a sense of history, are so apathetic, that the television has lulled them into a dreamworld of America the Beautiful no matter what. We have to continue every day to perfect our national goals and aspirations, and this is difficult work that cannot be achieved on the battlefield alone. Who is going to protect us from a corrupt group of people in government and in business? Don't call out the Marines for this job- it's US, E PLURIBUS UNIM, not the hydrogen bomb, that is going to provide the answers to these nagging issues of who we are and what do we really want. Trump is not the disease- he's only the symptom. But as our temperature exceeds 102, we are going to go into a delirium and the cure is going to unfortunately going to be slow and painful.
In other words, if we want to get rid of a Frankenstein of our own creation, only we can pull the plug. Nationwide strikes, protests, a march on the Capitol unseen since 1776, and a verifiable landslide replacing not just the POTUS, but as many of his supporters in Congress as possible. And have the FBI investigate and arrest certain Lobbyists slipping bundles of cash under the table to members of the GOP. There's got to be a catch to all this Trumpism in only three short years. FOLLOW THE MONEY. Mueller wouldn't or couldn't. See you later, alligator.
12
The problem with Ms. Dowd’s argument is that she is ignoring the option Lawrence Tribe and others have laid out: conduct an impeachment inquiry so that Democratic subpoenas for documents and testimony can become enforceable, and the larger electorate can become fully aware of Trump's crimes and treasonous fealty to Putin, but WITHOUT referral to the Senate, where Republican enablers would surely terminate any attempt to hold their leader accountable. This seems like the path that is both principled and pragmatic.
39
Ms. Dowd, I'm a lot older than you and so remember when Republicans were the elitists and Democrats were hoi polloi. The faces that stick in my mind, associated with my recollections of Democrats, were John L. Lewis, Huey Long and Harry Truman. The Republicans: Henry Cabot Lodge, Robert Taft and Thomas Dewey. Which were the elitists?
Your arguments are convincing, but I would offer this alternative: to impeach or not to impeach - pick one and unite around it. You can plan 2020 election strategy around either. (Besides moral outrage, Dems have brains on their side.) I would suggest that Trump has painted himself as a victim so long and so shrilly that adding impeachment to his whine won't be worth more than 0.1% of the vote.
Having a consensus on the choice, working to elect and reelect the most able, no matter where they fall on the liberal/conservative spectrum, is the key to winning in 2020.
16
I see little political downside to opening an impeachment inquiry into the actions of DJT. When Democrats scored huge gains in the House in 2018, Trump wasn't on the ballot. I understand that right leaning districts flipped to Democrats in that election and that Nancy Pelosi is trying to protect those seats. In my view, those seats were won because the democrat was the better candidate, likely pointing out the issues of healthcare, livable wages, etc.
In 2020 Trump WILL be on the ballot; it'll be an entirely different scenario. More straight party ticket voters will pull the lever for Republicans, and I can imagine that the Dems may lose some seats, but they stand to gain the Presidency and the Senate.
I listen to and am swayed by contrary views on this subject: Is it politically expedient or not to open impeachment proceedings? As long as the Democratic candidates don't get devoured by this subject, and let it overshadow other important political, national aims, I don't get the hesitation.
Also, comparing the two other impeachment hearings -- Nixon and Clinton's -- offers little light and guidance. How different those were!
14
Let's do a cost/benefit analysis of impeaching Trump:
Benefits: Nothing lasting because the Senate is not going to convict him. His Presidency will be besmirched but it already is with all the scandals. His criminal behavior will be aired on national TV but to what effect? His base will ignore it and the public is already aware of his perfidies.
Cost: Possibly alienating the vast center of the political spectrum which easily swing their votes depending on who they are most disgusted with. If they end up disgusted with the Dems for not letting this whole thing go, Trump gets reelected. If they end up more disgusted with Trump, the Dem candidate wins the election. It is a gamble, to be sure. But right now, according to polls, those votes are leaning left so those votes are the Dem's to lose. Why take the chance of losing them when there is nothing to gain from it?
24
Excellent analysis, sir!
4
Yes, oh-so-self-righteous extremism is perturbing and not a speck admirable on both far left and far right. I am with you on that, Maureen.
But I think there was some value in the Mueller hearings, where he clearly said he had not exonerated the prez, and that Trump's behavior was "problematic" . Trump would not have called the hearings " treason" if they hadn't shattered some of his false claims.
As for the Democrats proceeding to investigate, to see if they will impeach: Go for it. Nothing wrong with investigating the behavior of Trump.
17
Conventional wisdom of the MSM is that Republicans paid a huge price for impeaching Bill Clinton. I lived through it and I cannot think of a single punishment inflicted on the GOP by voters. The GOP held the House and Senate and they got Bush II into the White House with help from Justice Scalia. Dems did not win the House until 2006. So what was the downside for the GOP? Sure, they got less popular, but so what? Power is the prize, not congeniality.
28
I struggle with the idea of Trump being a racist.
I struggle with the idea that we should not control our borders.
I struggle with the idea that we need to spend more taxpayer money on programs that have been proven to have minimal value to the targeted groups.
I struggle with the thought that our partisan government and legislators are not working for change and reforms of our most pressing problems.
I struggle To figure out why we have not reformed a welfare system that has destroyed marriage and that millions of children are raised in single parent homes.
I struggle with the idea that Teachers Unions do not support charter schools who are producing educated and ready to go onward.
I struggle with a President that is so divisive in his rhetoric.
I
8
By not impeaching, the Democrats essentially confirm that Trump is right and his crimes aren't really crimes at all and that the Democrats are just playing partisan politics in trying to attack him.
So this brilliant strategy Pelosi has formulated has actually exonerated Trump and made credible his claims that the Democrats are merely pursuing a partisan witch hunt.
Meanwhile, the Democrats don't want to discuss issues because they fear the people will be too frightened by the "socialism" of their policies.
So I guess the Democrats think they can win by standing for nothing and confirming to average Americans that Trump isn't so bad. Why don't they just nominate Hillary Clinton again?
Oh wait, that's what Joe Biden is, just less exciting as he's older, not female, and 20 years past his peak when he last failed to win the presidency.
19
Maureen gets it. Dems are hanging themselves with the current message. Offer a candidate with a pragmatic and sane agenda for the future and voters will beat a path to the polls on Election Day. Continue to follow impeachment and preach socialism and Dems will be humiliated even worse than in 2016.
18
Democrats don't need ideological purity to take back the White House. All they need is to win 23,000 more votes in Wisconsin, 11,000 more votes Michigan and 45,000 more votes in Pennsylvania than they did in 2016. Now what''s the best way to do that? Well, 59% of the electorate is against impeachment, so maybe — just maybe — appealing to the pro impeachment crowd isn't the best way to do that, do ya think? Furthermore, while emphasizing super leftie ideas and "purity" might increase the turnout for the Democratic left, it will also increase turnout for Trump. ("See what those nasty Democrats are trying to do?") This makes "appealing to the base" a wash at best. So again, the real issue is, how do Democrats swing 79,000 votes in those three key states. Hmmmm . . . Maybe taking a moderate course, like the one that gained 40 House seats in 2018, would be the way to go. Do ya think?
19
Progressives and the far left wing think they don't need moderate Democrats. The only way we can beat Trump is that every one of us gets behind the Democratic nominee regardless of if they past progressive purity tests or not. If I read one more purist progressive opinion about the sin of candidates taking money from corporations, banks, big pharma, etc. I'm going to scream. Dowd is right. Probably you've never had the progressive poison pen aimed your way like she has. But you don't have to dig to deep to see the far left has no use for old Democrats with money who don't agree with every thing they say. I haven't seen such an insufferable bunch since the editorial page of SDS' New Left Notes.
22
"I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical." -- Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, Paris, January 30, 17872
8
I agree completely with the first half of Dowd's column that the Puritan Left is going to make Trump's re-election likely. After all, they did their share in electing in 2016, when they couldn't bear to dirty themselves by voting for Clinton.
However, I disagree just as strongly with the second half this piece. I'm a moderate Independent and I firmly believe that Trump must be impeached. I've spent the last two plus years decrying the craven and morally bankrupt members of the Republican Party-before-country for failing to honor their sworn oath to protect the Constitution and allowing our government to be perverted in unconscionable ways. If the Democratic Party fails in its responsibility to hold the President accountable they are no better and not deserving of my support.
I also disagree that an impeachment inquiry would be politically damaging. Using that power to stop the stalling and obfuscating they stand a chance of actually bringing to light Trump's innumerable transgressions which consumers of certain media know nothing about. This isn't the same thing as prosecuting a man for a sexual indiscretion.
19
"The highchair king from Fifth Avenue would exult in his victimhood and energize his always-ready-to-be aggrieved followers."
Yes, Trump's 43% would be energized to vote for him even harder, but they would still only be 43%. I notice that Tammy Baldwin, openly gay, won reelection in swing state Wisconsin by a landslide, so maybe voters would not hold a vote for impeachment against Democratic representatives they liked after all.
7
The democrats are lost.
They stick to the story that Trump is a racist (probably not), that he is a white nationalist (an absolutely ridiculous notion), that he is anti-gay (also nonsensical), pro-Russian (probably not, but the enemy of his enemy IS his friend), ... etc. They stick to the story that he story that he was elected by because of the angry, uneducated, racist, white male vote (really, how many of these are out there), while ignoring that blacks voted overwhelmingly for Obama (>90%) and the Democrats (>85%). Who is calling who racist?
The Democrats are missing the point. There area few hot button issues (immigration, abortion, ...) that drive elections. Immigration is hot and it has been for decades. Don't believe me? Think about California (yes, that liberal California) propositions 187 and 227. People want something done and it is not amnesty. We tried that once and it failed worse than forced school bussing. If we had a referendum today, the populace would vote to end DACA, minimize immigration and work on deporting the 11-20 million illegals in the country. Short of a referendum, we have Trump. He is the only politician in the last five decades to take any meaningful action on the immigration mess. He is being called a racist for it, but it almost exactly matches the suggestions of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform chaired by democratic doyenne Barbara Jordan.
Continue ignoring prime issues of the electorate and continue losing.
21
Ms Dowd,
Okay. Don't impeach Trump, but when he wins the next election, let the impeachment begin.
BlindStevie
5
“...become worried...re-stack the load...”
Ain’t big data grand?
1
It will be horrifying to watch some Socialist/Puritan Dem lose the Electoral Vote to Trump in 2020 even with him sporting a 41% approval rating. It will be the ultimate self-inflicted wound.
13
For once I fully agree with Ms. Dowd.
7
Spare me the contempt for doing the right thing. following the Constitution is not stupid and naive, it's the law. Literally the law.
You just lost me as a fan in a single column.
14
I'm sorry. We're in altogether unprecedented territory here. And none of us know what the outcome of our particular actions will be. In particular, nobody knows whether or not initiating impeachment hearings would hurt or harm Trump's chances. And nobody knows what the outcome of not doing so would be. In that light, we Democrats--progressives like me, and all of the rest--should have the restraint and political maturity to support whatever it is that our House Democrats decide to do.
Speaker Pelosi is fantastic. And so are the new progressive and moderate Democratic representatives. All Democrats agree that Mr. Trump has committed numerous impeachable or indictable offenses. They disagree only about tactics. The purity Democrats know no more than the other Democrats, and are doing real harm with their inflammatory and untrue charges of "corporate, elite, establishment Democrat."
13
@Raul Campos
Your point is? As a Democrat, I was speaking to the issue of whether or not the Democrats should begin impeachment hearings. You have responded with a subset of the standard list of Trumpy claims that Trump has done no wrong. As a Trump Republican, which do you think would better benefit Trump--beginning impeachment hearings, or not? Or do you agree with me, that given the unprecedented circumstances, nobody knows what the outcome of these either action would be?
4
I have wavered back and forth on the issue of impeachment. After listening to the Audible Books version of the Mueller Report and watching the Judiciary and Intelligence Committees’ hearings on Wednesday, I was on the impeachment side. After reading this column, I am tilting the other way. I wish there were a sure fire way to know we could get rid of Trump and his entire administration for good. What we do know is that impeachment will not get rid of him and his entire administration for good, but a successful election result will.
9
Winning both the WH and Capitol hill should be the goal. To do that we should listen to the politicians who have flipped red states and districts and those who can do the same in 2020. The candidate should be in sink with those people to pull off a triple. And of course what happens in 2020 will affect the Supreme Court and lower courts.
7
This election is about making bold changes in our economy, if we are to address the root problems afflicting America, the same root problems that lead to Trump's election. Getting rid of Trump is only part of the goal, it's time to admit the truth about how far right the nation has drifted since Reagan, how the neoliberal, so called centrist approach of Clinton and Obama has failed us. Putting Biden in the White House will feel good for a day or so, as we all celebrate that the witch is dead, but we will be right back to facing the same issues dogging us: climate change, an outrageously expensive and byzantine health care system, an outrageously expensive college and student loan disaster, extreme pressures on young working families trying to pay for ever more expensive housing, student loans and child car (not to mention insurance), on and on. If we don't make bold changes, like those proposed by Sen. Warren, we will continue to get authoritarians like Trump in the White House.
9
Thank you, Maureen. So nice to hear another Democratic woman who is as smart as our Speaker. I'm not optimistic that the Purity Police will listen,but luckily they don't get to make the decision.
13
Sorry Maureen, but this time you are the one who stopped making sense and let your readers down by propping up the tired old Democratic Party establishment to once again take to the middle of the road that Republicans move further to the right every two years. Courage has been a strength for America at all of the important turning points in our history. Yet the Democrats via their staid and fearful establishment have applied fear at one critical moment after another.
Consider their failure in each of their previous two administrations to attend to their mid-term elections before launching their signature attempts to reform healthcare for citizens. In both cases they ended up with watered down or downright failed results. This because they chose the safe rather than the courageous way to proceed. Also both of these administrations caved to the craven finance sector when there was a real opportunity to bring it to heel on behalf of citizens.
When will people such as you tell the truth that week-willed establishment politicians such as Pelosi, Schumer, both Clintons and Obama have brought the Democratic Party to this sorry state.
When will you tell the truth that it was the new wave of young, courageous, forward looking, thoughtful winners like AOC and her fellow leaders of the future who won back the house in 2018.
It's time for you tired old fogies to get out of the way and cheer on our brave new champions.
I am 73 years old and cheering them myself.
14
"An impeachment could return Trump to power. The highchair king from Fifth Avenue would exult in his victimhood and energize his always-ready-to-be aggrieved followers." Ms. Dowd, what do you think will happen if there's no impeachment? Won't the high-chair king and his aggrieved followers say it proves the Democrats had nothing on him and the whole investigation was a hoax? Wouldn't it be more effective to expose Trump's crimes through highly publicized hearings, and then force Senate Republicans to publicly acquit him despite mountains of evidence?
9
Well, we wouldn't want the Constitution to get in the way of anyone's cocktail parties, now would we? Might spoil all the fun. What would happen without Trump to kick around anymore? Now, don't get me wrong. No one deserves to be removed from their job more than he does, but would journalists have gotten all those book deals if Trump hadn't attacked them? I worry that Trump is just too good for everyone's business. That has a chilling effect on the Washington cocktail party crowd to make the very difficult, very politically risky move to support impeachment- and they don't even realize it. But the Constitution is screaming out from the National Archives - "I'm dying here! And I will not be ignored so you can all remain in your comfort zones." Imagine if the Continental Congress had decided it was just too risky to try to remove old Mad King George. They put their lives on the line- not just their seats. We'd have no country. Trump knows this crowd of Democrats won't risk it. But people will follow leaders who do what the Constitution and the law demands - if its done with integrity and conviction. They will not support the wafflers who played it safe while our Republic was dismantled. Will be a funny thing if only those who supported impeachment get returned and the Dems lose anyway because of their spinelessness.
13
As a moderate, I agree with Maureen unreservedly. The article encompasses the entire problem with progressives.
Progressives may have taken a stance, but have mistaken it for taking over the party, and in turn, demanding that everyone agree.
So far, the only thing standing in the way of a Trump reelection is Biden. I'd gladly vote Biden, but draw the line at voting for any other Democrat running. They are too far left. It's that simple.
12
yes but the progressives are the ones offering bold policies not just being anti-Trump, whereas the "moderates" you seem to like are simply "Not Trump" in their appeal. Who knows what Biden or Booker or Klobuchar stand for? perhaps not even they do. Everyone knows what Warren and Sanders stand for
11
@philip - Just making as many people as possible aware of my favorite candidate at the moment, Andre Yang. If you like Warren and Sanders then you'd probably like Yang. I personally think he has the best chance of winning the general election.
I thought that I would disagree with this column based on the title but found that I agree with most of it.
I take one main issue, I do not think it's fair to claim that people that voted for trump wanted a "racist rottweiler".
The fact of the mater is that establishment politicians on both sides have not been working in the interests of the American people for a long time and everyone knows it. Hillary Clinton exemplified that establishment.
I think that the election of Trump was a referendum against the status quo more than it was anything else. The only "evidence" I've seen against this view are polling studies that do not actually refute this claim.
I think that the American People are ready for bold action and the only candidate offering that in a meaningful way is Andrew Yang.
I think he can win the general election. And I think that he will win in a landslide. I also think that, if elected, his policy proposals have the greatest chance of making it through the legislature and doing meaningful good for the American people... and, indirectly, the world.
2
Observation prompted by reading some of the Comments below: People should understand the definition of "impeach" before sharing their opinions about whether it should be done.
10
@Richard Schumacher - I know what you mean but in this day and age it seems like how things will be perceived in the media can be more consequential than than the truth.
3
... According to his Wikipedia page, the college Hulse attended is Illinois State in Normal, aka corn and soybean country. In recent years, Illinois’s funding cuts to its university system have resulted in dramatic cutbacks in student enrollment; enrollment at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, a longtime route to the middle class from blue collar homes and towns, is about one-half of what it was in the When America Was Great era.
But would the Times actually have a graduate of either of those universities as its chief Hill correspondent currently had he not been on that beat for decades? Honestly?
Hulse is a throwback to an earlier era. In two meaningful respects. And he wasn’t the host of the book party; Dowd was. He simply attended it. In my opinion, Dowd shouldn’t have invited lawmakers. But really; big deal.
Dowd says that the progressives who cry that they don’t care about the political consequences of what they do or want because they have a higher cause are pushing a purity racket, and she is right. The cause that matters is not that of getting on record as having a higher cause.
But she and most of the mainstream media are wrong, I think, in thinking that nothing significant was accomplished by Mueller’s public testimony on Wednesday because Mueller wasn’t his normal sharp self. He accomplished what it was hoped—certainly by me—he would.
... /2
3
The new progressives apparently also skipped math class. The swing voters in FL, OH, WI, PA and maybe 2-3 other states are the only votes that matter here. Period. Not the west coast, not the northeast. Those votes are counted already, and the margins of victory there don't matter.
So while your impeachment umbrage and your love affair with socialism may play well to the leftist base, you are losing the very moderate, independent voters you need to win the electoral college. And yes, we absolutely will hold our noses and vote for Trump rather than embrace your radical left agenda. Count on it.
15
Since you don't care for socialism, I assume you won't be accepting social security and Medicare. I'm not advocating for Socialism nor am I advocating to go so far left the Democrats lose the election. But get real!
9
I couldn’t agree more. Yes, impeachment would be morally and legally satisfying. But it will be essential to not just defeat trump in 2020, but to defeat him and his cowardly republican accomplices resoundingly... the base strategy of impeachment won’t do this.
It is worth noting that the only time trump’s base has soured on him is when the focus is on his policies - taxes, healthcare, etc. That is his and the Republicans’ kryptonite. And that should be dems’ singular focus the next many months.
8
Trump learned very early on in his political career that the very best way to defeat the Democrats was to let them defeat themselves. He doesn't care if Democrats hate him as long as it keeps them from thinking about anything else. So far so good.
8
The idea that "the voters" or enough voters, knew Trump was racist and voted for him anyway is just not correct. People vote on impressions and are influenced by many things, mainly what their families and neighbors say, and, of course, the ridiculous rumors spread on talk radio and Facebook.
The impression that many had, based on the 40 yr. PR lie Trump told and his 14 yrs. on television, was that Trump was some sort of business genius. Maybe he can do better? Plus, he wasn't Hillary. He spoke in bold, simple terms and they hoped he could be bold and good, not bold and horrible. The vote also was a shout of dissatisfaction with the status quo, aided by the fact that Republicans in Congress shutdown the Obama agenda for six long years.
The New York based news media bears deep responsibility for creating and sustaining the Trump myth. Good copy. They swallowed his PR distortions whole and his near brush with losing it all, going into personal bankruptcy because of the casino disasters, was give minor coverage compared to "Trump, the dynamic builder" cotton candy they passed off for years.
The odds favor turning him out of office if, for no other reason, that growing massive fatigue over all the controversy, the endless noise. He thrills a small group of supporters, and Fox Noise, with his attacks but the act is getting oh so tired for the rest of the nation.
10
Vote him out , it’s the best way to end this .
10
With all the intelligence and idealism contained within the Democratic Party, its astonishing and highly disappointing that they make so many self-deafeating errors.
9
Trump has shown he can withstand exposure of his wrongdoing. If it was revealed that he paid no taxes, his base would not care and no one else would be surprised. If a film were to surface of Trump and Stormy Daniels, his base would not care and no one else would be surprised.
Sometimes, good things happen to bad people. Want to fight for truth, justice and the American way? Elect a decent human being and then start undoing the Trump damage.
8
Look, we all know that impeachment would be an exercise in futility, since the Republican Senate would never vote for conviction.
Meanwhile, during the whole election cycle, Trump would get to scream about another Witch Hunt and distract the entire country with racist tweets and rants that his sycophants and supporters would justify because Trump is being “unfairly attacked” yet again. How often have we heard that? “When Trump gets attacked, he strikes back harder; he’s not racist, he’s just fighting back!”
So, impeachment hearings are a win/win for Trump; he gets to stir up racial hatred with cover provided. And ultimately, Democrats would look ineffectual because the impeachment proceedings would go nowhere and therefore can be spun as mere partisanship.
I understand the moral outrage that makes impeachment seem imperative. I feel it too. But you’ve got to think it through. Pelosi has. So has Trump.
Bottom line: this time, make Trump run on his record instead of allowing him to run as a martyr.
11
Amen to all this, Mo. Ditch impeachment. Focus on the election in '20; but, that's assuming we'll have a 'free and fair' election. Are you sure about that?
1
So, let me get this right: All of those Democrats, intellectuals and journalists who champion pragmatic politics should be shamed for celebrating their worldly achievements? Keep in mind that they are the ones who are arguing on behalf of those who have been marginalized by trickle-down economics since the 1980s. I don't care if they wear ostrich pumps and regularly dine at the French Laundry, if they have a realistic plan and genuine motivation to undo the corruption and gross inequality in place now, I'll spring for my own Dom Perignon to celebrate.
7
You want to fire up the Democratic Base?? Stop talking about Trump!! He loves it! Talk about a realistic Democratic platform that you can pass in the House and the Senate. It may have to be passed over McConnell's objections. Elect Democratic Senators. Hopefully 2 from every state.
This is from a lifelong Democratic from 3plus generations of Democrats and I'm 82!
12
"They voted for him because they were sick to death of the corruption of career politicians...". I'm thinking of all of the Trump cabinet members who resigned with their fingers in our pockets, and the no small number of assorted campaign staffers, etc. who are either in prison or headed there shortly. I am now confused. I would think evidence of such blatant corruption would result in serious introspection about their choices by Republicans who were sick to death of corruption. Instead, it has clearly revived them and hardened their resolve to continue the status quo. Once again it goes to show logic and reason makes no difference to Trump's base.
7
Trump is a pretty bad person; we all knew that before the election. But those of you who want to impeach him are showing just as much disdain for 62 million of your countrymen and women as you are for him. You are trying to overturn an election you didn't like and using the excuse that he tried to obstruct an investigation (but never actually did) into something that would have been illegal if it had happened, but never did. These 62 million people voted for Trump for many reasons, 95% of which had nothing to do with racism. They have a right to their opinion and the same right to vote as you do. Accept the fact that many citizens don't agree with you, that their vote is equal to your vote, and try to get your candidate/party elected at the next election. By suggesting that your vote is more valid than theirs you are confirming their elitism narrative.
9
Would have been nice if the Democrats had responded quickly and decisively with contempt citations everytime a #45 obstructionist toadies simply refused to comply with the law. Democrats did not.
7
Forget the politics. Anyone reading the Mueller Report knows that crimes were committed and Trump committed them. The evidence is clear and indisputable. I remember that most of the country knew very little about Watergate until John Dean testified. After watching Dean testify, my question was, “what are they waiting for”? Those of us who have time to read understand the situation. Others? Not to any degree of certainty. So, congress, put the truth out there which means open public hearings promoted by an impeachment inquiry. There is nothing ambiguous about this. Trump is a criminal. And, unless congress acts, he’s going to get away with his crimes. At the least, stop with the “no man is above the law”, nonsense when it’s painfully obvious the somebody is...
4
Possibly, just possibly, impeachment would be the stigmatizer no one seems to expect it to be. Maybe it would actually put a dent in the collective mind of the "base." People may love the anti-hero, or the cad or the bully -- until he touches a child. The hero-worship evaporates like dew in the sun's rays. Most of Trump's flaws actually galvanize his followers. But impeachment? Who knows but that it may be a heart-turner.
1
In content I couldn't agree more with this article. Purity tests are garbage politics and don't work. But the rhetoric! She starts out waving her freak flag about some party, and ends up scolding scolding scolding "Democrats" (what is she if not?) for all the ways they are messing things up. Except there is an easy answer to her problems. Stay off Twitter, and you'll find such problems go away. This is because all the noise being cause by a tiny minority of people who use Twitter constantly. Ignore them, and they aren't a problem.
2
I am a firm believer that politics is "the art of the possible." From that perspective, I understand Ms. Pelosi's position on impeachment, since conviction in the current Senate is impossible. What disturbs and despairs me is what it says about the state of our nation and legislative branch of government when holding accountable and removing a demonstrably authoritarian, traitorous, justice-obstructing scoff-law like trump is not possible.
4
I liked it, Maureen. But please don’t assume all of MA agrees with the Puritans! I know we are a small state....
1
Whoa. Lots to say about this. First among them that, whatever truths Dowd states here—and in IMO there is at least one—she (and the many others who do so) should stop pedaling the sleight of hand that the factor that determines membership as an elite isn’t your current status but instead your childhood family’s.
This is particularly ridiculous when speaking of two journalists old enough to have made the leap during the heyday of this country’s socioeconomic mobility, via easy access to college and before big-name old school journalism became the near-exclusive province of those who hail from the upscale-home-to-prestigious-college pipeline.
Dowd and Hulse travel amongst those with considerable political and, relatedly, economic power, and have for decades. They are elites. As that term actually is defined.
That said, as a daughter of a big-city journalist I’m well aware of the press-party (as they used to be called) social circuit. And that covering government means something beyond relaying officials’ public pronouncements and press releases and the contents of public filings. As a longtime Hill correspondent, his job necessitates personal relationships with some Hill denizens and lawmakers.
Hulse does that job in the way that it was done at its best in my father’s day. He reports straightforwardly. (As a Bernie supporter in ’16, I wish he’d been covering Bernie’s campaign. Or later, Clinton’s. Or, dare I say, the pre-election Russia/Trump connection beat.)
... /1
4
This is not a helpful column. Third in a row. Dowd did the same, divisive schtick when Hillary was running for president. Why not try to use her powerful pulpit to try to pull Democrats together, rather than the opposite? There's nothing like a nasty ego with a megaphone -- as we know all too well.
7
1000 percent true. Trump will win easily if the Dems don't grow up and unite. Please have your next lunch, with plenty of chocolates, with DNC leadership. Stay around for pots de creme, linger for truffles and sip chocolate martinis. Kick each under the table with stilettos if necessary. Just please get them to understand.
4
You had me on the cocktail party bashing, then you veer off into equating whining about cocktail parties with rich people to complaining about the plod-along do nothing Democrats who are too frightened to even conduct impeachment inquiry of the most corrupt President (not to mention, the most inept President) in our history. As if at least conducting a serious impeachment inquiry makes us "Puritans", nun-like--all wearing comfortable shoes and frumpy clothes, saying our prayers and doing the right thing. As if the only reason to abide by the constitution is stupidity hiding behind puritanism. What? Have you noticed, Maureen, that no one who watches Fox News knows what's going on? Have you noticed that even simply reading the Mueller report educated most people. If we don't have a hearing elaborating on all (not just Mueller, everything--emoluments, abuse of power, incompetence) his impeachable offenses, there is a big chance, he will regain power. Because by doing nothing but whining, the Democrats look weak and fearful. Unless it's presented formally, the investigations look like what Fox News makes it look like, political and worthless.
4
From the outside DC perspective it is hard to figure out who are the Robespierres and who are the Marats in today’s left media alliance. Schadenfreude either way.
5
America is done with Mueller and investigations. Impeachment proceedings are a waste of time.
Everyone knows Trumps a criminal and a traitor-even many of his supporters. They just don’t care.
Follow the 2018 playbook. Win purple and even light red districts and states. Throw him out in a humiliating landslide that makes George McGovern look successful.
Spend your time registering voters and getting them to the polls.
9
I am a yellow dog Democrat, but I can see the party fumbling 2020. Instead of the long slow hard work of winning elections the natural exuberance of the young blood is hoping for instant revolution. This is partly the parties fault in it’s failure to bring in young blood for the past years. It is also a reaction to the appalling ugliness of the GOP base.
If the Village Idiot is re-elected I see a recession, a fumbled response, possibly descending into depression, and at least a decade of abject economic misery. Misery does have the effect of clarifying reality, though.
The death of the GOP is long overdue.
2
The outright cruelty and knee jerk hysteria of extreme progressives has turned me from their various howling arguments for a better world. Their cowardice in the face of any social media lynch mob and self righteous willingness to jump on the lynching expedition of the day is nothing but mob think and it's just as terrifying as any of trump's crimes.
We need him out of office just so we can think straight again. But the left will not get it done via this array of social justice inquisitions.
8
Most ‘progressives’ and ‘far left’ folks I’m aware of are not even Democrats, as they have long since abandoned hope in the now center-right neoliberal party. Those progressives always questioned why Democrats put so much faith in Robert Mueller, a Republican and lifelong loyal servant of the National Security State. They also questioned why so many Democrats were anxious to start a new Cold War with Russia based on the flimsy evidence that has now collapsed along with all Democratic Party credibility on the matter. When these Democratic partisans finally recover their critical thinking skills they will understand that they have been brainwashed for the past two years by a corporate media anxious to profit off the Trump conspiracy meme and a pathetic Democratic Party eager to distract from its utter failure to defeat the dangerous racist self-dealing con man.
3
A "highchair king from Fifth Avenue" demands a village of courtiers, but it's less about advising and more about service to his wretched throne.
On 25 July 2019, Susanna Hoffman, The Federalist, wrote: "Coalitions create leverage by keeping people voting together". She then interviewed Rep. Mark Meadow, leader of the Freedom Caucus who applauded Rep. Thomas Massie's independent streak. (On Thursday, Massie requested that the Budget be renamed “A Bill to Kick the Can Down the Road, and for Other Purposes” which 47 people voted for.) Silliness is how Meadows' Fellows address the debt ceiling crisis and the real independence of Rep. Justin Amash becomes a warning.
"I don’t want to slam him to suggest that he’s (disagreeable in his disagreeing), but I’m just saying that it’s all about coalitions,”.. Meadows also critiqued Amash’s declaration of independence as a representative. Rather than representing the belief of his constituents, Amash’s decision is an expression of personal beliefs. “Sometimes expressing our point of view is not necessarily the highest call,” Meadows said.
https://thefederalist.com/2019/07/25/justin-amash-lost-leverage-quitting-republicans-and-coalitions/
Funny, I thought that democratic representation was always about doing the right thing - according to your individual conscience.
1
I hope and pray Trump and his hacks are booted out in 2020, but nothing leaves a worse taste in the mouth than liberals convinced they’re on the side of the angels.
James Baldwin put it more elegantly:
“No one is more dangerous than he (sic) who imagines himself pure in heart; for his purity, by definition, is unassailable.”
From: “Nobody Knows My Name”
7
So, can you run for office? Pretty please...?
1
Maureen, I applaud your column and agree with almost all your points. I don't have the time or the patience to read all the comments, but I imagine the puritans here are probably ripping you a new one... always asign of a good column... well done Maureen.
3
The real question is: has he committed hc&m? The accurate answer is yes, in which case the House must conduct impeachment proceedings. However, because of Trump's obfuscation and obstruction, it will drag on to be meaningless--however, it will be a great election backdrop for Dems. I think the Republicans are so completely corrupt, and Trump is such a repugnant, worthless scoundrel, the tide of public opinion will turn as it plays out, thereby influencing voters to cast them out in the election--the most democratic outcome. We can only hope that McConnell and as many of his cronies are taken down as well.
2
I take issue with the whole, "My father was a cop," so I can't be elite. You are an elite. You write for the Times, and hobnob with the rich and famous. There's nothing wrong with that, but your blue collar roots don't inoculate you from the myopic outlook of the elitist class. I say all of these things as a coastal elite who believes that nice shoes, cheese and chocolate happen to be a wonderful part of life.
6
Funny, now the extreme left is the Moral Majority. This kind of thinking is boorish and tiresome no matter which side of the isle it comes from.
5
I’m with her (er you, Maureen). And sick to death of “purity” and “circular firing squads.” Nancy Pelosi knows more about DC politics in her pinky than AOC and the Squad may ever learn. I will always defend their right to say what they want, but we can’t lose sight of the fact that we all have one mutual objective for the sake of our country. Once we have purged the government of Trump and his swampy allies, we can address our differences. Focus, Dems!
7
Reasonable people, who also think about strategy, can disagree with you. I am reasonable and happen to think you are dead wrong. I am also a progressive. And guess what? I am not a Puritan. You have it wrong again. If you want to see what a real Puritan looks like I recommend taking a look at a man named Pence. I am a little alarmed by how off the wall your comments are because someone accused you of being an elitist. Get it together and cast your vote for whoever runs against Trump. We have no choice. He is a racist, fascist and sociopath and if we love our country and our families, we must get rid of him.
4
This article doesn't describe the political reality I'm looking at. I would describe it as dull-witted and superficial.
4
Dor once I am in agreement with maureen I m tired of the self righteous leftists they are as bad as the freedom caucus. I would love to see AOC working as a barista so she can gain a better perspective
2
For someone so allegedly averse to puritanism, Mo never, ever, ever, stopped taking cheap shots at both Clintons, even when it helped elect Trump.
Mo has conveniently forgotten that during the 2016 campaign she bragged that she was the only person at the Times whose calls Trump would return.
11
I guess Mo Do didn’t like being pilloried by her own people.
4
CliffsNotes version: The Georgetown cocktail party set has spoken. Get with the program.
5
That's just a little squabble, Maureen. I learned from Colbert on YouTube that Trump talks from the White House about nuking Afghanistan, and here you go with your book party and chocolates. How disappointing
5
Right, as usual.
1
One of your best, Maureen. Brava.
2
Well said. Don't fire till you see the whites of their eyes. There are lives in the balance.
3
It’s my understanding that Nancy Pelosi isn’t against impeachment, but she’s enough of a seasoned political veteran to understand timing. Waiting until the last possible second to pull the trigger and unleash all the ugliness one is sure to find when Congress subpoenas the president’s tax returns etc, in the middle of the election cycle, not when it’s only just begun, is the calculation here.
That would render the “but the Senate won’t do anything” argument moot, because the damage that Republicans in the Senate would sustain, in the middle of that election cycle, would be fresh and stick to them like fresh dung.
6
Oh Maureen, Daughter of a cop? Son of a plumber? Are these your only blue-collar bonafide you have to offer? Boy for someone who spends her time skinning public figures alive you certainly seem thin-skinned yourself. Are your designer pumps too tight?
Either way, it's the primaries. This is the time for a free market of ideas to be aired, debated, and hollered over. But you know this. Just like you know you're using your influence to steer the argument where you think it should go; to the misguided, muddled middle of moderation. You want Dem's to offer up the kind of Nixonian/Republicanesque positions that helped Hillary lose and fail to address climate, tuition debt, healthcare, and more.
Let the kids fight it out. Rest assured the Wall Street Dems who run the DNC will lurch back to the mushy middle, where it looks like something is being done but not really.
8
Right on, Mo!
1
Let them eat cake.
1
I wouldn't say impeachment is wrong, implying it is inappropriate and unjustified. Clearly, it is neither. The Mueller Report, even redacted, provides sufficient evidence of wrongdoing to justify impeachment.
Instead, I would say it is right, but not the only option. Those consumed by it need to step back and look forward with a long view. Trump is a willing accomplice in a larger, longer war. Yes, he is repugnant in every possible way, but he is but a petty bit player compared to the deeper, darker forces afoot. He is the perfect figurehead for this cause, as his own egotism drives him unprodded to draw attention to himself, giving cover to those working in the shadows to undermine our democracy, both inside and outside this country.
The Nadler and Schiff investigations must go on for reasons Mueller cited: to compile evidence while memories are fresh and documents available. They can reach deeper and more broadly than Mueller's team. And, in addition to impeachment, they can make referrals and provide findings to other authorities.
So, focusing on 2020 elections is more important than impeachment. First, because they encompass not just Trump, but many layers of electeds from Congress to state houses working against our democracy, and ousting those forces is essential to defend our country. Second, because winning in 2020 is essential to restoring the independence of the Department of Justice so it can hold ALL the guilty parties to account.
8
Democrats think Pelosi is a brilliant leader. She's been the Democratic leader in the House for 18 years, holding it for 4 years, then losing it for 12, and now holding it again for 2. I guess success to Democrats means losing twice as often as winning.
2
Hmmm -- we know that Trump committed impeachable acts -- "Mueller settled that." But Maureen, did you take into account what the witnesses quoted by Mueller said when cross-examined under oath by Trump's lawyers? Oh wait, that didn't happen.
Well, how about the evidence and legal arguments presented by Trump's lawyers in opposition to impeachment? Oh wait, that didn't happen either.
What happened is a prosecutor investigated and presented evidence in the way he (or, as seems more likely, his underlings) wanted. Now one could believe that this presentation warrants a trial where both sides present evidence. But we don't come to conclusions about guilt based on a prosecutor's claims. Too many Americans have forgotten this.
2
@Alan
No, but that is how we determine whether or not an indictment is warranted. As much as the President's supporters howl to the contrary this is not persecution. It is due process.
6
@BC Not responsive. Already said that prosecutor's allegations can lead to trial. The issue I raised is that Dowd, Nadler, thousands, millions of others have declared Trump guilty (not just warranting indictment) based on a prosecutor's allegations.
1
@Alan
Well, you know what opinions are like. Everybody has one.
1
Think your analysis is spot on. I don't always agree with you, but I sure do today.
10
Maureen,
Who can authoritatively declare that impeachment would lead to a Trump victory?
Many pollsters who predicted that Trump would win in 2016 are now saying that impeachment is an important avenue to defeating Trump in 2020.
Maybe they know something that you don’t?
6
Brilliant, Maureen. Words of wisdom.
The progressives are on a dangerous path which will lead to four more years of Trump. God help us all.
The Democrats need to be more strategic and focus on the future, not the past.
10
Adopting a Fabian strategy will wear him down and out, in the open. We need to show people how weak he is, how he can't get anything done. Giving him a Senate win will change very few minds, but it will give him bragging rights, guaranteed to fire-up the party of disappointed people (PDP = Republicans).
Moreover, an impeachment vindication will give the PDP a chance to show how unified they are, on a very public, very important stage.
We can demonstrate that he is weak by doing things he can't counter, but not by giving him a Senate victory. It's smarter to adopt a Fabian strategy.
5
The Democrats look a lot like Labour in the UK in that Labour has little chance of winning anything due to their fence-sitting in the face of the massive corruption, lying, and illegalities of the Tory government. I’ve voted Democrat my entire life (approaching 70 now). I’m comfortably retired and still the decision to buy a book requires a financial analysis. I can’t relate to elites throwing parties to celebrate themselves.
I got an e-mail from “Amy”, whoever that is, asking for a political contribution. Amy, such a cute name for a president.
3
I feel Ms. Dowd's pain. the same people who in 2016 could not conceive of the possibility of a trump victory are rowing faster and faster to go over the falls to bring about just that same result and that same astonishment. all those who support Trump don't necessarily agree with his Twitter outbursts but the unfairness with which he is judged in the absolute overwhelming negative press that he gots certainly leaves many wanting to support him as an underdog.
characterizing anybody who does support Trump as a basket of deplorables is insulting. viewing them as somehow less intelligent less caring less patriotic is arrogance and ignorance. facts are funny things, no matter how much you seek to silence them, they persist. we all want a greater country and want our citizens to thrive. the damnable question is how best to get there. The many unintended consequences that government policies have are never considered in trying to solve a problem. problems become problems because they are intractable. until there can be reasonable dialogue without demonization we won't be able to reach solutions.
3
The way to get Trump out of the White House is via the ballot box in November 2020. Impeachment might make some Dems feel better but I prefer the politics of pragmatism. Maureen is exactly right.
12
@CeeCee Entrusting the NYT, which had a Hillary victory at 98% certainly and elitists like Maureen Dowd to suggest a weak strategy of no Constitutional enforcement and another conservative Democrat = victory. What could go wrong?
4
Thank you for writing this column, Maureen. Even before the "Mueller report" was published, I favored Impeachment. Trump's time in office has been anything but exemplary. His administration has been the worst possible one in terms of the malfeasance and corruption. And, it just seems to getting bigger. Now, my stance is "wait and see." There is no doubt in my mind that Trump committed "high crimes and misdemeanors" as envisioned by our Founding Fathers. My worries that his base will be agitated if he is impeached are growing. I would like to see him tried for his crimes, but, the election of 2020 may be our best bet to dismiss him from office.
6
I'm a moderate Democrat but I believe that Ms. Dowd and so far, Nancy Pelosi are wrong. The reality is this-Trump must, according to our Constitution, not me, be impeached even though we know he will not be removed by the Senate. We must then go on to vote him out, if-and it is a big if-the Russians don't undermine the election to such a degree that he wins again. If that happens and we have taken no stand against Trump's colluding with Russians and trying to obstruct the investigation we will not have a leg to stand on. We must impeach Trump and call out the Russians because it could all happen again but then, sadly, we will at least be proven right.
5
I totally agree with Maureen Dowd here. Forget the circular firing squad: the Democratic candidates are happy to blow themselves up.
By all means let's attack Joe Biden on his stance on bussing 40 years ago.
They will be handing Trump four more years unless they can stop this lunacy, forget impeaching him, and begin talking about the issues that got them the House Majority in the mid-term elections: Healthcare and wage equity.
12
... A vast majority of the public now knows the key points in the report, most important (in my opinion) that Barr had misrepresented parts of its content and had buried the rest; that Russia, independently but also with Trump’s encouragement, engaged in a massive, multipart attempt to manipulate the ’16 election outcome; that it done so also regarding the ‘14 election; and that it is aggressively embarking on far more extensive efforts for next year. And that Trump and the GOP are all good with that.
That’s not a bad political consequence, I’m pretty sure. Not for the Democrats, anyway. /3
4
Have the pro-impeachment forces forgotten that even if the House voted to impeach, the Senate would act as the judge and jury? And this Senate is not, repeat not, going to vote to remove Trump from office. So let us focus on nominating a candidate who will appeal to the broad middle that still exists here outside the NY-DC-SF confines. Once Trump is defeated for reelection, we can leave him to the tender mercies of the Southern District of New York or a reconstituted Justice Department that can fairly evaluate the evidence of obstruction of justice.
11
An impeachment is a stress test for our Judiciary. If the Judiciary sides with the republicans in preventing the investigation of a President, we will need a revolution to reverse the decline of our democracy.
4
Thank you. We need to vote Trump out. That is the only answer and should be a rallying cry for all like minded Democrats. Forget impeachment. Trump will draw more sympathy from his base. I’m reminded that there are only two parties in this country now : 1) The far right and left and 2) the moderates. It’s time for moderates to take our country back. I trust Nancy Pelosi for that job.
17
To channel Ferdinand I, by continually sidestepping the pursuit justice, the world is literally perishing "as we speak." And the Russian interference is small potatoes next to the disinformation campaign perpetrated by Fox News. Middle of the road politics is a death sentence for our species. We need a radical restructuring of our entire civilization, if we are to survive. Otherwise, it's party down people, love your shoes to death.
4
Right on! This says exactly everything right. The Twitter Left is NOT representative of America or even Democrats. Ignore them and we’ll win in 2020.
16
I will be voting for the democratic nominee .
8
The thing that this op-ed overlooks is the possibility that a Congressional inquiry might produce additional information very much relevant to the deliberations voters have to undertake in 2020. The point of an inquiry is exactly that.
Mueller's mandate was actually quite narrow.
This is particularly significant because of the relative ease the President had in containing the DOJ with his AG misrepresenting the findings of the Mueller report.
Barr has already announced a probe into those within the agency who flagged Trump's Russia connections.
I submit a soft coup has been well underway. This is more like a dystopian sequel to Watergate where ALL the institutions (Congress & the media) failed to check a corrupt despot in command of the planet's most powerful military.
Diverted by Trump's racist rants, we miss his undermining of the Federal civil service by doing things like leaving the Merit Service Protection Board without members and forcing the Federal unions that advocate for the Executive Branch workforce out of the workplace.
We fixate on Trump tweets and the parlor game while his crew is dismantling the engine room.
The purging of non-partisan science is part of it.
It is much later than we realize and our conventional political discourse fails to capture our perilous circumstance.
13
I am thoroughly disgusted with the inability of you and your fellow pundit bobbleheads to grasp the significance of the Mueller hearings. Your relentless demeaning of their impact is false and counterproductive to getting rid of the current occupant of the White House. Let me lay out some statistics for you. Apparently only 3% of Americans have read the Mueller Report. Counting only those 18 and older, that means that about 6.25 million Americans have read it That leaves more than 202 million citizens who have only learned about it through secondary channels which, if that's Fox News et al, means what they've learned is completely false. 13 million Americans watched the hearings. Even if we assume that included all 6 million who had already read the report (a preposterous assumption), that means that 7 million more Americans have now heard the contents of the report directly, not filtered through some other source. And 13 million Americans heard Bob Mueller clearly state that there was no exoneration and, more importantly, that the occupant of the White House could be indicted as soon as he leaves office. It was clear and unequivocal. Chairman Nadler asked the right questions at the beginning and Chairman Schiff reiterated them at the end. Just a guess, but I think 7 million people hearing the truth and voting accordingly is enough to make a difference. Now cut out the nonsense about how boring it was.
23
Mueller is a war hero? There are no American heroes of the Vietnam war but probably lots of Vietnamese ones. Is Dowd unaware that being a warrior for empire during the Vietnam War was not heroic? Instead it was a calculation to serve the status quo of America's hegemonic militarism. Mueller served empire as a volunteer Marine when it was very clear to most that invading Vietnam was a con.
5
This is one of the most fundamental challenges this country has faced since the Civil War. Maureen's argument is silly and diversionary.
Robert Mueller and his report provided the evidence, but was constrained by Trump's Injustice Department not to go any further.
But if the Democratic Party won't stand up to Russian meddling in our elections, a U.S. President's multiple incidences of obstruction of justice and abuse of power, who will?
Obviously, not the Republican Party. Well, they don't like our federal government anyway and want to weaken it to please their big donors, so what could we expect?
And never mind all President Trump's cruelty to children, thousands of bald-face lies to the public, trying to take away health care from those who need it, trashing the environment and foreign relations. and sending the deficit sky high with an unnecessary tax cut.
If no political party represents and is willing to defend our Constitution, settled law, democracy, and basic human decency, where does that leave the American people and the future of this country?
Few profiles in courage here. Why not?
8
Why does impeachment have to end In a humiliating mockery of a trial in the senate in which Trump is acquitted and there is a backlash against Democrats for dragging the country through a pointless trial?
The Constitution has no rules about the conduct or conclusion of an impeachment proceeding.
Why can’t proceedings be held at the conclusion of which a resolution could be passed finding that Trump has committed impeachable acts, which would be delineated in exactly the same terms as would be articles if impeachment? However, the resolution would characterize the House’s decision as only “findings of fact,” not the formal adoption of articles of impeachment. No articles of impeachment would be adopted. The resolution would recite that the actual adoption of articles of impeachment would be pointless and only result in a bad faith trial, or none at all, because senate republicans will not conduct a good faith trial. In fact, Mitch McConell has prejudged the outcome by declaring articles if impeachment would be “dead on arrival.”
They would have fulfilled their civic duty but not opened themselves up to repudiation and humiliation by the senate or a backlash by the public. In fact, they would have focused attention on a senate that has devolved into nothing more than a sycophantic Donald Trump cheerleading squad.
Democrats are not conducting the vicious internecine fights that Dowd imagines. They are being civil. But compared to Republicans, they are babes in the woods
7
I watched film LBJ last night, and Dowd’s call for some pragmatism and wise strategy echoes the Johnson approach to Civil Rights legislation.
7
I find it fascinating how many commentors "know" what will happen. If there should be any lesson about our politics over the last 3 years it should be that no one knows what's around the corner. So how about we go back to our country's original guidelines and honor what we want our governance to be rather than this crystal ball gazing that has lowered the discourse in this country?
I also shame those that disparage the ideas of those who are described as"far left". What this country needs is honest, open discussion. Not trying to tame everyone into some "safe" path as if that is the answer to all of our problems. Steve Jobs built a large company based on ideas - good or bad.
And finally, the R's are using the "fear" buttons not facts and ideas. People don't vote analytically. They vote emotionally. Fear is produced in the amygdala and when it is engaged it shuts off the functioning in the prefrontal cortex the way sex sells beer. This fear tactic literally shuts down good decision making.
Also, get money out of politics. It's a conflict of interest for a public representative to beg for money from private interests to secure a personal job to represent the community.
7
The arguments for impeachment aren’t only — or even mostly —the unhinged race-baiting and vulgarity of the presidential tweets. The arguments are the actions of the Trump administration: diminished federal oversight that makes the country less safe; money diverted from military appropriations toward impractical, ineffective, unnecessary projects; attempts to bully and extort international allies; solicitations of perjury; constant patterns of deceit and self-dealing from the office of president all the way through his administration; unending waste of government resources; attempts to transfer public lands to private hands; brazen and relentless ethics violations; courting foreign interference in US elections; failure to carry out Constitutional duties; violations of federal law and international treaty obligations covering immigrants and asylum seekers. Political calculations look pale and thin against the scale of corruption the Trump administration has indulged in and enabled. If an impeachment inquiry hobbles Trump’s ability to continue as he’s been doing, that’s good enough for now. One way Democrats can make their case for a better future is by holding this sorry administration to account.
6
Yeah, I guess we should wait 'till the next election and get rid of Trump that way. What could he possibly do between now and then?
14
And what guarantee do we have that Democrats will win?
1
Maureen, you forget one salient fact: Democrats must impeach President Trump in an Eye-for-an-Eye overdue response to the impeachment of President Clinton.
And on and on it goes....
3
The Democratic Party doesn't make me feel like a supporter. It make me feel like an enabler.
8
A thought from a conservative voter that did not vote for Trump.
In 2016 I watched with increasing dismay and disgust the antics of the motley crew of Republican candidates that looked in the mirror and concluded they were qualified to become the leader of this country. During the primary debates, they only appeared less and less qualified and less appealing. Finally, the country was given a choice between Trump and probably the only Democrat he could beat in a general election.
Now, I see the same degree of hubris in the Democrat block of primary candidates. The Regressive wing of the Democratic party is demanding a plethora of programs that cannot be funded even with substantially higher taxes. Incredibly, people who swarm across the border illegally are now migrants who receive the same benefits as emigrants that legally migrated to the country. Anyone who thinks that allowing millions of people to walk across the border and qualify for benefits paid by USA citizens is a bad idea is now labeled by the left-wing Regressives as a racist. The Democrats are tearing themselves apart over who is "woke" enough to avoid execution by Twitter. Impeachment is a side-show and most polls show a majority of the people want the next election to decide Trump's future.
There are a lot of conservatives and liberals that are willing to vote against Trump and support a Democrat that is not pandering to the far left Regressives. I hope you choose a left-center candidate that can win.
11
Well said. Our ultra-idealistic liberal compatriots are doing doing an excellent job helping Trump get re-elected. All the well-off mega-liberal people in the very liberal OR town I live in go out of their way to impress each other with how non-materialistic and morally perfect they are. They then proceed to drive back to their mansions up the hill in their late models SUVs.
5
I thought I really liked Maureen Dowd's opinion pieces. My day of reckoning: I realize I mostly used to like her columns because I agreed with the sentiment behind them, without doing any diligent fact checking. Three consecutive vitriolic pieces of little substance, targeting progressive democrats, have changed my mind forever about Maureen Dowd as a source of political wisdom. Weren’t we supposed to stop living in our own bubble after Trump got elected? What is the evidence that proceeding with impeachment or not will lead to specific outcomes? Gut feeling is not a good measure. Personal preference doesn’t cut it either. Meanwhile, the alarm bells are going off. We are on the brink of losing our democracy. It is fundamental for Democrats to unite, in spite of ideological/generational differences. Both sides, the one that argues for impeachment and the side that argues against it have a point. It is time to be smart and decide on the best possible option to defeat DJT and the GOP. Direct the poison and spite at DJT and his sycophants, not at progressives. If Nancy Pelosi listens to Maureen Dowd’s political advice, she needs to stop doing that right now. Please, Nancy Pelosi, go and talk with progressive democrats and find compromise. Spend more time with us, your constituents, instead of partying with ultrawealthy donors. We, common people also eat chocolate. More importantly, we hold the key to 2020 votes.
10
Try evidence.
Check out Ted Rall’s cartoon, July 26.
We are running out of time for leadership by increments.
And we have failed repeatedly by offering “leadership” that inspires nothing.
2
I so agree with every word of this, which is unusual.
2
Basically, calling those who demand impeachment proceedings guilty of a “purity racket” because they are adhering to deeply held notions of right and wrong as codified in our legal system, is the same as declaring yourself on the same team as trump. No moral imperative. Sorry, there are many of us who find this appalling, but maybe less so considering it comes from you.
11
The trouble with impeachment by the House is that it will lead directly to acquital by the Senate where a two-thirds majority is required to convict. That will be successfully spun as POTUS having done nothing wrong.
Of course he deserves to be impeached and convicted but that isn't going to happpen. Nothing House leadership can do can make it happen.
5
Absolutely correct, Maureen. If impeachment doesn't lead to the president's removal from office, we have accomplished nothing. It would permit Trumplithinskin to claim he was exonerated and his base and maybe some other voters would believe him because let's face, not everyone is as into politics as those who read the New York Times or the Washington Post probably are. Better to fix our election apparatus and vote him out. Everyone get someone who doesn't vote or didn't vote to vote in the next election and drive them to the polls. That's my strategy for 2020. Even though an "impeachment inquiry" would keep the issue in people's radar for the near future.
7
We do indeed need to get the defective(s) out of office so that the Republic will again be able to operate on behalf of the citizenry within a defensible two standard deviations (left or right) of accepted social norms. We all know what Trump is doing is wrong, both legally and morally, even those who are in denial.
We also know what McConnell is doing is worse because the Senate has effectively cut the ropes that leverage checks-and-balances. It’s all a bout power. And he and the Republicans aren’t afraid to say it in public.
Impeachment at this stage is a waste of oxygen and a dangerous digression from the path of righteousness when the engine of American regime change - free elections - is a year out.
Fight the foes of representative democracy on firm ground: unimpeded elections, one-person/one-vote. And issues that matter: health, right to work for a living wage, proper distribution of the economics of our labors (equitable tax code), opportunity to change your life path for the better (affordable education).
2
We are where we are because elected officials, government employees (appointees), & the people (voters) failed to do their do their duty so any argument that House Democrats should shirk their responsibility on impeachment lacks credibility. Let matters unfold as they should.
Timing is another matter partly due to Trump’s unprecedented & unexpected continuing obstruction. It seems neither the Founders nor today’s Democrats anticipated the extent of dishonor by Trump & his GOP. To me Trump is a walking high crime & misdemeanor yet polling of Democrats & voters show no current blue wave for impeachment. So we must trust House leadership to proceed at the right time to protect our democracy & ensure Trump’s defeat in 2020 (any Democrat candidate is better than Trump).
In the meantime Democrats should continue to write legislation and publicize it! Trump has no record to stand on, even his wall isn’t going to pay the bills. Tell everyone how McConnell is sitting on almost everything that would be good for America; his inaction to protect our elections is unconscionable & unpatriotic. Democrats have a winning agenda that Americans want & need, but America will have four more stalemate years if we don’t also win the Senate.
3
With all the intelligence and idealism contained within the Democratic Party, its astonishing and highly disappointing that they make so many self-deafening errors.
4
Maureen Dowd is one of my least favorite writers, but for some reason I always seem to read her columns. Today, to my surprise, I agree with her. How fun!
Those who want to impeach the president are naive puritans, and bring to mind the hysteria and mindlessness of the Puritan witch hunts in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692 and '93. They ought to calm down and shut up.
We live in a real world where abstract ideals like social justice mean little. There are plenty of things Congress can be doing about those instead of pandering to people with political witch hunting and meaningless hearings and votes.
7
Bravo! And Cheers! And pass the chocolate
6
I've often wondered if some of the people who demand impeachment are actually part of a Republican (or Russian) fifth column. The political effects of impeachment can be seen as recently as 1998 when the Democrats picked up five seats in the House after Bill Clinton's impeachment. Liberals who insist on the "purity" of impeaching this president are as close-minded and ignorant of the consequences as their rightwing brethern are of the damage their leader is doing to our country
4
This is one of the most brutal indictments of Republicans that I've ever seen. It basically says they don't care how awful our President is because he's their "racist Rottweiler."
How should Democrats combat that? With, oddly enough, excellent policies that will help millions. People are reminded daily by the media how awful Trump is.
Focus on how the electorate will benefit:
"I'm asking for your vote, so we can expand educational opportunity for you and your kids and cut your healthcare bills, funded by asking the rich to pay a little more."
4
How can the Dems pass any legislation? McConnell stopped the nomination of a Supreme Court Justice by a sitting US President. He is not going to allow the Dems to pass any legislation.
Why submit any new legislation? The Dems are impotent at this point.
2
Has Ms. Dowd considered that the real target of impeachment is not so much to win a conviction in the Senate (Won't happen, not with Comrade McConnell in charge.), but to demonstrate to the entire electorate just how corrupt and criminal Trump is?
At this point, Trump can deny documents and instruct his people not to testify, and the Democrats have no leverage. With impeachment, testimony and document production become mandatory.
Trump's base will always be rabid and fired up, but it's not big enough to win. If the rest of the electorate can be shown just what a foul choice Trump is, then the game is over.
6
Oh, I don't think you're an aristocrat. But you might as well be, you're so out-of-touch. You lost me ages back when you dubbed John Edwards "The Breck Girl" when bit of B-roll surfaced of him fussing, trying to get his hair right before standing in front of thousands of people.
It was a deadly blow (which he turned out to deserve, of course, but you didn't know that), feminizing a male explicitly as well as with accusations of vanity.
But Edwards actually had the best health-care plan; Clinton's was a lesser offering, and Obama's lesser still (and then he compromised on that in negotiations).
"Who cares about health care plans?" say the Dowd columns; what matters is appearance, what matters is a front of male dominance and power - the stuff that gets Trumps elected.
You have a very, very aristocratic love of form and appearance over substance.
Pelosi, for instance, appears stable and solid, and established, and the adult in the room. But the challengers actually have the platform that Democratic voters have been demanding for a long time. The intellectual defense of their positions actually has the greater substance.
12
Pick a side, folks. This isn't as nuanced as people keep suggesting. If moderates want to vote for Trump, I would like to know so I can make travel arrangements.
7
I am a fan who enjoys your talent as writer with imagination. And I entirely agree that to win this election is paramount for Democrats to exercise moderation rather than extremism or Puritan beliefs. But no one knows what the elections outcome will be or what will be the determining factor will be other than voting.
Still, there are times when doing the right thing is more important than winning. The Warsaw ghetto fighters in Nazi Germany knew they could not win against the German army, but they found the courage to do what they thought they had to do on behalf of their fellow victims. We are in a similar time in America when to do the right thing is most important, regardless of the practical outcome.
6
Well, enough people from the right places voted for the "racist Rottweiler". Thanks, electoral college. Which, according to reports from this very news organization, looks like it's poised to happen again. Thanks in advance, Wisconsin.
I completely agree that the pursuit of purity is always a bad idea, especially since purity doesn't actually exist. It's purely an idea. Talk about chasing a chimera.
I also agree that while in theory it is perfectly obvious that the "highchair King of Fifth Avenue" (thank you for the biggest laugh of my morning, in fact the only laugh) should be impeached, he also should not be impeached. But in these foolish days of pursuing purity, the contradiction cannot be held without causing disruption. What a shame.
If Democrats do somehow or other pull off a miracle and win in 2020, I still worry that Trump flying away in a helicopter won't be the last we see of him, or more importantly the terrible path he has laid out for future self-serving tyrants.
4
"The attempt to impeach Trump is one of the rare cases in which something obviously justified is obviously stupid."
The decision "to impeach or not to impeach" may not be as obvious as Ms. Dowd wants us to believe. On the one hand, Mr. Trump is in the White House today in large because of the support he received from evangelical Christian communities. If the impeachment process can reveal the true Mr. Trump to the country, I have no doubt much of the support he is getting now from these communities will evaporate. And that can make a big difference in 2020, given how narrowly Mr. Trump did win some of the key states in 2016.
On the other hand, impeachment is bond to anger and energize Mr. Trump's base. From there on, with or without Trump's encouragement, there is a good chance that things could get ugly. And, that would be easily blamed on Democrats and will be exploited by Republicans to drive independent voters away from voting for Democrats.
You blissfully, self-righteously, wrongheadedly assume that Trump will peacefully, lawfully just get on the helicopter (albeit with steam coming out of his ears). Consider this likelihood instead: after losing in the electoral college, he issues an executive order dictating that because of irregularities in the voting, he is suspending the results--and will remain in office until the irregularities have been resolved.
9
@Christopher. Good point! Could explain why they're doing nothing about Russian interference. Trump sees the polls, knows he could easily lose the next election So, if and when he loses, he can point to Russian interference! And use it to declare the elections illegitimate.
5
“Yo, proletariat: If the Democratic Party is going to be against chocolate, high heels, parties and fun, you’ve lost me.”
Me, proletariat: I don’t care about those party favors. I care about the power of your words, your great talents as a writer, your audience reach. While Speaker Pelosi and you were dining in the California sunshine, cruel treatments of lawful asylum seekers were being committed on our soil by our government.
Impeachment of the President? ASAP! Aside from his many other crimes, Trump and his vile administration may be guilty of crimes against humanity.
Witnesses are coming forth who speak of sexual assault, sleeplessness, filth, hunger, thirst, crowded rooms too hot or too cold, lights on throughout the night. Older children caring for younger ones to keep them from crying. Apparently crying angers the all-powerful guards who might withhold food or water. The list goes on.
Senator Schumer visited a camp recently and was horrified by what he saw. Speaker Pelosi claims to be a mother tiger when it comes to protecting children. And yet, before she met you for lunch, she agreed to pass McConnell’s bill of $4.6 billion with no protections for the imprisoned migrants. Might she have delayed the July Fourth recess? Could she have, instead, insisted on a compromise to the Senate bill in order to mandate oversight protections on the detention centers?
A subject you can sink your literary teeth into. And maybe bring chocolates with you to the border.
6
Bring on impeachment hearings and let this conversation about Trumps crimes completely consume and distract republicans so they can’t enact any more of their reckless agenda.
For ONCE....you can control the conversation Dems, not Pigpen and his Twitter account.
3
All this from one of the biggest Clinton haters operating within the mainstream media today and who did more damage to actually deliver Dump to us the first time. Sorry, Ms. Dowd. Quit blaming progressives for the failures of the Democratic Party. This crisis we are in now is too massive for a political solution. Our elections are totally compromised, and Mitch McConnell has committed himself to making sure they stay that way. Single party rule is his goal. If we fail to use the constitutional remedy for what we face, we effectively turn the Constitution in to toilet paper.
11
@Laura ~
Really appreciate your comment. A good question is, why hasn't Ms. Dowd written a hit piece on McConnell? Is it because in her heart of hearts she still leans Republican?
I found all of her Hillary bashing appalling and so high school mean girls. Why has she never attacked McConnell with gusto, a person who deserves it if anyone does?
8
"If the Democratic Party is going to be against chocolate, high heels, parties and fun, you’ve lost me."
Lost the snark and self-pity of an economic and cultural Washington elite who suddenly begins beating her breast about her working class roots? You know where the door is...
8
Thank you, Ms. Dowd. The circular firing squad is driving me crazy. I have talked to a lot of people who voted for Trump, and trust me, they all see him for what he is: he's disgusting, he lies, he cheats, he could not care less about anyone but himself. You know why they voted for him? Because they do not trust anyone inside DC. Period. And if the Dems put up a candidate that says they want the government to run healthcare for every individual in the country, eliminating private insurance, the election is over before it begins: Trump will win. End of story.
5
Speaking of Puritans, Maureen Dowd must understand that Trump is to American evangelicals what King Henry VIII was to the English Reformation. King Henry certainly had his sexual problems but his dust up with the Catholic Church was so intertwined with the one the Protestants were having over matters of faith that an alliance came about that changed history for the better. Deceptive news readers presented a false dilemma during the 2016 election when they self righteously declared their disdain for Christians who supported Trump. What would Jesus say? Trump was not running against Jesus. Trump was running against a dreadful (Maureen's words) candidate nominated by a party that disdained evangelical Christians. Evangelicals got this and with Trump's sensitivity to Christian values (even though he had his issues) they voted accordingly. This new clown college of secular humanist liberals running for 2020 give biblical Christians an even easier choice to vote Trump enthusiastically.
2
The slur against Rottweilers was unnecessary, but comparing the current White House occupant to any creature is problematic. Perhaps slime mold could be used in the future?
5
Go for impeachment and I'll declare Dems attempting to remove America from America and connect it to Central America, while following a step behind the EU. Shameful for Pelosi to call out the Supreme Court for allowing The American President to defend the country and its citizens from undocumented invaders. Moreover, the the Dems definition, anyone from a country with lower living standards than the US qualifies as a "migrant."
Additionally, the argument about domestic abuse claiming that moving to another country in Central America or even South America isn't enough is akin to a Texan moving to Cannes because the spouse could find them in Europe, and well, Cannes has a better quality of life.
2
I am for impeaching this puss-oozing pimple on the nose of the people. And, we need a more comprehensive strategy. We need elect enough Dem senators for a veto-proof majority while hanging on to the house or even increasing our numbers there?
That the Russians and maybe even the Iranians have interfered in our elections is a horrifying thought. However, we should also stop interfering in their internal affairs.
2
Boy oh boy, is this a terrible time for false equivalencies. Dowd is once again drawing them, to my great exasperation.
There are major issues that affect both the reasoning to impeach and the election next year which are not addressed by Dowd’s sweeping pronouncements.
1) Our elections are currently under attack by the Russian government, while GOP leadership blocks a bipartisan election security bill. So can we even trust our election results in these circumstances?
2) The President may not leave office even if he’s voted out. He has alluded to this more than once & seems to be grooming his followers for just such an event.
3) Legal precedent. If we allow this administration to continue unchecked it’s anything goes in any future executive branch.
4) Lastly, Democrats need to feel enthused and energized to get to the polls. I have to tell you, from my standpoint, letting a criminal stay in the Oval Office is crushing. Either laws apply to everyone or they do not.
We have an opening, a portal through which we can rid our nation of this horror of a President. It’s impeachment & I’m for it.
I don’t know a single person who would accuse me of being one of the school marms to whom Dowd refers.
8
Ms. Dowd, please don't equate the Twitter crowd with rank and file Democrats.
8
Instead of focusing on his obvious faults, I would study what Trump is saying that appeals to people. Instead of just yelling racist, consider that his views on immigration, jobs, the squalor going on in cities and the distress of US citizens is exactly what voters are thinking about.
He claims to be about solving these problems. Prove to the voters that Dems can and will solve them better than he.
Betcha they can't do it. They are too wedded to open borders and too blind to the squalor.
Madame DeFarge here, signing out.
1
Ms. Dowd,
Basically the political divide in America, and the behavior from the edges of that divide you use to demean progressives, fails to define what we're all facing. The political divisions, although journalistically predominate, are only the surface of a more fundamental process unfolding within the nation, and across the world.
Communication advancements, that allow everyone to see
where everyone else is coming from, reveal a collective human developmental process moving from selfish immaturity to personal identification with all of humanity. Our sense of self as an individual is evolving into seeing ourself in more others, and finally transcendent in all others.
We're collectively adolescents in this process, still protectively selfish and uncooperative, which you and MSM superficially define as political differences. As mature individuals we've been through this process already and should see where the present collective state of development is taking us.
If we can just keep from killing one another off, we're bound to become the One family we truly are. What can you say to help us get there?
4
"Now the Democrats are once more focused on what a terrible person Trump is. Message received, many times over."
And yet this is the message of the NYT each and every day.
5
The reason impeachment won’t work is because, while Trump successfully and once again hijacks the news cycle spewing racist sound bites about “the Squad”, “The Klan” (pun intended) made up of Trump, Barr, McConnell, and Nunes, are collectively obstructing justice. If they succeed at blocking witness testimony and withholding relevant information, as they have been, why waste time on an impeachment inquiry? How about we round up the Klan and throw them all in jail for contempt?
1
"Hillary Clinton’s campaign focused on what a terrible person Trump is. It turned out that enough voters knew that and didn’t care. They wanted a racist Rottweiler."
That wasn't the only reason Trump won. Lots of people wanted a Supreme Court that would overturn Roe vs Wade and let people vote on abortion laws. And they thought Trump was stubborn and ruthless enough to manage it. Of course the Democrats prefer to blame racism; it makes them look like the heroes.
2
@Charlesbalpha The majority of people do not want Roe v. Wade overturned. Now we have Trump putting nursing babies in cages, but I guess we're closer to forcing women to carry pregnancies to term, regardless of the emotional, financial, or health complications.
Do you think that makes Republicans look like heroes?
6
Yes, Ms. Dowd! Finally a column with which I agree to your every single well-written word!
1
The New York Times should no longer be considered liberal. They continuously “exposed” the Hillary emails. They are now pointing out extreme positions that are not what the majority of democrats believe. If an impeachment inquiry is launched it will expose the complete sham of a president that is Trump. The majority of Americans do not follow every tweet and small burp and poll that you horse race reporters think is important.
Leave New York City for the next two years and actually follow what the politicians and voters are saying and doing. I know here in Florida we are registering more people than I’ve seen in thirty years. There are more passionate volunteers than I have ever seen in my life.
4
R.E.S.P.E.C.T. -- Trump is a bully: his constituencies and most of the members of Congress (under it all) are also bullies.
IMO the Dems must begin impeachment proceeding, even tho dasly the life-long Republicans vote for Trump even tho their life-long Republican parents would not have.
By not counteracting one is showing some sort of approval not just complacency. I'll beat you when it's my turn to bat even tho you just stole the bases without hitting the ball first!
It's not that Trump is terrible. It's that he has done things that are illegal and indictable.
I thought Mueller was just fine... and thank heavens, not out there to blow his own horn, eat chocolate or discuss shoes.
4
Ms. Dowd, where have you been? The AOC junta are blinded by their own “goodness”. Traditional, older Dems like you are targets for these true believers and their running buddies in the media.
4
Spot on Maureen !! Like usual ... maybe the purists can be forgiven for their mistakes though ... I can remember in the not so distant past when a highly regarded , hilarious NY Times columnist of the Irish ☘️ American persuasion was so critical of Hillary for her lack of purity ... I guess we are all a little guilty of wanting purity ...
2
"Their mantra is like that of Ferdinand I, the Holy Roman Emperor: “Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.” “Let justice be done, though the world perish,” sez you in another of what the nyt op-ed cadre might be called "renderings" (as your colleague roger cohen slyly calls your scenarios).
you offer no evidence of any such preference, but you do contribute to the decline in credibility that will aid and abet trump 2020 efforts.
good idea to lose the chocolates and heels, it may be that the sugar high and all the prancing about were fatal distractions.
this time around, consider some proper carbs and some running shoes so that the party can make the race.
as for defarge take a caution from dickens...though they do not knit, the emergent squad does appear to have an appetite for vengeance.
1
She can right, all write, Dowd!!
2
Still all about you. And you helped so much to elect 45. You're part of the problem, and you still don't get it. Typical.
7
Democrats - Never wrong, forever in doubt.
2
Wrong!
1. No impeachment means Tump will claim exoneration!
courtesy of the Dems..he did nothing wrong and lack of congressional action proves it...argue against that one!
2. Dems..will be known as nothing but political and not willing to exercise authority and protect the constitution.
3. Just because the Republicans got whacked over trying to impeach Clinton over a minor crime does not mean everyone is going to feel sorry for Trump.
If working with the Russians, obstructing justice, and taking money from foreign governments is not enough to act on... then nothing is!
4
As on cue, a host of the self-righteous purity Democrats attach their sermons to Maureen Dowd's column.
5
Would it fill my heart with Christmas to see Trump impeached? Absolutely. Is there a snowball’s chance in Hades that he will be removed from office by impeachment before 2020....or, God and Santa forbid, 2024? I have a gingerbread house on the North Pole to sell you.
WAKE UP: average people want to feed and house their families by working jobs that pay fairly. They want said jobs to provide health insurance. If said job is lost, they want the ACA to pick up the slack so Braden’s broken arm and Ella’s chronic strep don’t bankrupt them.
Will some people vote for Trump because they’re racist? You betcha! But when all Dems can talk about is how awful the Grinch is and NOT what they do better, people will vote for the Grinch because he (incoherently) seems to address their above needs.
Newsflash: when it feels like there might not even be a Christmas because the bills are unpaid and the kids need new shoes, and there’s no money for that, Whoville doesn’t give a fig about the Whos whose worries are so small that all they can talk about is the Grinch’s improbably colored hair.
Is impeachment the ethically and morally right thing to do? You betcha! Is it the smartest way to send the Grinch back to Mount Crumpet? Not on your life. People: do you want him gone in 2020 or do you want another 4 years?
DEMOCRATS: run a campaign about how you’re going to make - and keep - Christmas greater for ALL Whos.
2
Yay! At last, a Dowd column I completely agree with. I've been telling anyone who will listen that all the "revelations" from impeachment hearings will, at the hands of the GOP, quickly devolve into "controversies"; his lack of conviction in the Senate will allow him to argue, somewhat justifiably, that he was exonerated; and it will suck up the entire news cycle for months, just when it's crucial that the public get to know whichever Democrats emerge as front-runners.
1
Thank you for finally getting around to critiquing the Republican Crime Family in the last half of your piece.
3
To Steve of Arizona, No, not afraid of firing up his base. But yes, afraid it would split an already divided Democratic side. He will get his due, if we vote him out he will have met his dark bear -- us, thowing him out and the republicans who have stood by silently and not so silently in order to win the next election. Fear drives them.
Patience is the order of the day -- Republicans will get their comeupance -- purveyors of untruths, constitutional ignorants or criminals and the greedy.
1
Maureen, right on! The house should never have had Meuller come back to Congress to testify. It only fed the Republicans and made the Democrats look terrible and I’m a life long Democrat. Even though Trump is terrible for our country, trying to impeach him will only strengthen the Republicans hand. Move on!
8
Trump is a fraud and incompetent but he retains the loyalty of nearly all Republicans. Only a minority of independents are convinced that impeaching Trump would be worth pursuing. So if he is impeached by the House, which is less likely than most people think, would not remove him from office nor affect his behavior. Barr misrepresented Mueller’s report and even Mueller’s objections have not make most people look at the report, they relate Barr’s and Trump’s assertions. Impeaching Trump is not going to work as all those demanding it think.
3
Their approach is that “We are holier than thou.” — into infinitum.
3
"The progressives are the modern Puritans" All of us? Why would you give progressive a negative connotation?
6
@ CPC - Not all of you, just the folks that are driving the progressive bus, off a cliff.
1
Please let pragmatism prevail!
3
Ms. Dowd has written a very self-absorbed column that is also a straw man.
"Purity" has nothing to do with whether or not an impeachment inquiry should be started against Trump (It has been, by the way - thank God!). Rather the point is for the Democrats to actually try to take the narrative away from Trump and control it.
If the House Democrats don't follow through on an impeachment inquiry, then Trump continues to ignore subpoenas for documents and continues to tell his people not to testify, and we don't know what the courts will say. Once the word "impeachment" appears, however, the courts have no leeway because impeachment is enshrined in the Constitution and is solely the function of the House.
I couldn't care less about the chocolates Ms. Dowd nibbles on or the shoes Nancy Pelosi wears. But doing nothing in the face of the most obviously criminal and corrupt administration in history is not an option. If Ms. Dowd thinks it is, then she should stick to eating chocolates.
11
@ Vesuviano - Control the narrative? That’s pretty cynical. Legislators should be more than voodoo spin doctors, and are elected to represent their home districts, not act like talking bobble heads.
"...chocolate, high heels, parties...fun" and "purity".
You miss the point. It's not about ideological purity; it's about rhetorical purity--much like mixing metaphors.
Just as weather reports ("it was a dark and stormy night") and autobiography ("I felt, wondered, worried..."etc) are often irrelevant except in weather reports, autobiography and fiction, so too are attention to minutiae--chocolates ("Now we are talking"), pumps, couture and coiffure--irrelevant in political reporting.
Unless of course the the real point (hyponoia) is that the apparent political report is an excuse for autobiography--celebrating the author's influence and connections: " Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and Susan Collins" came to my party.
(a) The minutiae would be unseemly regarding a man.
(b) It degrades the intellectual authority/power of the woman, focusing on aesthetic and even sexual power instead. For that focus, publish in NYT Style.
3
Oh spare ME, Ms. Dowd. You, who contributed mightily to Trump’s election with your constant attacks of Secretary Clinton has no right to complain. I completely agree with Pelosi’s strategy for dealing with Trump and wish my fellow lefties would tune it down for the common good. But it is risible that you, who helped put him there, should lecture anyone on the best way to take him down.
Yes, he is despicable, but you should have thought about that three years ago. As for Susan Collins, she is nothing but an enabling gutless Republican who needs to be defeated next year.
12
Since when is twitter or the Huff post the Democratic Party? Wanting to do the right thing is not a "purity racket"it is standing up for morality and decency in our government which at the moment seems to be in short supply. I will support Nancy Pelosi in her position so long as we are not backsliding into a fascist trump regime aided and abetted by Republicans. Maureen please go have fun with your high heels and chocolates, most of us could care less but for someone who has demonstrated that she can dish with the best of them you are remarkably thin skinned.
6
Ms. Dowd, your distain for all things HRC helped us get here -- a small point though it might be -- your sharp, so-called wit about all that was wrong with Mrs. Clinton and, frankly, way too little about all that was wrong with Trump. So now, we have to listen to all that's wrong with the Democrats and little about what's wrong with the Republican/Trumpkins. Please spare us -- Trump should not be President -- full stop, but your wonderful Republicans want him in so their discriminatory agenda and make America the 1950's again a reality.
12
Ignoring a recent career built on her passionate vendetta against all things Clinton, Mo pleads for less purity and more of the same politics that brought us her erstwhile hero, Trump.
A hero she played no small part ushering into the White House.
Pelosi can impeach or not. But she really has to stop her imperious "I know what I'm doing, the rest of you shut up" act. Maybe ooze down from the mountaintop long enough to explain herself in terms we uneducated may hope to understand.
Something besides political self-interest would be nice because, for all your fears of impeachment riling up The Base, Nancy has spent months confirming that Trump is right: this is all about politics.
But my question is a different one. I'll grant you your Hangisis and Amadeis, but "I'm just a little cop's daughter" is a kind of hard to bear. All the same, you prattle on about political elites and threaten us with your vote.
So what, in your mind, is the alternative? You can't stand the odor of righteous political indignation among some Democrat freshman; does this mean you'll be going for Trump? Again? If you don't get your way?
Pelosi engenders much of her own travail with her bizarre eagerness to leap on a Republican dog-pile attacking Omar. With her imperious dismissal of serious (and probably the most exciting) young Democrats she has seen in a generation. Her sage warning that the best we can do is Republican-lites like Biden.
6
Very nice to see Ms. Dowd finally coming all out against Trump - whom she help elect. Finally, she isn't playing both sides. Better late than never.
9
Great piece.
Trump brings out the worst in people. Nothing will change until they start hating themselves for what they have become.
5
Lest me forget the leaders Dowd blindly trust were present when we lost every branch of government. Sure, in many facets some things that led to that result were not foreseeable but if there ever was a time to raise the scrutiny of the rationale of Schumer and Pelosi, it would be on the backs of such results.
Dowd argues to spare the purity, but has utter believe in the logic which has been the status quo since Reagan. She refuses to mention that the progressives she dislikes have voted on party lines on the most key issues, including the speakership. They have also delivered on Pelosi's biggest expectation of her caucus in raising money while they uphold the pretenses of not accepting PAC money.
The fact is Dowd can disagree with the ethos of the progressives. She shouldn't as young voters and on issues like healthcare the country is behind them. But she also needs to uphold the leadership she defends to the same rationale. If you believe in Schumer and enjoy his small talk, but conversely suggests that impeachment is a bad idea as it lends to the potential of democrats defecting and not voting in solidarity, is that not in effect an indictment on Schumer's grasp as minority leader (something that might have been a factor in the border vote). If Trump is in part dangerous for his ties to Russia in elections, is the voting box trustworthy despite being compromised in 16. The list could be long. The progressives spare purity all the time, it seems Dowd won't give an inch.
3
Of course I would not know the author had party with chocolate and wine, if she would not volunteer the information, nor I am particularly care about her free time. But I guess she needed mention to make a point: wine parties, chocolate and pumps should be off-limit. Now when we got her message, does she have anything else to say?
4
The purity racket? Really? Time to face up to it. 2020 is already over for the Democrats, and it has nothing to do with purity. The only thing left to be decided is how big they can make Trump's landslide. You may call it stupidity. But the fact of the matter is that what the Democrats done and said over the past three years have made them an embarrassment to democracy. If this is what democracy is about, then I want no part of it.
4
@Amadeus
Alas, the last 3 years have seen the horror of Trump's policies -- climate change denial, environmental abuse, criminal behavior of senior political appointees, weakening of key government agencies, to name just a few. The Democrats certainly didn't bring this on. Hopefully, you will work to restore our precious democracy by strengthening its voting integrity and rights, and ensuring equal protection for everyone.
7
@Amadeus So I assume then, that you will be sitting out the next election?
1
This is why I read Ms. Dowd's columns. As a lifetime Democrat, my real fear for our party is not the high chair President. We know who he is. He never hides his agenda.
These modern day Puritans are quite the dissemblers. God help us all if we lose the both the White House as well as that other House.
1
Maureen, I love your phrase of "digital guillotine". Because of this problem I never go to Twitter anymore. It isn't fun when every thing you post is subjected to the very uptight twitterati with a series of litmus tests. Bring on the chocolate and high heels, I want to live in a real Democracy.
6
I will vote Democrat no matter what fool they put up, but as an old, white man consigned to the penalty box I would never show up at a Democratic function. And I'm not even close to being an 'elite' which would make it even worse.
4
And this "ignore everything but the political aspect" rant is an impurer-than-thou racket.
1
The title says it all. You do or say the wrong thing and you're out. The Dems are becoming as bad as the Repubs when it comes to public discourse. One thing I'll say for Trump: at least he spews garbage himself. The Dem leaders leave the smearing to their underlings and press outlets.
And I'm a Dem.
Please, folks: read critically. Listen carefully. Have empathy for all, even those who disagree with you. Think for yourselves.
6
"Hillary Clinton’s campaign focused on what a terrible person Trump is. It turned out that enough voters knew that and didn’t care. They wanted a racist Rottweiler."
Oh, here we go with the "deplorables" thing again. Ms. Dowd, like so many others, cannot get it through her head that voters wanted something that Mrs. Clinton was not offering: Change from the status quo. She won the popular vote, but you'd think she'd win in a landslide over the oafish Mr. Trump. She didn't.
As for "purity," well, a majority of Americans want Medicare for All, or a similar single-payer arrangment. A majority of Americans want Wall Street to stop being untouchable. A majority of Americans would like to see some form of gun control. A majority of Americans are never going to get anywhere near the American Dream because they are being crushed by student loan debt. We all know this. Ms. Dowd knows this. Yet somehow, we never get any of these things. Who is going to make these policies happen? A candidate who is not owned by Big Money. There is one. You only get one guess. If that's "purity," I'm all for it.
5
This piece is nominally about impeachment, but I think Ms. Dowd’s real point is that people were mean to her on the internet and that’s the worst thing EVER.
10
I see it your way, Maureen. Thanks for writing this.
3
Given Dowd's relentless bashing of Hillary Clinton before, during, and after the last presidential election, I am not sure she has any credibility to speak about what the Democrats should be doing. In any case, even Speaker Pelosi is leaving impeachment as a possibility so we don't need Maureen saying it's not.
14
The New York Times is beginning to specialize in having lifelong Republicans (Dowd, Stephens), who've lost all control of their party to a madman, write what are effectively tutorials on what Democrats need to do to win. Thanks so much for your concern.
But. No. Thanks.
12
Here we go again. Maureen plays right into Trump and the right-wing media's trope of Democrats as limousine liberals and elitists who look down their pinched noses at the working man.
Stop with the handwringing that this country will be torn apart if Trump is impeached.
The Republicans tried to impeach Bill Clinton about lying about a stupid dalliance in the Oval Office with an adult intern. The congressional Republicans held waste-of-time- and-money "investigations" of Hillary's emails and the Benghazi tragedy and supported conspiracy theories and false rumors about Hillary sex trafficking out of a pizza pallor in D.C. Now they are suddenly concerned about dividing this nation if Trump is impeached???
What Trump has done is far more serious, relative to the constitution and functioning of our elections and government.
The question of impeachment and further investigations of Trump is complicated and should not be easily dismissed--although for sure the Republicans and Maureen can't wait for such demands to end fast enough. The statistic I heard is that public opinion for impeachment of Trump is stronger now than it was at this same time in the unfolding of the Nixon Watergate scandal.
Nadler and Schiff say they are pursuing their committees' investigations of Trump, despite the stonewalling. Let's see how that goes. And I don't care if it takes 50 years to shine a light into Trump's corruption and abuse; no one needs to be held accountable more than Trump.
10
Folks, the votes to impeach simple do not exist neither in the senate nor the house. Sing it all day if you like, but the only thing that will remove then convict the traitor in 1600 Pennsylvania Ave are votes for the next president of the United States, not yet another failed impeachment. If he's defeated in 2020 he's toast and can be tried and convicted. If he wins in 2020 all bets are off. It's just that simple so lets stop playing whakamole and get on with winning the election.
This is coming from one long haired, old time progressive and not a middle of the road moderate wishy washer.
3
I've gone down the proverbial garden path many times in my life. Included in this scenario is/was my hopes of the Mueller Investigation's findings. Oh well, onwards and upwards.
Donny Deutsch is my new hero. He bemoans the 'they go low, we go high' philosophy and so do I. It won't work with todays' Republicans. They're all stuck in the swamp and can't or won't get out. He suggests labeling DJT 'Criminal Trump'. His rationale is that Trump will have to defend himself saying 'I am not a criminal' ala Richard Nixon. Delightful isn't it?
I truly believe that since there is still time before the hot and heavy campaign for 2020 begins, the Dems should throw out as many sobriquets for Trump as possible and see which sticks. I looked up 'liar' in the Thesaurus and here are my thoughts - (for what they're worth).
Fibber - too mild and childish
Perjuror - true but too harsh
My fav - The Great Pretender - It hits all the right notes. Trump loves great being attached to his name and we all know he is a pretender.
6
Right on, Maureen. But will the candidates ever wake up?
1
I really wish I didn’t agree with you , MD
3
Good luck convincing my family...Democrats, all....to vote in support of free health insurance for ‘undocumented’ aka illegal aliens, sanctuary from immigration law enforcement, medicare for all and the elimination of private health insurance, the transfer of $Billions of student loans onto taxpayers...
Need I say more?
We will ALL be voting Republican for the first time in our lives. Good job, Dems!
8
@Michaela
If those things scare you more than anything Trump and the Republicans are doing, I'm fine with you giving Trump your vote.
5
Forget about impeachment! If Democrats want to entertain any thought of winning in 2020, they had better start demanding stringent border security and an end to the brazen exploitation of our country by illegal aliens...now numbering over 20 Million, according to a recent Yale study...with tens of thousands more arriving every month.
Failing this, Democrats will lose not only independent voters, but disillusioned Democrats as well. I know this, because I’m one of them.
Incentivizing and enticing foreign migrants by the hundreds of thousands with the promise of asylum, free health insurance, drivers licenses, sanctuary from immigration law enforcement, and birthright citizenship for their offspring AIN’T going to cut it!
5
Now THAT was "spot on", Maureen Dowd... What's it like to be the reincarnation of Anne Hutchinson?
Don't despair, they just might name a Parkway in D.C. after you! Which would be the ultimate tribute - or indignity; depending, of course, upon the driver's political persuasion.
Rave on, Mo!
2
Justice is when I win. Trump must go.
4
Has Maureen Dowd ever been right about ANYTHING in the early stages of the decision making process? I mean, sure, she writes revisionist columns that appear to be on the right side of history, but only years after the fact. But in real time, you can rest assured that doing the opposite of what Dowd recommends will always be the right thing to do.
6
Well, everyone knows that liberals are no longer about fun. We're a long way from "If it feels good, do it." Now, if it feels good, it's probably because of white privilege, so don't do it.
The joke-writers figured this out some time ago:
Q. How many feminists does it take to change a light bulb?
A. That's not funny!
5
So, ya'll be suggesting we just hand the nomination to Biden...and get on with it?
The Blue Dress has been replaced by High Heels that is all the news for today folks.
The impeachment is dead in the water because half of the country is against it (because Trump did not collude with the Russians, so it would be a process crime, like impeaching Mueller for all the lies he said during his testimony) and the other half who wants Trump impeached wants this outcome for the poetic justice of punishing a man they despise winning in 2016, not for an actual crime. Trump must be voted out of office, not impeached. And the Dems are now stretched between elites and billionaires that make the Republican look like old school democrats, and crazy lefties who hate anyone who is white.
3
Maureen - please top attacking progressives, they are idea makers not nation killers like this Admin and the GOP.
5
“Racist Rottweiler”? Don’t insult a loyal, protective breed of dog.
As to anti-fun attitudes in politics, remember early 20th-century anarchist Emma Goldman’s comment that if she couldn’t dance it was not her revolution.
3
Wait a second. This is all taking place on Twitter? And Dowd says it’s hurting Democrats chances for 2020? Hmm. Didn’t Bobby Three Sticks just tell everyone that Russians are attacking us as we sit here? Do you think getting Dowd to buy in and amplify the division is by accident? Don’t get hooked by bots and troll farms. Twitter isn’t reality. Wise up. Fight back.
5
"My dad wasn't part of the elite, therefore I am not part of the elite" is not an argument that passes the laugh test, the smell test, or any other type of test.
7
It's tragically sad for the country when doing the right thing becomes strategically unwise. Who are we? I barely recognize us these days.
7
"I, the daughter of a D.C. cop, and Carl, the son of an Illinois plumber, were hilariously painted as decadent aristocrats reveling like Marie Antoinette when we should have been knitting like Madame Defarge."
That's rich coming from a woman who spent so much ink doing the same thing to the daughter of a small businessman from Illinois. There's an old adage, "Turnabout is fair play," Maureen, stiffen up and own it.
7
With Nixon: His people were caught red handed bugging the Democratic Party's headquarters during the election. The only way he could have possibly gotten out of it was to have immediately publicly come clean the instant he found out. He didn't and resigned in disgrace before he was impeached and removed form office.
With Clinton hard core partisans started investigating him immediately. He was eventually caught lying on the stand about an affair that was not germane to the case at hand. The public largely didn't care. Partisans in the house voted to impeach. The Senate did not vote to remove and Clinton gained in popularity over the Republicans.
With Trump the Democrats started calling for impeachment the day after he was elected. After more than 3 years of investigation no evidence of quid pro quo with the Russians has turned up, and the question of obstruction gets mired into whether or not firing Comey who served at the pleasure of the president or refusing to testify in person constitutes "obstruction". Then there is simply launching impeachment for conduct unbecoming. So Impeachment still comes off as "A president we didn't vote for is doing and saying things we don't like, and we now control the House". To someone who didn't vote for Trump but doesn't irrationally hate him and thinks he's half right half the time, this comes off as a scary president.
1
Spare me the anti-left indignation. You've already lost to Trump once. You don't get a second chance.
4
Maureen darling. You still don't comprehend that to be a true progressive, you have to go to bed each night hating and wake up the next morning hating. That is the definition of Woke. There is no room for heels, chocolates or parties (Well, except for THE Party).
8
The only incisive part of this column is when Ms Dowd points out that Democrats thinking a Reagan Republican like Mueller would do the right thing was a fantasy. No tax returns, no interview, no follow-up with lying Jared and Jr? That was a thorough investigation? Donny boy obstructed our investigation so we decided to wrap it up? And what was that he kept saying about not having enough time, that the deadline was approaching? There was no time limit on his investigation, no deadline. No time limit on Clinton, Benghazi, Fast and Furious, but the security of our Democratic process is At stake and suddenly there's a time limit? There wasn't one until Bill Barr, another lying Republican hack, showed up. Yes, just of this article is the GOP fix was in from beginning to end, and now it's time to move on and hand out elections over to Vladimir Putin. Got it.
5
Shocking news, the world doesn't exist to please any of us, even you MoDo. Some folks lives roll more easily, I suspect yours rolls along just fine, however much you are being inconvenienced by the changing of the guard.
Maybe it's time you shared a meal or twelve with AOC, ideally, after walking the District she represents for a few hours, going door to door. Whatever is in your bubble - chocolate, parties, and pumps for example - you are in a bubble and it would do you good to step outside of it for a while.
Come visit rural Kentucky. The people are polite, but the division is extreme, it's where the most important Governor's race in the Nation is happening this year. (There are bubbles here as well, filled with bourbon and blueberry buckle.)
I also think it might be a good idea to step away from being Ms. Pelosi's cheerleader for the time being. Any good you might have accomplished is now being undone. Have a new look at things from a different angle, I promise you your mood will improve.
3
Watching the lefties pull Democratic candidates far to the left of what he electorate will find palatable is like Global Warming. Everybody can see the coming catastrophe, but nobody appears to have the good sense to stop it.
4
@rs
The "far left" are the ones who have the good sense to want to stop it. The moderates will do little to nothing to stop it.
3
I agree, Mo. Nancy is pragmatic, not fearful. She knows what the consequences of impeachment will be: failure to oust the mob that is now running this country with their continued demolition of all that is good about our beloved country. The only answer left to us is the 2020 election. I think we'll stand a better chance of trying to keep our finger in the dike until then. I remain prayerful. Oh, one more thing: your column gets off-message when you go on about the "Puritanical" Squad. But that is your wont. They need to look to somebody else other than you for kindly counsel. They mean well. I love them. And Nancy. And you, Mo. Carry on.
I happen to agree with much, maybe most, of what the progressive left supports. That said, unless a Democrat gets elected president, those ideas are not going to have any more effect than a Saturday night dorm room bull session. Belly up to the bar and share a beer with the former auto worker who's now employed part time for minimum wage at the propane store and tell him why reparations, forgiving student loans, and decriminalizing illegal border crossing are going to make his life any better.
8
Telling us who your daddy was is very boogie, even if you think that it establishes your blue-collar cred.
3
If you were 'eviscerated' it wasn't for your chocolate eating or your supposed elitism. It would have been for your constant trashing of Hillary Clinton that brought us Donald Trump. Try as you might to make it THEIR problem, the stink is still on you for your role in our current crisis. And, yes, cavorting with luminaries while Rome is burning might just add to the outrage.
7
Maureen, you’re talking out of both sides of your mouth. Impeachment, no impeachment, good for Democrats, bad for Democrats. What’s BAD is Jerry Nadler, Adam Schiff, the “squad” and all others who can’t get out of their own way because they are obsessed with Trump. That’s exactly what he wants! Instead of doing sometng REAL for the country, something positive that they could run on, it’s all about THEM and their yelling and screaming. They’ve made the party a party that stands for nothing. Stop defending them because of your own hatred and loathing of Trump. The only way to get rid of him is to actually DO something for the American people....OR, at least have a plan.
1
Yes, Maureen, yes, a thousand times YES!
1
Fun? I thought Maureen and Nancy were the “adults in the room” who were telling the bratty squad to stay in their place.
Can’t have it both ways.
Merely knowing the Maureen Dowd opposes impeachment is enough to assure me that we need it.
4
You told it like it is!
Don't the Dems learn anything from the Bill Clinton impeachment and Trial. He became a beseaged hero defending a partisan attack on the peoples choice.
And WJC sex with a subordinate is a worse than Trump's licentiousness with his babes, but never those under his authority. Yet, this was ignored by his followers who could not see his immorality in the light of hatred for the other political party. This is what would happen if Trump were to face a Trial in the Senate, where not even a Majority, much lesss 2/3 would vote for conviction.
It would seal his victory in the election of 2020.
2
Ms. Dowd: I always feel that you value authenticity above all else. And I agree! You can smell a fool a mile away. So I am wondering why you don’t interview and write about Elizabeth Warren? She is cut from the same lower middle class stock as you seem to be (and certainly I am!). If it is one thing Senator Warren is, it’s AUTHENTIC! To quote Shakespeare, she “speaks what she feels, not what (she) ought to say.” And I think she understands that to win and then govern, she will have to tack to the center and Pelosian pragmatism. So please, a piece on “thin Lizzie”?!
3
"I never want to hear about the “O.L.C. opinion” again."
That one sentence says it all - doesn't it? You never want to hear that the president of the United States is a criminal who would have been indicted but for the fact that he is president?
Why is your column not about what Mueller said - that Trump was unpatriotic, untruthful about Russian interference, dangling pardons, trying to shut down the investigation, etc. You would rather focus on (stoke) a stupid cat-fight?
It is impossible to get the plain facts out to people because there are too many journalists spewing the same groupthink on twitter - e.g. is the book better than the movie or vice versa? For the love of God, relay the facts not the meta-narrative of whether Robert Mueller is tired!
An honest question: if all beltway journalists are going to do is parrot each other's twitter feeds, why do we need so many of them? One Pravda-style anchor would have the same effect.
NYT - I dare you to print this.
5
Actually, most of the nastiness I've seen comes from the compromising mainstream Democrats who call anyone with a program the "Bernie Bros" and blame them for Clinton's loss, rather than, say, her nonexistent program and awful campaign strategy. The, "lets just be a minuscule bit worse than Trump so everyone to the left of Hitler votes for us" side of the party has lost with Dukakis, Gore, Kemp and Hillary Clinton. Her husband Bill, won only because Perot took votes from Bush 41. Yet we continue to hear lectures about how we have to hold our noses and vote for someone who, like the above list, has a chance to win.
Just maybe the Democrats, instead of rallying around the least bad, could rally around the progressives. Maybe they could advocate for the impeachment of an outright racist who denounces people of color daily, while channeling Russian money into his pockets. Maybe they could mobilize people to vote for universal healthcare, which, far from radical, is the norm for industrialized countries. Maybe they could actually put forth a program of public investment in infrastructure. Maybe they could come up with a way of relieving an entire generation of student debt. Why do we have to keep rallying around those who figure out which way the wind is blowing before taking any position at all -- the ones who got us into Iraq, for instance because it seemed expedient politically at the time? But no. We have to keep from offending the important Nazi vote.
4
@Paul Glusman Clinton did have programs. They were clearly spelled out on her website. The left was too busy demonizing her to read them.
7
@Cheryl Swanson ~
Touché! Too bad more people don't realize this. Too bad your comment is buried within hundreds of other ones.
3
@Cheryl Swanson
What was she too busy doing that she didn't campaign on them? If you expect everyone to go to your website to figure out what you're doing, you've already lost.
2
I want a Democrat to act like Adlai Stevenson in the UN when he demanded the Russian ambassador to admit to sending missiles to Cuba.
2
If you've lost MoDo, you've lost the election. The woke wing isn't even a majority in the Democratic party. Just because they silence their opponents in Social Justice Sunday Schools (formerly called colleges), that doesn't make them a supermajority. Spare me your preaching and preening 'moral clarity.'
3
I'm sick and tired of seeing the Democrats behaving stupidly. Aside from impeachment being a Trump re-election aid, it's also counter-productive. A successful impeachment throws Trump out of office a little early and gets us Mike Pence, not much of an improvement. Much better to concentrate on winning the presidency and then indicting and jailing citizen Trump.
And you Democratic candidates: I don't want to hear more about reparations, a Trump re-election gambit if ever there was one.
1
Hope you're listening Maureen
1. The genius of America: a girl can grow up the daughter of a DC cop and become DC aristocracy through sheer gumption. Congrats.
2. Progressives weren't the only ones gushing over our saviour "Bobby Hockeysticks."
3. Impeachment is constitutionally and morally the right thing to do, but political calculations dictate otherwise. So much for the "rule of law".
4. Although I'm not a Democrat, I love chocolate and parties and if women want to wear high heels, that's their business. I also love the way you maintained your youthful appearance. I bet a lot of the candidates would love to know your secret.
The Puritans may have had the formula to bring down President Trump. We don't need impeachment, we need a good old fashioned exorcist.
5
Perhaps the greatest risk in not impeaching is that Trump will view it as a sign of weakness.
And when he smells blood he goes in for the kill. Just like the asinine trashing of mueller after his testimony.
5
The real issue is not Trump, that he has earned impeachment, that he remains untouchable by the left, that Hillary fought the wrong battle, or even that he is manifestly unfit for the office.
The issue is the Republicans, what they have become, and what strategy should be used to defeat them nationally.
Trump is not just a useful idiot for Putin but more importantly, one for the Republican party. We should stop wondering why they tolerate him. He is exactly what they needed.
Since they can not win a national election fairly, to remain in power, they have substituted ruthless power for patriotism (Russians attacked the country-Republicans look the other way, even blame Democrats)
Look at the list: voter suppression, snatch the presidency from Gore, misrepresentations of war hero, Kerry, Citizens United, Merrick Garland, refusal to work with Obama, massive gerrymandering, lame-duck reversal of Democratic state governors, supporting Russia's electoral efforts to defeat Hillary Clinton, etc. etc.
Republicans have descended to trashing democracy and fairness in order to retain power.
That is the real challenge for Democrats, not chocolate, high heels, or book parties.
5
Agreed: The Democrats keep binging on moving left and purity and they'll WOKE up with 4 more years of Trump
2
Fake tombstone:
"Here lies the body of Nathan O'Shay
He died maintaining his right of way
His cause was just
His will was strong
He's just as dead as if he was wrong"
5
There's some Lord of the Flies moment every day with these people. They're ever on the hunt for some new offender to gibbet. I wouldn't be too bothered that they view you as part of the problem and are still chewing over that grudge about writing mean things about Mrs. Clinton. Soldier on. Serene indifference. They'll be pitchforking some new Frankenstein's Monster by this evening.
3
As the City on Hill burns & evangelicals eat their young, as Democrats debate how angels can can dance on the head the past, the Squad is on the Hutchinson Parkway heading for True North.
Americans deserve DJT. We fat, dumb, lazy, whining...hoping Jesus still loves us. That’s all we got!
2
I would normally champion this column and say it was exactly right, but Maureen speaks out of both side of her mouth. Frankly, after her support of Trump in the last election, I find her opinions contradictory. Eat your chocolates (or cake) but remember your history. Nothing will happen Maureen, you will get old and grumpy, oh wait maybe you're there already.
4
Spare me...You and others softened the ground for the current madness by spending the entirety of the 8 year Obama administration in constant mean-spirited critique of not only the former president - but Michelle Obama. I stopped reading your columns because I could not for the life of me understand why and how you could find nothing to recommend in the Obama presidency. Your embrace of the ethnic white working class also leaves me cold. Black people have also been "left out," and somehow have found a way to vote as if we have some sense (see Du Bois wages of whiteness.) So before you critique the purity sweepstakes of the Left (which also makes me weary), you should take a look in the mirror and take some responsibility for the current absurdity in the White House.
9
this is not about winning at any cost
If Pelosi has a plan to start the inquiry during the election cycle forcing the crooks in the GOP to play defense the whole time they should be campaigning, then that would be brillant
If the idea is to be fearful that we'll upset some people -Maureen-guess what-there's a whole lotta people out there who are upset NOW.
Why? The principles of our country are more valuable than reelecting a slimeball. Just because the deplorables scream the loudest doesn't mean they have the most votes.-they just scream the loudest
reacting to the gutless spineless crooked GOP reflexively is no answer. Do it straegicaly and let the country know what and WHY and then ask, as Indivisible has already promised for each and every civilized non trumpkin in America to vote for whomever is the Democratic nominee-thus helping build a unified front. Make them angry that Trump didn't deliver (trade war for farmers )
This is not a dichotomous choice.
It's a choice of principle/integrity vs trashing the system. both options spread across a wide range of activities
Your efforts contribute to the latter, not the former. Winning will come-
for who nows what will come out of these investgations?
Money laundering?
sex trafficing?
income tax evasion ?
Inquiring minds want to know Maureen, not stick their head in the sand in fear. Yes we want to win- but not at the cost of selling our souls like the trashing America political party has done.
Shame on you.
4
You are an insider in DC, Ms. Dowd. It is you who have been blinded by your "insiderness."
The rest of us Dems, who are not elitist, want to open an impeachment procedure in order to help air the awful things Trump has done. We HAVE to get past FOX. Trump is Trump because of FOX, and the people around him the White House like Miller and also Mitch McConnell.
The only way you get back to the old Democratic party that your father supported is to make it the party of the people, not Washington insiders. Working class people in this country are convinced by propaganda that the Republicans have their best interests in mind. This is a flat out lie and yet it get dressed up by the Koch's and other billionaires and sold as a "tax break" for little guys. When they have no health insurance because the courts gut the ACA, and when the prices of their daily goods goes up due to tariffs and when the dollar eventually drops due to the ridiculous deficit, they will hurt and blame Obama. Seems pretty dumb to me.
You can eat chocolate and buy designer clothes and write your columns but if you went to work as a short order cook in a diner, your own eyes might open. Try working in the Post Office for a while, or driving a truck, or working at Staples. THEN, write a column about the "extremes" in the Democratic party. You might see things differently.
The Dems have few tools. Impeachment is one. We who support that are neither elite nor extreme. We just live in the real world.
6
Lol. It kills the extremist left that people voted for Trump. That they don’t care what Trump says or does.
Well said Maureen. Now If only the Young bloods would get the message!
1
WOW! Best Dowd piece ever! I agree with her opinion 101%.
Since the Republicans are planning to steal the election, just look at McConnell's refusal to bring election security measures to the floor, impeachment hearings seem to me the only way to put so much pressure on the Republicans that they do protect our elections. I hope and believe that most Americans are tired of this cruel, racist man, who considers anyone who isn't white, vermin. A lot of people voted for him, because they wanted a change, to shake things up. But many of these people now see how lawless and dangerous Trump is, but if what their votes aren't counted because of cheating, electronic manipulation or incompetence on the part of untrained election officers?
3
@Lisa. Did the Russians help GOP steal the 2010 and 2014 elections? Why is Obama silent? Is he co-opted by Russians as he and Michelle grift their way through post presidency?
@Becky.
Obama wasn't co-opted by the Russians. He's out there but trying to make room for the next ten. Did the Russians help the GOP steal the election in 2010 and 2014. Who knows. Its not just the Russians McConnell is allowing to interfere. It is ongoing voter suppression by the Republicans which is destroying our electoral process.
2
It’s really simple, Trump wins in 2020 if Democratic House fails to impeach. Maureen Dowd is so wrong on this!!!
5
“The high chair king of 5th Avenue “??!! Priceless! Maureen, you just made my day!! Bravissima!!
2
Jeffrey Epstein will provide the keys to Trump’s downfall, if he lives long enough to tell the tale. Note the Twitter rant against the Squad to distract from the media frenzy around Epstein’s arrest, and the terror on Trump’s face when recently visited by a rape victim. Oh yeah, he’s in it up to his combover.
Meanwhile the Grand Old Ladies of the party - Pelosi, Dowd and the rest - doth protest to much at the arrival of youth, beauty and brains we see in the Squad. Sorry ladies. They’re just a preview of coming attractions.
5
Beware of the self-righteous, of any stripe. They are fools basking in their own sunshine.
2
And when Trump is re-elected with the help of Russia, the electoral college, and a complicit Senate, what then, Ms. Dowd?
Trump’s lawless behaviors will then be sanctioned for decades. So you say progressives’ fighting for a “higher cause is just a purity racket”? Such cynicism! Is that what you call honest patriots, the people’s representatives, using their legal tools to save our Democracy from a possible fascist takeover?
Taking just one example, I believe the cruel treatment of migrant children in many detention centers is grounds for Impeachment. Crimes against humanity? Government sanctioned abuse, if not torture, of children crowded into cells? Family separations of people legally seeking asylum?
Perhaps you have a crystal ball, as you seem to be consulting one about the future of the Democratic House following its Constitutional obligations.
I have a quote for you: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” - Edmund Burke.
3
Timid. Ineffectual. Weak. Gutless. This a perfect example of why Democrats are so uninspiring.
4
Omg I keep saying this on Twitter. Impeachment is a losing proposition and further we need to win. I don’t give a rip about anything other than that.
1
Maureen, thank you for reminding us that, "stupid is as stupid does." Trump will triumph again because a} many of us have forgotten that which we learned in fourth grade civics, or b} many of us have never taken civics.
1
Reading Maureen and these comments makes me feel like we occupy different planets.
Don't any of you wonder why we conservatives support this allegedly paleolithic knuckle-dragger? You dismiss us as racist idiots at your own peril. Step outside your bubble for once and try to look at it from our perspective. Trump is the only one looking out for working Americans instead of illegal immigrants. The only one trying to protect our borders. The only one standing up to China and looking out for American interests internationally. The only one trying to prevent nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. The only one calling out the unacceptable conditions of the inner-city ghettos. The list goes on and on. Sure the style may not be polished, but the substance is all there, I can assure you.
4
Maureen, if you are the daughter of a DC “cop” you must be sad with all the Left anti cop rhetoric, as I am. With that aside, will only say both sides of the ticket are losing many “normal” working folks regardless of race, religion, or much else. So much bickering and so much hate neither side is a winner in my book.
3
There are so many reasons that I read the NYT, and Maureen Dowd is one of them. A clear, sobering, deep breath in this cloudy era of confusion.
2
Let's stop kidding ourselves there's not going to be any impeachment. Pray for an economic downturn. Money is the only language the lumpen proletariat understands.
3
I agree with Maureen wholeheartedly in this matter
2
Simply put, Maureen, I totally agree!
1
Of course the peewee, inconsequential, limp, oleaginous, Stepford-husband, self-described “Catholic Evangelical” elephant in the room is Mike Pence. Being hard of hearing when Trump announced his running mate, I heard “My Pants”. I heard right! Pence would be wearing Trump’s pants were he to ascend to the Oval Office.
3
Agree with Maureen’s stellar writing of this moment in History. Yet she includes “maybe” at the end.....
All your material consumerism concerns aside - what makes our country great is our Constitution (Jefferson even went to France to help them write theirs) and its brilliant and fought for Checks and Balances system of government of 3 co-equal branches. The rule of law and justice is the core of what keeps the fabric of America from disintegrating. Regardless of any political agendas, it is crucial that #NoOneisAbovetheLaw, including the president! Mr. Mueller has done his job and now it's up to Congress to do theirs. There is a clear and solid case of #ObstructionofJustice - and no crime is required. This is an impeachable offense and if the top law makers do not uphold the Constitution - then our country is doomed. (please publish this corrected version w/ key word 'not')
2
Correct your are Maureen. We don't need a martyr in the White House. In fact the sooner we remove the "Trump" oxygen from room the better.
1
This is the first time I have ever agreed with Dowd on any issue.
They don't need to spend time impeaching the idiot. They should all be spending every minute of everyday shouting from the rooftops what damage Trump has already done. Most Americans have no clue because they are trying to stay afloat and keep their families and households going.
1
Maureen is right, let's not forget that the goal is to get Trump out of office ASAP. Let's not hoist ourselves on our own petard.
2
Instead of fighting over "impeachment" or "no impeachment", why don't the dems organize a "million person march" on Washington by "Americans for Decency"? That might worry Trump a bit because his rallies cannot match the size of the movement. Then repeat the same thing in all toss-up states over the months before the election. The TV news will be filled with arguments over the size of attending crowds and like Trump, Dems too won't have to talk about policies.
5
He'll be re-elected. He's the President we deserve. We'll just have to go through the fire and hope we come out the other side.
1
If there is hard evidence that trump is worthy of impeachment, why wouldn't this be a point against republicans in any re-election debate? How would any republican answer the question of why he condones obstruction of justice and the harm to our nation by foreign intrusion in our elections?c Why they approve of a president who's foreign policy is aligned with his business interests, and why trump and his hirelings have ignored the Hatch Act, the emoluments clause, and oh so many more.
2
If I have to read another article about the supposed internecine battle within the Democratic Party I'm going to scream. It's the kind of stuff that people who live in the DC/24 hr news bubble obsess over and the majority of American's either don't care or aren't even paying attention. Down and others think the sliver of people on Twitter and the talking heads on cable are synecdoche for an entire party or country. Elections, impeachment, whatever is all going to come down to whose sound bytes and persona is more popular, nothing else. The mob is fickle, mostly uninformed, and lazy. We need to stop acting like that's not the case.
8
Mob. How does one run a country as big and complex and consequential with a mob? More how can one achieve a big, complex, and consequential where nearly half are a mob?
1
Let’s assume Trump gets impeached and is successfully ousted from office.
Pence is sworn in and keeps fairly quiet and brings the election home on a strong economy (however superficial it might be). After Trump, voters in swing-states might be finding Pence quite tolerable.
And then you have a religious zealot who dreams of being God’s instrument in bringing about Armageddon - in the White House, with red button and everything.
Scary.
1
Oh spare me your glee in writing this article, you Maureen write to stir up mischief face it, first it was Hillary now it’s the squad, Pelosi, and all women who don’t share your bon vivant. It took both Republicans and Democrats to bring us to this place in time as they all ate chocolate or danced the night away in heals. So quit bashing help a sister out and write informative articles.
11
Impeaching Trump at the present time is not the right thing to do. It will only elevate him in the eyes of his ignorant followers. Forget impeachment and focus on his racism, lies, egomania, incompetence coupled with his braggadocio , and his evil and hostile nature against minorities. His evil tributes are enough to destroy him in the eyes of the majority voters;blacks, whites, Hispanics , Jews and Muslims who constitute the bulk of the US population.
3
Instead docs on what trump is doing to the economy ... exploding the deficit, destroying the environment, eliminating healthcare, slashing consumer protections, tearing down global alliances and ruining Americas moral authority by placing kids in cages, tearing families apart and plundering the treasury for his personal gain at the expense of the rest of us. Focus on those issues and forget the “he is a bad person” mantra. Focus that he is a bad president.
I would love to see Trump do the perp walk out of the white house as much as anyone. However, in my opinion, Maureen Dowd and Nancy Pelosi are likely correct in suggesting that impeaching this president will not only fail in the end but serve to energize Trump's base in 2020. Trump is an oozy slug who was mentored by the late Roy Cohn, the scummiest puppeteer in politics. With his bevy of equally slimy lawyers, including William Barr, roadblocks abound. What the naive progressives in Congress are missing is Trump's ability to stall legal and legitimate processes with slight of hand antics. The Dems will be left without a satisfactory outcome and 4 more years of hell on the Hill. Of course, it's not fair. Trump and his crooked cronies don't do fair. Unless there is a 'deep-throat' to unequivocally bury Trump as happened to Nixon, Dems should focus on ensuring passage of legislation that will support needs of the American people. This infighting is old, non-productive and damaging.
5
But wouldn't the impeachment energize Dem base as well?
1
Let’s follow through this thought of impeachment. Plan goes through the House and it is passed, then it gets to the Senate and it does not pass. And this happens before the election, the Trumpies will say, “See it is a witch hunt and he was/is innocent of everything those awful liberals said.” Next plan if Trump is re-elected, we have four more years if not worse because now they are emboldened. Pelosi’s idea whatever she wears in her feet or eats for dessert which is such a sexist smear campaign is to wait with the Damocles sword over the election and hope a sensible candidate will emerge from the Games of Campaigns and hope the winner has not used dragons to scorch the earth or used the Puritan stocks in the village green for throwing rotten tomatoes or get the cold shoulder from Pelosi whichever is the worst. I just want a Democrat who will win without screwing up the ground strategy in Ohio, the Carolina’s, Wisconsin etc.
1
We have a liar racist dishonest trump as American President.
We want to see his tax returns, now.
Come on folks this is not the America we had , the whole corrupt family have descended upon us.
Let’s have the Country we had before that, please vote this con man out !
5
Well Maureen, I am the son of a liquor salesman but in my humble opinion, it is hard to forgive you for your denigration of HRC during the 2016 campaign. So you can peddle your liberal credentials elsewhere. I am not buying them.
17
Good thinking and good writing, MD. Unless and until both Progressives and conservatives own Trump, he could well be elected; their ownership is of course for different reasons. Where were the conservative intellectuals when the 'he was not born here' propaganda was spewed out at Obama? Was your strategy to look away because you would get an electoral victory; let principle be damned? Well Trump is the result and the conservatives have to own this. The Progressives mistake was just as bad. The purity police laid out the idea that Clinton was no different than Trump because of her Wall Street connections. REALLY? No different than Trump? Why Progressives can not see this is a mystery we have no time to solve. Progressives, if they really were that pure, would just start a new party, but they make a pragmatic decision to stay in the Democrat party, despite it not being pure enough. So their hypocrisy is obvious to any that care to look. What a mess. Elect a moderate with character whether they be a dem or repub, (why should we even need to be say this, except for the abdication of conservatives regarding their principles?). And why can't Progressives realize that even Obama was rejected by the Republicans; what makes you think that they will jump on the bandwagon of a Warren or a Sanders? We all need to crawl out of our hole of making our freedom about just me, and start to help and save our Democracy.
1
One of your best columns Maureen . Yes, if the Dems keep focusing on Trump and don’t get their message out on what they want to do to help the average wage earner and or fix our decrepit infrastructure, we are in for four more years of Trump. We all know that Trump has done impeachable offenses. Let’s vote him out.
1
At this point, just fifteen months until the 2020 election, the House democrats would have to full-court press an impeachment whose conviction would just die in the republican Senate.
Five hundred thirty-five members of Congress, not voters, sealed Richard Nixon’s fate, but the last image of the exiting President was a two-handed victory stance in the door of the presidential helicopter.
A better exit for Trump would be an overwhelming defeat by every eligible voter in November, 2020.
Now that might turn out the largest inaugural crowd ever witnessed. Trump will finally be able to truly say he had the biggest crowd ever! Albeit, watching his exit as he flies away from the Capital.
And flies into the jurisdiction of the Southern District Court of New York, face-to-face with the Department of Justice Southern District of New York Office prosecutors.
4
I believe that Maureen Dowd speaks for the 40 new democratic representatives in the Congress who defeated incumbent Republicans by taking moderate positions, which gained support from Independents, former Republicans, and college educated women in suburban swing districts. These are the voters Democrats need to win the White House next year. Progressive Democrats should not be aiming their criticism of these people, for they are the ones who gave us control of the house.
13
@We the Pimples of the United Face
To which I would say, if that's who is controlling the House, what's the point? What do they stand for? Very fundamental issues of climate, healthcare, education, the future of work, and the foundations of a democratic republic need to be addressed: who among the moderates is proposing anything comprehensive? Progressives are branded as radical, but in reality the only true thing that is radical about them is that they are proposing to address issues head on with different approaches. Some of their proposals may be viable and some may not, but we're not even allowed to have that discussion. And at least part of the reason that we're not allowed to have that discussion is the horror of the moderates at having to grapple with the fact that the world has changed.
3
@IgnatzAndMehitabel
If you cannot tell what moderate Democrats stand for as compared to what Republicans stand for, then I certainly cannot help you.
1
@We the Pimples of the United Face,
That's not what I asked. I asked what do they stand for, not how do they differ from Republicans. At this point, the GOP has completed their journey into the abyss. That still doesn't mean that moderate Democratic members of the House have shown any understanding of the moment, nor the future. Things are not going back to the way they were, for better or for worse. DJT may be an anomaly, but we don't know that, and in any event, the fissures he has caused are here and need to be addressed directly. As far as I can tell the only people being realistic about the challenges facing the country are the progressives. You may not like their proposals, but they are setting out a clear agenda. I don't see any of that from the moderates.
It is ,unfortunately, true that logic, justice, and verity have little place in politics. For the most part, 95% of actual 2020 votes are already determined. It is the other 5% that matter.
Since these will be made up by"persuadable" individuals, they are by definition naifs and I doubt if any would even understand impeachment. Tens of millions of dollars will be spent on these few pilgrims, few of whom will ever understand what's going on.
Impeachment may be morally imperative, but it will only gratify its proponents and will have zero political impact.
6
I agree with your definition of the New Puritanism. It's akin to those whose intolerance drove away their allies, and into failure. Impeachment detracts from the most important need: winning the Electoral College, winning the Senate from the Republicans and keeping the House.
I've commented to friends that if the Prez loses, the three months before the signing in will be the most dangerous time in the last four years.
9
What remains a puzzle is this: How is impeachment without a conviction preserving Constitutional integrity while Democrats enthusiastically provide distraction after distraction DJT most desperately needs to cover for DJT, his administration, and the McConnell Senate doing nothing except pass nominee after nominee onto the Federal bench?
9
While many Americans and Dems in Congress continue to go back and forth on impeachment, I believe that we all agree that Trump needs to be removed, and impeachment will not accomplish that goal unless there is a sea-change in the Rep controlled Senate. Consequently, impeachment remains an exercise in Constitutional options to an unfit President. In support of impeachment is that this would send a clear message that Trump's actions are clearly not acceptable to the majority of Dems in the House even though the popular support is only around 50%. Against impeachment is a fear that it will fire up Trump's base and result in Dems losing not only the Presidency but also its majority in the House; this is based on the post-Clinton impeachment election. If the Dems make a strong argument for why they voted for impeachment and what their candidate for Pres stands for, I believe that this fear is just that, a fear and not a foregone conclusion. However, the Progressives need to step back and understand that they do not speak for the country AT THIS TIME. However, the Dems need to present a new voice to the country to deliver this message, and ALL FACTIONS of the Dem party need to enthusiastically get behind the candidate and message. I agree with Ms Dowd, this is certainly not the time (if it ever is) to insist on political/ideological purity as this will damage the party's message and potentially imperil electoral success.
7
I was firmly on the other side of the argument about impeaching Trump, but I'm beginning to waver after this and the previous column by Ms. Dowd. I'm still not sure what the best strategy is, but
the Dems are in danger of going too far to the left, on healthcare especially, even though I am in favor of medicare for all...All are not in fvor of that. And demanding too much idealogical purity, as expressed in this column will turn voters off.. They have to get on the same page and have a REAL plan to defeat Trump. That's a no brainer.
8
"Unbelievably, Pelosi — long a G.O.P. target for her unalloyed liberalism — is derided by the far left for her pragmatism."
No, Pelosi is derided for her corporatism. She is derided for being a 1-percenter who puts the interests of her corporate donors and her own nest-feathering ahead of the concerns of working-class Americans.
She SHOULD be more roundly derided for presiding over a Democratic Party that has shed seats at local, state and national levels for most of the last decade but her fellow aristocrats in the press find it more comfortable to applaud their own good works on identity issues.
8
Maureen Dowd is right on target. Impeachment inquiries &/or hearings will energize Trump’s base while turning off some Independents and a few Democrats. Winning means discussing Health Care, the effects of the tax cut (both to the benefit of the wealthy and to the increasing budget deficit), race relations, etc. Stick to the issues that brought victory to the 2018 House elections!
11
Timing is everything here. As Dowd implies, "all good things come to those who wait." The president will get his due. The far lefts just need to be patient and focus on a game plan that will have greater rewards in the long run. Sometimes it is better to lose the battle, to win the war.
7
Your assessment of the purity of the Left is spot on. I cannot entertain thoughts of a more moderate-centrist candidate, let alone offer criticism or skepticism about left-leaning candidates for the Democratic nomination (Bernie, Elizabeth) without unleashing volleys of invective and vitriol from my Left and far Left friends -- which, sadly but consistently, resemble that of Trump supporters in tone, content, and implacability. I am unclean in their eyes and minds, and will remain forever so.
19
@Paul Barnese
I feel your pain. Except I have friends and family that are more conservative than I am, although I generally vote for conservative candidates. Much of the abuse I am receiving is due to the far-left Regressives of the Democratic party.
They sound a lot like mirror images of die-hard Trump supporters. I am prepared to vote against Trump and so are many other right of center conservatives. However, Regressive far-left candidates espousing policies costing trillions of dollars and threatening ideological purity to far-left beliefs or face death by Twitter are scaring us away.
We will face down our own family and friends and vote against Trump if the Democrats meet us somewhere near the middle. Perhaps all of the center-left and center-right voters can combine to defeat the Puritans on the left and right.
@Paul Barnes, I'd wager good money that you're more likely than your passionate, doctrinaire friends to show up and vote for the eventual Dem candidate.
Dowd is absolutely correct. You may not like the rationale, but the truth is the majority of the public does not support impeachment. AOC and her supporters are an important part of the Democratic coalition but their influence does not extend beyond the base. Many of the Democratic congressional candidates who won in 2018 were from swing districts which were dissatisfied with Trump and the Congressional Republicans. They did not vote for impeachment but for a functioning government. The only benefit of impeachment is that the left will have 4 more years to fume over Trump's presidency.
11
Great column. Politics is the art and science of what is realistic. Pelosi has it right. No point in being holier than thou and puritanical. Too much is at stake. Thanks Ms. Dowd...
10
You are correct, for as much as I would love to see him run out of town, the ballot box is the better way.
9
Not impeaching Trump cannot convert any of his supporters. It's a very bad calculation by Democrats, as usual, to be afraid of the so-called "Independents" at the expense of their own supporters. There are no Independents in US politics today, everyone has pretty much staked out a position.
What Democrats need is boldness, their own version of trump without the toxicity. That's the reason I support The Squad. More power to them.
5
Prosecutors all over the country almost always consider whether they can get a conviction before going for an indictment. That is all impeachment is, the Presidential equivalent of an indictment, and the prosecutors, the House, are acting just like responsible prosecutors everywhere.
7
I agree with much of your sentiments in this. I am for impeachment, as I don't see the same political fallout as you do. If there is evidence he broke the law, then he broke the law and he should be admonished for it. On another note
"I never want to hear about the “O.L.C. opinion” again."
The OLC opinion is a disgrace to our democracy and gives the president way too much power.
2
Sorry "progressives"...Biden is the only candidate who can beat Trump, and even bring a lot of Trump voters over. Too many American men over 30 will never vote for a woman at the top of the ticket because of "manhood" hang-ups, although I think Warren would lose less badly than Harris. Harris would be good for the VP spot though.
7
No he isn’t. In fact, he is a liability in this election. He has foot-in-mouth syndrome, and is extremely gaffe-prone.
One of these days, he is going to say something really stupid and Trump is going to run with it. In fact, likely more than once.
We need a candidate with charisma, or with personality at minimum. I don’t like that these things matter, but this is the real world and they do.
3
Bravo, Ms. Dowd and from a reader who is not always thrilled by your essays. Predictably you have wounded the fragile psyches of our party's left wing (without a trigger warning I guess) and they (and some pretend progressives from Trump's camp) are out in force to denounce you.
It is all about virtue signals and purity, when it should be about organizing, voter registering, planning, fund raising, and protecting our gains form 2018. The absurd argument that impeachment by the House is an irresistible stimulant to "the base" requires one to ask, what "base"?
Does anyone think that a vast majority of black and brown people, (and educated whites) are not already firmly in the anti-Trump camp eager to vote Democrat? Are they not the base you purists reference? Their state's electoral votes are almost surely in our column already. It is states with more moderate electorates which will decide 2020, and with demographics far less "base" if you will. To paraphrase John Adams, "Facts are difficult things".
9
@Unworthy Servant well said. living in nw ohio outside of the bicoastal bubbles i know working men and women and you are correct. they will not vote for a woman or a minority regardless of how badly it affects their own interests. we can self-righteously claim the moral high ground but we will lose the election and possibly the house. i am skeptical that those that need to hear Maureen's message will pay attention.
5
Can the democrats get out of their own way and get people to vote? They seem too eager to react to the troll’s tweets instead of formulating a strategy to win elections. He wants them to waste time on impeachment babble so he can continue to poison the water for any of their candidates. Focus, unite and vote.
11
Bravo Ms Dowd. I think we're all a little sick of it. I grew up in the '60's. I recognize the type. We will probably lose the 2020 election. Trump may not be gaining any new voters but the Democrats will surely fumble their chance of winning "bigly" by losing their own. And a close election is as good as a loss.
I do disagree with Dowd's conclusion on impeachment.
Despite the political calculus of Pelosi, election or no election, sooner or later we are going to have to impeach him; not out of any sense of moral purity but because he presents a clear and present danger. It's not as if he's just a rude Washington party guest we're all trying to figure how to politely ask to leave - he's an existential threat to the security of the United States.
So impeach him now - immediately - before he commits such irretrievable damage to the country that we cannot recover. If he hasn't already.
2
Impeachment, then removal, would not rid us of Trump. Unlike baseball where the ejected manager must leave the game, and even the dugout, there is no banishment for an impeached president. He could be made Chief of Staff by Pence, and even run for President twice more since his first term would have been incomplete. Listen to Rep. Pelosi, do not impeach.
To impeach would only be great fun bringing Trumps sins out in the open. Set this entertainment aside, lets move forward, because no minds will be changed by impeachment, there is nothing hidden to be revealed, we all know what he did. Lets just get rid of him and his ilk in 2020.
6
Every word written here is true and accurate. If the leaders of the Democratic Party - all of them - don't get the message loud and clear then we are doomed to another 4 years of the highchair king of fifth avenue (note lower case letters). Maureen, you have absolutely nailed it with this column.
4
Winning California by 90% will not win the general election. Nate Cohn's article on the Electoral College should be required reading for all Democrats.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/upshot/trump-electoral-college-edge-.html#commentsContainer
Increased turnout of the hypothetical progressive previous nonvoters is unlikely to change the outcome in tipping point Rust Belt states or Florida. The cannibalism evident in the debates and fomented by CNN and the chocolate eaters will ensure a candidate that will win big in California and Massachusetts and lose the election. Focus on jobs, education and healthcare - not splinter issues, and a unified pragmatic Democratic party is the only way forward. Unfortunately, I fear that hoping for a pragmatic, unified Democratic base is wishful thinking.
8
Collusion is and always was just the tip of the iceberg. Democrats should quietly follow the money and when everyone knows what Donald Trump knows ... why Putin wanted him to be president so badly ... then it will be time to have a very different conversation on impeachment. Donald Trump is scared to death of this. Until such time a simple "nothing is off the table" for public consumption from Democrats ... including Speaker Pelosi ... will suffice.
2
Dems are really good at falling into the trap of labeling groups, ie: women, blacks, immigrants, etc and playing to those groups with buzz words.
Pandering is what that is called. These groups of people need help but they are not stupid and will not fall for sympathetic but worn out verbalizing.
Try getting out programs that benefit the nation. Try a modern “New Deal”. Promote ideas that repurpose areas hit by modernization. Programs to jumpstart new industry in these areas and retrain people for those industries. Think BIG. Respect the intelligence of the voters regardless of what categories you stuff them into! What helps one group will help us all. Stop the pandering. Pandering is lazy and unimaginative and voters know that!
5
My gripe is with the pundits on MSNBC and CNN all of whom fan the flames for impeachment! So self righteous.
And so disingenuous, really; these talking heads are there to sell soap. The Mueller probe was great for ratings; kept all of us -- me included -- glued to my TV. Now they're doing the old pump and dump with impeachment. I recall they did the same thing with the run up to the Gulf War, and by magnifying everything Trump did or said in 2016. It's a show. 'Aren't you letting Trump GET AWAY WITH IT?!?!' they demand lawmakers who have not yet grabbed a torch or a pitchfork, who are not yet in costume for the pageant they so want to sell us.
The only way Trump 'gets away with it' is if he wins reelection, which he will if we impeach with absolutely zero chance of removing him. Not sexy. But we don't have the votes. I'm done waiting for the Wizard of Mueller, done waiting for Mitch McConnell or Lindsey Graham to grow souls, done with waiting for a miracle. Now it's up to us to do the hard word required to remove this man. We have to get the votes.
5
There's a meme that circulates every now and then from those seeking to cope with negative events and relationships in their lives -- Let go and let God [take care of it].
I would like to propose a variation that might serve the center and left, both immediately and for the 2020 elections: Let go and let's go [to work, and to the polls, in all the numbers and wisdom we can amass]! Keep your eyes on the ball, stop allowing yourselves to be distracted by all the red herrings, turn your outrage into meaningful action, and let's get down to the hard work of crafting a platform that will unite, inspire, and give the doubtful a reason to vote Blue.
2
@Brenda J Gammam
“Let go and let god” is not a meme. It’s a trite saying popularized by the cult of Alcoholics Anonymous...
1
Why insult voters of conscience with wisecrack labels like “purity brigade, “ which demeans people who wish to address the indecency and corruption of the Trump Administration and the dangers it poses to the country? After yesterday’s tweets bubbling up from the sewer of the president’s “infested” mind, one would think a cleansing catharsis would be welcome. While an impeachment may be politically risky, the inquiry would remind voters why this unhinged man should be voted out, appealing to independents, liberals, moderates, conservatives, and anyone with a functioning mind, heart, and soul. Who knows? Maybe some Republicans would join in and reject the poison destroying their party. And eat all the chocolate while wearing uncomfortable shoes you like.
6
Let's not forget in all this that Mueller was one of those who swore that Iraq had tons of WMDs. Why he would be trusted with anything of substance after that is beyond me.
4
I'm with you, Ms. Dowd! Progressives are sounding ridiculous in their attacks on Biden and insistence that a doomed impeachment trial go forward. These are dire times and we need to be focused on one thing--removing Trump and his den of corruption and incompetence. Some battles need to wait.
1
The supposedly good people who voted for Trump remind me of a scene in the Clint Eastwood movie "the Mule," Where the Mexican handlers are following Clint and they stop for "The best pulled pork sandwich in the mid-west." Everyone is staring at them because they are not white and the police come to harass them, saying,"What are you doing here?"
There just good ole` people who can`t stand brown people.
This is the essence of the right.
1
@pizza man. If you want to be that simplistic, enjoy Trump’s second term. 7 million Obama voters voted for Trump. Are they racist? Lots of Hispanic voters are conservative. The assimilated ones resent the undocumenteds too.
We Democrats need to realize that Obama could have been beaten in 2008 and 12 if not for the Tea Party on the right that alienated moderate Republicans. I live in Ohio and I am here to report that the tenor of the Democratic race so far is alienating those in the middle who the Dems need if we are to end Trumps despotic rule. I'm a progressive Democrat but I've come to believe that Joe may be our best bet to accomoplish that goal.
5
What is the point of discussing policy and presenting bills when you have a man in the White House with veto power and executive privilege and a Republican Senate majority leader who will do the same?
The Democrats have to purge the White House and the Senate of these two.
6
An impeachment trial in advance of the 2020 election would be the best way of airing Trump's criminality in a logical and complete way. The prosecutors would lay out their considerable case, fact upon fact, with each new day in court.
As it stands, Trump literally defines what a news day looks like by issuing some tweet, or comment, or other outrage daily, thus preventing thoughtful discourse on any one thing. Trump's tactics are like swamping the boat with waves of propaganda.
An acquittal exposes the Republicans for what they are: a powerful body of Senators unwilling to do the right thing for the sake of retaining power, even in the face of overwhelming evidence.
For Democrats to lose the election, including possibly the House and presidency, without such an impeachment trial would be the ultimate crime. There comes a time when principle must be supreme to some kind of governmental body. We already know it won't be the Republican Party.
Democrats will vote in 2020. The much needed independents are another matter, though. That is where the rubber will meet the road.
4
Yes, Democrats will vote in 2020. And the all-important independents are sick and tired of all the Mueller and impeachment fuss and want to move on.
Impeachment w/o conviction will help reelect the president. The argument that he should be impeached because he deserves impeachment is deeply flawed. Of course, he deserves to be impeached. But impeachment by itself is a slap on the wrist. Continue to amass evidence. Get those tax returns. More evidence will make it more difficult for republican senators to continue to support him. This will make their reelection more difficult. The real fight will be for Democrats to retake the Senate.
8
If Democrats aren't sufficiently fired up by the prospect of getting rid of Trump, they should be. Pursuing policies that will fire up Republicans and turn off independents will just re-elect Trump. It's also obvious that "divide and conquer" is Trump's plan for re-election; don't fall for it.
3
I haven't read the reader's reactions to Ms. Dowd's piece with which I'm in one hundred percent agreement. All I know, as a daily reader of both publications, had her piece appeared in the WaPo she would have been less that warmly received by the majority of WaPo readers. Even though she has been life-long Dem. Baffling.
5
In recent years elections usually hinge on the so-called 'swing voters' in the 'battleground states'. These people are ambiguous in terms of partisanship. Many are apolitical and/or poorly informed or worse apathetic to the extent of not even bothering to vote at all even in presidential elections. The questions as always is how to reach this demographic and to get them apprised of the facts, the depravity of Trump and the GOP and the gravity of the situation (the climate crisis, runaway inequality and Trump's lawlessness) and somehow counter the hurricane of disinformation and lies from the Right. So the question remains, and no one really has an answer, how will the impeachment process without actual removal of Trump from office play to this crucial voting block? It very well may be that it doesn't matter one way or the other. Remember these potential voters likely don't read the NY Times and were probably only peripherally tuned into the Mueller hearings, etc.
2
@v carmichael have always been dumbfounded by the psychology of the so-called independent voter. Never will understand how one person can find merit in both Trump and Obama? Oh I don't know, isn't that a little like saying you hate water and love swimming?
2
@Spartan independents are normal people. With lives. Not ideologues. Rational people. Deciders. Don’t insult or ignore them.
1
It's a rare day when I find myself in total agreement with Maureen Dowd. That day is here, clearly the apocalypse is upon us.
Unfortunately these past few weeks have made it obvious that there is a reluctance to listen within the Democratic party. Reasonable criticism is met with breathless invective, honest disagreement is drowned out by righteous ranting.
I, for one am done arguing. Y'all keep screaming until next November. I'll vote my preference in the primary and you can bet your last dollar I will cast my vote for whoever isn't Donny John Trump in the general. For get the purity tests, Lucifer himself would be an upgrade at this point
14
What Democrats need to do is criminalize the self defense of those who are not guilty.
When someone accused by the state declares himself not guilty, he insults the state. He therefore becomes guilty, and should receive, as such, an even greater punishment than if he was found guilty in the first place. Since that would have shown the state to be right.
This principle is extraordinarily fruitful. It ensured conviction rates close to 100% in Stalinist Russia, Maoist China, Pol Pot's Cambodia and North Korea. Also, when a school bully beats up your kid, if your kid asks the the bully why, that upsets the bully and he becomes even more violent.
The new legal concept of exoneration is a small first step. Nobody has ever been exonerated by a prosecutor, which makes everyone guilty since birth, so far. A similar concept, the original sin, has been around for millennia, with very mixed results.
Once the Democrats enshrine all this into law, the impeachment of Donald Trump becomes automatic. Since, while he was accused of conspiracy with Russia, a capital punishment crime of which he was found to be innocent, and while the Mueller probe was not impeded or obstructed or curtailed, according to Mueller, Trump dared to call himself innocent and call the probe a witch-hunt.
2
Trump deserves impeachment, but McConnell and the Senate will make sure that Trump uses an impeachment trial to claim the victim role and win a second term. The better course is to let the threat of impeachment hang over Trump like a sword of Damocles. Let him stew in his racism and let the Democrats provide policies on kitchen table issues that do not involve abolishing private health insurance and making college free for everyone. The average voter wants neither of those things. We just want someone in the Oval Office who is not an embarrassment to the nation and respects the Constitution.
6
Excellent column.
If progressives can do so much to alienate fellow liberals, how do they expect to gain the votes of anybody on the "other side" who is gettable, and who is needed to build a truly durable Democratic voting coalition?
I am encouraged by liberals' emerging self awareness that their progressive wing is too sanctimonious, unrealistic, obnoxious and too much the face of the Democratic Party to be helpful in ways that matter. They have become a liability to liberals achieving legislative power.
8
Spot on Maureen, The inability of the Progressive wing of the party to be realistic and strategic amazes me. First you need to gain power if you want to advance any part of your agenda. There will be plenty of time to hammer out differences later. Is that really so hard to understand? The writing is on the wall and plain to see for anyone even trying to look, 4 more years of the same! All us moderates can do is shake our heads at a victory being given away.
5
True, the Senate Republicans will make the trial of an impeached President a sham event and Trump would be acquited. But the Republican Senators who voted to acquit Trump would be easier to target, and taking control of the Senate must be a major part of the Democrats 2020 election goal. Voters are watching.
Yes, the 40 percent of the U.S. voters are part of the Trump Cult will support him regardless of whatever legal or moral offense he commits. But that other 60 percent needs to be alerted, mobilized and energized to vote against Trump and a Republican Party whose core values increasingly consists of lies, racism, misogyny and self-dealing.
Some wars are won by losing one battle and then using that loss to win the big one. Impeaching Trump is one of those circumstances and should commence in the Fall.
@Pat Choate you may well be right. but we're not talking about 60%, more like less than 10%. and remember, trump lost the popular vote and he may well lose it again and still be re-elected. forget about the votes in the northeast and coastal west. if we dems are going to win back the white house and the senate we have to win in the middle post-industrial states. if not, on to 4 more years and maybe 2 more supremes to cement the rightward lurch of our country. god help us.
Maureen, As you clearly described the situation.
This may the moment of aha.
We are at the end of the 2 party system.
FACTS.
1. There is no merate right wing party exist.
2. option one party totally converted to Trump party.
3. Democrats is following the same trend.
Dems will secede when a strong candidate can break apart them.
American democracy cannot go on two party. it is hard to shepherd this much cat anymore.
2
@su
What??
@Steve - Pelosi isn't "fretting." She's simply wise enough to see the situation clearly and savvy and strong enough to keep the Dems from making a mistake that not just could, but almostly certainly would, keep us out of the White House in 2020.
The "proletariat" hasn't had any signficant energy or presence in this country since the Occupy movement fell apart (that would be Occupy Wall Street, not ICE). The left has alienated itself from the working class and most of the Democratic base, and indeed from most progressives over 35, with its smarmy and divisive prioritizing of identity politics over healthcare and jobs and immigration over Social Security and housing.
Pelosi understands exactly what is going on, and she's got the (increasingly rare in our society) ability to think
a few moves ahead. And, in fact, she is the one standing up to Trump and the Republicans, again and again, and showing them up for the fools and incompetents they are. We would do well to trust her judgment now.
6
Maureen: You are 100% correct! One of the best articles in the NYTimes with regard to what the Democratic strategy ought to be. I hope they listen. I know I will.
3
All of my fellow Democrats who lean left seem to thing that the only way to win the upcoming Presidential election is to impeach Donald Trump. None of you seem to know that the US Senate is controlled by Trump Republicans. The House can bring Impeachment against the President, but if the House finds the allegations true, there is a trail in the Senate to remove the President. Anyone who thinks that the Republicans in the Senate would even hold a trial, let alone convict a Republican President is foolish.
To get rid of Trump means focusing on a Democrat who will appeal to all Democrats, from the right to the far left. In the last election almost all of my frinds of my children's generation abandoned the Democratic party by voting third party or not voting at all. Please don't give us 4 more years of Trump. Remember that insanity is doing the same thing over again, expecting a different result.
1
The reason I want impeachment inquiry to begin now is not because I am in favor of the right over the good. It's because every day that Trump is in office is another day he has to reduce this country to rubble. The EPA, immigration babies, education and every other subject that Trump can touch is withering under his leadership. We have to remove him immediately or have no country left at all except for rich old white men looking around asking "what happened?" as they die unattended in smog and the earthquakes caused from fracking.
3
@Christin Carney... They cant impeach him without the Senate.The Senate wont because it is controlled by Republicans. This is Civics 101 stuff, "hopium" is not based in reality.
The conventional wisdom is that if Dems go for impeachment, Trump will be re-elected. Who says...other than commentators? And why do they believe that if the Dems stand up for their constitutional responsibilities against this lying, cheating, greedy POTUS that the Dems will lose? Hasn't every pollster over the last 2.5 years indicated that DJT's base has not grown? So tell me, please, MD, why will we lose if we stand up for truth and decency and morality?
2
The Muller show was pretty much a bust.
This was highly predictable given Muller’s own prior assertions — read the report, no matter how boring and legally convoluted.
Obviously the chance for a spectacle was impossible to pass up no matter the clear risk that it was likely to fail miserably.
As for impeachment enquiry and articles there of, that too is almost certain to have little or no cogent impact on the election outcome. The Senate is clearly a Trump bulwark that will not be breached by evidence or reason. Meanwhile the Trump camp will remain even more doggedly wed to and wowed by their Great Leader.
Meanwhile the Democrats will struggle mightily to not devolve toward self immolation for the sake of ideological purity. In considerable measure their lot is shaped by a similar rejection of evidence and reason that so afflicts their stolid advisaries on the right.
4
Impeachment = failure since it cannot succeed without the Senate, meaning defection of multiple Republicans. Ain't gonna happen. The resources lost in fighting a losing battle will exhaust resources better spent on presenting a winning candidate who could get rid of the current embarrassment of a president.
Moral victories are wonderful, but losing an impeachment battle just to shine with moral purity is the stuff of no competent general would take on in a war, not even on a tactical basis.
The Special Counsel made it clear that the president could be prosecuted once he is out of office, so leave it at that. There is no clear-cut evidence available to charge the president, only moral indignity. In today's world under the present administration, moral purity is not enough.
The president has passed almost zero legislation, has made allies with the most odious of dictators, has insulted his own intelligence community, is not responsible for the current up-boost in the economy, will make the economy worse with his trade and internal policies. Aren't those the real issues?
By the way, very few people really care about the kind of shoes someone wears. Leave that stuff to Yahoo headlines.
1
What Democrats need to do is criminalize the self defense of those who are not guilty.
When someone accused by the state declares himself not guilty, he insults the state. He therefore becomes guilty, and should receive, as such, an even greater punishment than if he was found guilty in the first place. Since that would have shown the state to be right.
This principle is extraordinarily fruitful. It ensured conviction rates close to 100% in Stalinist Russia, Maoist China, Pol Pot's Cambodia and North Korea. Also, when a school bully beats up your kid, if your kid asks the the bully why, that upsets the bully and he becomes even more violent.
Once the Democrats enshrine this into law, the impeachment of Donald Trump would be automatic. Since, while he was accused of conspiracy with Russia, a capital punishment offense of which he was found to be innocent, and while the probe was not impeded or obstructed, according to Mueller, Trump dared to call himself innocent and call the probe a witch-hunt.
1
Well, here's a thought. Maybe Pelosi wants to see what actually happens in 2020. While we all pray Trump goes away, what if he's reelected? Impeach him then. I think that might be her thinking. I can wait in those circumstances. It's more important that the Dems find SOMEONE who can impassion the majority of voters to come out. I'll worry about that now. I'm not taking my IMPEACH stickers off my car, however.
1
Thank you Maureen!
I am so tired of the daily equivalent of food fights between key Democratic figures. That is why we lost the 2018 elections, and why we’ll most likely lose again in 2020. As Mark Shields accurately describes it, Democrats are “a circular firing squad.”
If there were a third party that represented my hopes for the future of our country I’d join it in a heartbeat. From my perspective the current Republican and Democratic parties - with a few exceptions - are comprised of losers. That’s why the Republican party is now the Trump party, as sleazy as it has become from top to bottom. Just reading about Republican antics makes me want to go take a shower.
Dems need to regain power by proposing incremental steps to improve our current condition. Anything radical - as opposeEd to the RNC reactionary policies - will be inaccurately labeled as a communist agenda. That is something freshman Dems in Congress apparently aren’t bright enough, or are too arrogant, to comprehend.
2
Nice writing. Very nice. I would add that many detested Trump AND about as many detested Clinton. Trump likely could not have prevailed except against Clinton. Clinton had prayed and maneuvered to have Trump as her appointment, to help neutralize the slime factor. Does that seem patriotic, hoping your opponent will be despicable to make you look better? What if that opponent wins? Where have humility, judgment, respectability and patriotism gone?
1
All of this will be settled through primary elections. The progressives have some good points to make on health care and a living wage. We also need more support for education and housing. As the more candidates are eliminated I am confident that the Demos will come up with a plank that is acceptable to the American people. The other thing lurking in the background is Trump himself. One bad crises and he is toast. Trump's biggest enemy is Donald Trump. Because the GOP are all in with him if he sinks they sink. So let's not call the election for Trump so soon.
You are absolutely right. We must get rid of Trump in 2020 at all costs. He can stand trial after he leaves office. Enough of Democrats standing in a circle shooting at each other. The way to beat him is to show that the Democratic candidate will do better things for the people of this country. All of the people.
2
It was idealism that put Trump in teh White House in the first place. Too many purists didn't vote, because they would have had to vote for Hillary Clinton, whose politicakl record is less than pure, to put it politely.
1
1) Supreme Court approved gerrymandering and. 2) Russian (or Iranian) interference in our election are 2 reasons not to wait until the election. And 3). A Perseverating old man McConnell cannot stop a once effective Obama blocking tool from allowing foreign powers to conquer America.
In the most comprehensive view of whether to impeach is also included getting information legally afforded Congress that is being withheld by Barr.
Insecure Voting, a corrupt DOJ, and a Cult Republican Party with a bent toward a pure white America are three reasons not to wait.
Book: AMERICAN CARNAGE by Alberta; A well crafted riveting read of exactly how the Republican Party evolved from the Palin logo Tea Party into a Trump family marketing tool is a drama of facts.
Alberta reminds us McConnell figured out that withholding Infrastructure reforms from Obama was key to breaking his extraordinary popularity. Again: Perseverating old man Mitch McConnell, THE most powerful man in America is sick and cannot mentally disable a once effective blocking tool from allowing foreign powers to conquer America.
Politics seems to require the constancy of drama as the grinding friction that makes that enormous machine somewhat function for the whole. It's an uncomfortable play of theatre, posturing and pretending to see what flies in the face of group needs vs. personal greed. Trump as CULT, denies many can participate.
In other words, the perfect is the enemy of the good.
What Democrats should do...and all of them...is expose the lies told as promises, which promises were never kept. Carrier took its production to Mexico anyway, the "beautiful" healthcare never was enunciated as it never existed, and the "tax cuts" were increases for most of us, while its benefits went to corporations who didn't use the moneys for production or product (case in point, the abortion known as the 737 Max) but rather distributed it to management and stockholders (many of whom are foreigners). And for infrastructure...Jared still is clueless and it continues to crumble.
"As seen on TV" is NOT reality. Trump is an increasingly incompetent actor...and so are his grifting cabinet members.
THIS is what ALL Democrats should hammer home 24/7.
3
I'm afraid that for so long as Liberals continue to brandish "law, morality, norms and decency" only when and where it suits them, you'll continue to lose, lose, lose the country.
4
"Highchair king," - gotta love it.
3
"The purity racket"? For real? What does it mean that we are so jaded that people who take a moral stand are mocked as - basically - little Robespierres haughty and unhinged. Our Founders studied history - intensely. They understood the danger of a demagogue and the danger of autocracy taking hold in a democracy. They were clear as to our duties to each other and to our republic - there comes a time when one must stand up for what is right. What Dowd does not understand is that leaders don't wait on opinion polls or partisan advantage to do what is right. Her prediction that impeachment will be self-defeating assumes we - as a people - cannot be inspired by real leadership, and that we - as a people - have lost the ability to summon moral clarity and to take action - even if it means sacrifice. Our President is a monster - in too many ways to count. You know it. I know it. Everyone - in their heart - knows it.
Pretending you can play nice with a monster and let elections take their course is dangerously naive and - at its heart - cowardly. Wake up. Sound a clarion. Let's be able to look back and know we did everything we could to stop this monster. Maureen, have more faith in your fellow citizens to answer a clear call for justice. The time is now for leadership. Impeach.
7
YOU GO, GIRL! There must be some way to nudge, push, or shove the Democratic party together. The growing division in the party is never going to get us where we want to go. Drop the endless impeachment debate which is certain to fail and get on with negotiating a single strong direction for the Democratic Party. Parenthetically, it is funny that these political entities are called parties. There is certainly nothing fun about them!
1
A pragmatist is someone who favors action that accomplishes some goal. What goal is being achieved by Nancy Pelosi’s pragmatism? Under her leadership, the House passes bills that will not become laws. This is theater, not pragmatism.
Donald Trump is a criminal and he is President. What additional crimes would he need to commit for impeachment to become a pragmatic act? He once spoke of shooting someone in Times Square. Would that do it? Impeachment would require Republicans to make a public defense for his actions. If they do that by claiming that his lawlessness is constitutionally acceptable, as he has in saying that Article II slows him to do anything he wants, and the voters accept that argument, we are cooked and no amount of “pragmatism” will save us.
If purity means supporting a system of laws and appealing to people to respect those laws, then purity must have been the basis of the constitution itself.
1
Kudos Maureen
You have nailed the issue. I just hope the left wing gets what’s at stake here. Maybe they haven’t heard the expression “winning the battle but losing the war.”
1
The proletariat will have her say, madam, and so will you. I have not seen all the abuse that has been hurled at you but judging from all previous accounts, it must have been bad. Folks on Twitter/Comments section can be mean and inconsiderate. I myself may have been guilty of the same in the posts prior.
However.
The notion in your concluding paragraph, that the democratic takeover of the White House and the execution of justice in this country are somehow mutually exclusive is flawed. Both can be had. We do not have to make a bargain with the devil. Many things in life can be posed as trade-offs, this is not one of them.
I am not sure if I agree with your interpretation of history of impeachment... You lived through Clinton years, but there is the Nixon example as well. At its best, the history does not have clean parallels to the situation and if that is the core of your argument, I am not sure if there is much of an argument.
My argument is that he must be impeached not just because it is the moral and constitutionally prescriptive but because it is politically and pragmatically savvy thing to do.
Democrats need to show up and make the case. The case is not just that the President is a terrible person and over a dozen credible women have accused him of sexual assault and such, but that he committed crimes WHILE in office. That he engages in self-dealing. That he cannot be trusted for a second term. That he does not care about anyone but himself.
3
trump fears reality because he lives and breathes all sorts of phantasmagoric beliefs; try talking with a trump supporter and you will hear them articulated. Huh? People I know really think this way?
Yes, they do and when you listen to what they might actually be saying you hear frustration. Sometimes their rants can best be answered with a question and a compliment: “you really don’t think that do you?—-you’re so much smarter than that”.
Nancy Pelosi understands this very well and knows that good people mistakenly voted for trump because of their distrust of Hillary which unfortunately was somewhat warranted due more to tone deafness than her substance as a presidential candidate.
So, yes...don’t let us repeat the mistake of nominating the wrong Democratic candidate for the presidency in an effort to make a statement about the political correctness or idealism of a candidate. The American people deserve a first rate presidential candidate who will win this election! The primaries should help sort that out so let’s not get too exercised at this time. Let’s follow the Speaker’s lead; she’s got it right. But as the process moves forward towards November 2020 please do your part and help nominate and then elect the right Democratic presidential candidate.
Once again, the "very serious people" on the left AND the right, get it wrong. It's the voting machines! The 2016 and 2018 elections were digitally stolen, not just influenced. Any political scientist will tell you that if the exit polls do not match the official count within a 5 or 6 percent, or even 10 percent variance, then the election was stolen. This is the standard used by the United Nations around the world, but some how this subject is off-limits for discussion in America. My vote for Beto in 2018 kept flipping back to Ted Cruz, several times, until I started over by pulling the voting card out of the machine and sticking it back in. Until we have open-source auditable election code running on secure machines with an auditable paper trail, all the finger pointing in the world is a smokescreen. Democracy is the last thing the elites in power in Washington (the old people who run the House, the craven old people who run the Senate, and the media who cover them) want, because they would lose all their power if we the people had a fair deal: one-person-one-vote. Washington elites are not the problems because of the shoes they wear it's because they refuse to accept that digitally stolen elections have been the biggest problem in our country since Reagan, and they refuse to talk about it. If the Time's pundits can't get this through their heads, then the Times needs new pundits who can, and will, talk about the real problems facing this country.
1
I'm sorry Ms. Dowd but your analyis urges more over-thought paralysis. The fact is you don't know what the voters will do in 2020, with or without impeachment. No one does. I can speculate what Trump may do to rally people to him: start a war; foment domestic violence; prime the economy; trash "spineless" Democrats for having Mueller testify "about nothing" and then doing nothing; and, lots, lots more.
The duty of Congress is clear. Impeach, bring all to light, and trust democracy to run its course. Let the people make the decision. You warn of damage to the Dems and to the country for not being realistic about the chances of conviction and changing voters' minds. To me, greater damage to our country, our constitution and the spirit that underlies our reason for governance, will occur if we do not impeach in this circumstance. If enough members of the House will not impeach in this circumstance, shame on them.
2
Thank you Maureen. I have been watching in dismay as the Dems get played over and over again. Sanctimonious disapproval is not the path to victory over DT.
1
Shoes, chocolates? Please...let's get to the crux of the matter. Time is up. The House needs every moment from now until the election to work to maintain their majority. We need many seats overturned in the Senate to gain a majority or close to it. What we absolutely must have is Trump removed from the most important office on this planet. Yes, it's gut wrenching knowing that he should have never been in office in the first place and about the corruption that put him there. But the time for impeachment proceedings has passed it's "sell by date." At least for this cycle and this MUST be his only term. Democrats, stop the decisiveness now because he is using the oldest trick in the book.....divide and conquer, and wow; he's winning. Mufasa is dead and unfortunately we don't have time for Simba to grow up. The impeachment of Scar must take place at the ballot box, because, did I mention this before, time's up for us!!
2
Remember 1972? Even-handed nice guy George McGovern was the Dem standard-bearer and the party seething below him in Nixon-revulsion cobbled together a platform with planks representing all its fringe elements. That repelled ordinary muffin-head voters to such a degree that The Tricky One made the Dems a grease spot on his road to triumph.
Disparate voices must be heard but they cannot represent the majority, not in a democracy. Given the helm they will sink the ship.
1
If the only calculus for impeachment is only whether or not the Senate will indict, then all that shows raw fear. Fear of not getting a pure, perfect and predictable outcome. Yet nothing about this administration and these times is pure, perfect and predictable. Impeachment is a process set up by the founders for just this kind of situation. Nixon was impeached, and resigned. Clinton was impeached - for behavior that did not meet the standard of high crimes and misdemeanors - and was not indicted. The outcome cannot be predicted. What message are we sending to the world and the next generation if we don't impeach? Let go of the fear and start the process and see where it leads. Democrats need to stop whining, put on their big girl and big boy pants and put a stake in the ground for the soul of the country. The children are watching.
1
@Sealtest grow up. the children aren't watching. they are on their phones, too distracted to take the time to understand the issues. besides, you are in seattle, a progressive nirvana compared to my ohio. the election won't be won in seattle, but here in the forgotten heartland. the children aren't watching, but the knuckle-dragging white workers of the midwest are, and they're watching trump. we aren't going to get their attention with impeachment hearings.
Many of those howling for impeachment were in diapers or in utero during the Nixon impeachment so they forget that Nixon was re-elected and in his second term when the Watergate hearings took place. And that it was Nixon’s blatant overstepping of ethical and legal boundaries during his re-election campaign that brought about his subsequent resignation. What the hearings did was convince Republicans in the Senate that they should vote for impeachment, most notably, Barry Goldwater, among others.
I am currently reading two excellent books about that period: “Watergate” by Fred Emery and “The Wars of Watergate” by Stanley I. Kutler. I recommend both, particularly to those progressives who are demanding the House bring Articles of Impeachment at this time. Removing the “cancer on the presidency” that was the Nixon reelection campaign (brought about by the activities of the appropriately named CREEP - Committee to Re-Elect the President) took approximately two years.
I expect impeachment of this spectacularly flawed President, who makes Nixon look like a choirboy, to similarly take time. The country would be better served if Progressives and the Democratic Party would make the case to the voting public that Trump does not deserve re-election in 2020, instead of giving ample reason for his re-election.
Make the better case for electing a Democratic Party candidate and then GET OUT THE VOTE. Otherwise, the circular firing squad that is what the Democratic Party is now is futile.
4
I would not want to see Maureen Dowd sizing me up if I were the new girl walking into a seventh-grade classroom for the first time. It would be one thing if we of the high-heel/chocolate/fun set had a record to be proud of: children feeling safe in their classrooms, a healthy environment the clear benefit of our selfless stewardship, college grads entering the workforce instead of indentured servitude. Instead of endless snark, how about making the new kid feel welcome. She could be your new best friend.
3
Been waiting for some prose from Ms, Dowd, and "highchair king of Fifth Avenue" is good -- I wonder when somebody will make a book about all the things people have called Trump so far. It could be taught as a college course, Invective 101. He does not deserve it. What he deserves is that the voters elect someone else. People needed to reject the establishment that got the country (and the world) into this mess, and punishment came in the form of Donald Trump. Condign punishment, arguably. But we have had an elegant sufficiency, are chastened and pray for a change. And must work for it. "Ayúdate y Dios te ayudará." Help yourself and G-d will help you. And Dowd is right to reject self-indulgent purity. At this point, it is childish.
There is a lot here to agree with. Just because Ken Starr did it, doesn't make it right. Rep. Al Green is correct in the episodes that point to it, but Pelosi and Dowd here have a point.
This president knows the ins and outs of a squabble. He's a street corner thug and a grifter. Do not poke. Rather, build a platform in the means Barack Obama did. Spell it out, plank by plank.
Democrats built a party strong enough to evoke republican dirty tricks, McCarthyism and J.Edgar Hoover. Mayor Daly busted heads in '68. Run on Democrats in history. Provide information aligning with that history. Democrats weathered assassinations, LBJ's early retirement and Nixon's Vietnam, they can survive this presidency and win Medicare for all if they simply do not act as republicans but exemplify their record and scorecard of bringing Peace Corps and Ecology and human rights upfront.
If one attacks the Prince one must destroy the Prince or the Prince will destroy you.
The Democrats need to come up with a positive vision for the future,one that resonates with enough voters to actually elect a Democrat.
Politics is like bowling,too far to the left,too far to the right,and you're in the gutter.
Do the research,see which team has the best chance of defeating Trump,and let's get behind them.
The sole reason for not impeaching Trump is gerrymandering.
You must watch the Netflix documentary “The Great Hack” to see how Facebook, Cambridge Analytics ( a foreign entity) manipulated the 2016 election an by about 70k votes in key electoral states put trump in office.
2
Just reading Maureen once a week is worth subscribing to the Times.
It would be nice if others would not only read but also try to understand the wisdom of her words.
Who wants another four year of Donnie in the white house ? It is more than time that the Democrats start acting as a team. Instead of having 25 candidates for the presidency, many of whom don't stand a chance, get electable democratic candidates in red states. A party in which it is everybody for him- or herself will not be able to defeat a unified GOP.
2
Commenters here seem to think that the issue with impeaching Trump is "firing up his base" or they think that impeachment will benefit the Democrats by firing up their base. Both of these miss a crucial point about politics. The "base" drives primaries not general elections.
The lesson of 2018 was that Democrats could win Republican Lite districts, not by campaigning against Trump by name, but by offering common sense policies in a clear-headed way. Impeaching Trump means the Democrats will be putting congress itself front and center against Trump. This is obviously a losing idea given that even Trump's paltry low-40's approval rating spanks Congress's approval current rating of 17%. If we break that down by party, the Democrats in Congress have an approval rating of 38% which is still well below Trump's approval rating. Why put the most unpopular part of the party front and center for the next 6 months?
Furthermore, an impeachment hearing will feature far too much of AOC flapping her gums to elevate her own publicity - not exactly the way to convince moderates and undecided voters that this is a rational pragmatic party they want to entrust with the future of the country. Then there's the very simple matter of the fact that no impeachment will result. Trump is obviously a man of poor character and leadership but there's no indisputable evidence of crime that can be stuck on him. That will make impeachment look like a partisan feud and will turn off too many voters.
5
Ms. Dowd,
At one time our Democratic leadership was just that.
"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
"We do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard."
And, of course,
"The buck stops here".
It is hard to imagine the phrase "Uncle Mitchy won't let me come out and play" being graven on the hearts of Americans in the future.
The current lot of "centrists" got pulled so far right they have become essentially Republican Lite. Then they dare to castigate their brethren as far left, for such "revolutionary " ideas as universal health care, such a radical idea that it wasn't proposed until a mere 100 years ago by Republican president Theodore Roosevelt.
Leadership is just that. Political expediency is the antithesis of leadership. Ignoring what is right in favor of trying to garner votes, votes that wont be there in any case, is how we got Donald Trump.
Party on, Ms. Dowd. Enjoy your pumps and cocktails. When you are done, comb the confetti out of your hair and get to work.
Surrendering our government to those who put party, and votes, ahead of what's right, in order to win power for power's sake, is hardly an example we should be preaching. We used to call that appeasement.
1
The Democrats are giving it all away. The Presidency in 2020 will be decided by Independents. These are the very people put off last time by our feckless candidate whose only vision was to say whatever she thought might get her elected.
Trump instead, sold MAGA; a vision so broad, so opaque that anyone could make of it anything they wanted. We know he'll do it again so one might think the Democratic machinery understands the landscape.
Only as Maureen points out, they don't. The one way to send Trump packing is to win this election. The way to win is with a candidate and platform whose vision escapes the dead weight of impeachment and free health care for illegal immigrants. Are those wonderful ideas? Yes but they won't defeat Republicans at the WH or Senate. We need a vision that the majority of our population can believe in.
In 2000, Ralph Nader insisted on running for President as a third party. He said principles trumped winning and he got what he wanted; a principled loss that sent George Bush to the White House for 8 years. Today, Bush can luxuriate in the fact he is no longer the worst President in US history. That prize belongs to Trump and it was Hillary who handed it to him. Will the Democratic party again play it's hand so badly that it willfully delivers four more years of Republican leadership?
3
@Neale Brown. This election is a tourniquet election—we have to stop the bleeding before we talk about the future. If you cut your hand and on the verge of bleeding out, what would you want the ER doctor to do— stop you from bleeding or tell you how to avoid getting diabetes?
Trump won’t be impeached. He likely will never be prosecuted for anything. Get over yourselves, alt lefties. The GOP bass will support any nominee to keep their vision of America going. They understand that they want a 7-2 conservative SCOTUS, to make abortion a crime, and to eliminate civil rights for many.
Dems want to nullify Trump. They will never get over the losses, 2010, 2014. Russia had nothing to do with those. Russia had nothing to do with Obama and Seth Myers insulting and humiliating Trump; we like to pretend Trump is the only one who played that game, when in fact it’s the modern way to live—insult people with whom you disagree.
And HRC lost both the EC and the popular vote. She was 1 million votes behind in 49 of 59 states. She won CA by 4 million votes. Rest of country she lost by 1 million.
Funny thing: Dems just need to hold the states they won and find 100000 votes in 3 states that have gone blue. That’s all. Doable. Unless the purity crowd forgets that the point is to stop the country from bleeding out. Alt left wants it all now, just like a toddler does.
Dems will grab defeat from the jaws of victory. Bet on it.
1
Love MD but her defensiveness gets in the way of deeper understanding--an understanding she doesn't want to embark on due to its personal inconvenience. OK she wants the accoutrements of the financially comfortable. But she doesn't appreciate how the Dems have lost touch with people who aren't financially comfortable. Those without money should not have to contort themselves and set aside their own situations to appreciate those who do. It should be the other way around or 2020 will certainly be lost. If you have to invoke your working class father (the GOP has those too) something is desperate and amiss.
3
@mary Bingo! Great post. This self inflicted denial by many upper middle class Boomers,including Ms. Dowd, is the problem. These folks have made our country way worse than their parents had.
How painfully ironic as this generation from the 1960's wanted to change the world... sure they changed it... just the wrong way and through the process they just became self serving narcissist as well as mindless consumers with no thought of tomorrow.
Now the collectively we, especially their children and grand children, are all left holding the bag of that mess.
3
Cut Speaker Pelosi some slack.
She's waiting until impeachment hearings will have the maximum impact on the President's re-election campaign.
A lot of this is the result of the result of a winner take all voting system that ends up creating a two party system (like the UK to).
We need three or four parties that are forced to compromise, rather than forcing one party to encompass a huge part of the political spectrum.
2
@Martin Exactly and sadly Bernie missed his chance to do that back in 2016 when he endorsed HRC. I will never forget the coverage of him sitting in that chair at the DNC convention when HRC accepted the nomination...he knew he had blew it.
Hopefully this current pool of Presidential primary candidates will not make that same mistake.
We now more than ever need a new strong and vital third party in our country. The modern era of neo-liberalism needs to end within the next decade.
We rely upon fossils fuels for all that we do. Electricity which is produced in power plants relies upon steam heated by fossil fuels mostly. While nuclear fuels make steam far more effectively, they require vast amounts of carbon gas producing processes over a decade to build and leave waste that must be lovingly babysitter for many thousands of years.
A crash program to replace the existing system with the existing system will release a vast amount of carbon gases into the air. It takes decades for these gases to leave the atmosphere.
The Green New Deal would result in a disastrous infusion of far more green house gases into the atmosphere. It was composed without any serious thought. It seems to be a decisive solution to global warming, but it’s just not well considered.
You may or may not be right about the technical details of implementing the Green New Deal, but you are absolutely wrong in your implied conclusion that continuing on our current path is right in ANY sense.
Call it the Green New Deal, call it a Moonshot For Climate Salvation, call it _whatever_ will get folks to WAKE UP and realize we are at one of those existential decision points, and the choice really is between:
- continuation of human civilization? OR
- continuation of fossil fuel profits?
If you think this is overstatement, you should do some more reading. May I suggest you start with the latest (vastly understated) IPCC Report. here’s what they say about 1.5 degrees Celsius:
https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/chapter-3/
3
I guess I was not clear. The fossil fuel energy systems which are generating all these carbon gases, the deforestation which releases carbon gases, the huge herds of bovines used for food which produce carbon gases in great amounts, the warming permafrost containing huge volumes are carbon gases are a real and immediate great threat. Since we support seven million lives with what we are doing and we have limited means to make the changes needed to change all of this, we have no quick and simple solutions that have not unacceptable consequences. The Green New Deal simply does not address any of this. Neither do anyone who support it.
Let me illustrate my point with a simple parable:
An old man and a boy are anxious to arrive at a city before the gates are closed for the night. The old man asks a person by the road whether there is time for them to arrive at the city gates in time. The bystander observes that the boy has a stack of packed containers on his back. He replies, “if you do not hurry, you will.” The man and boy proceed towards the city. Soon they see the sun is setting and they because worried that they will not arrive in time. As a result, the boy stumbles and spills his load. The man and boy retrieve and restock the load on the boy’s back, then they proceed. When they arrive, the gates to the city are closed.
The time required to replace our current at of doing things is determined by what allows it to be done. Having a vision with an imagined future is only that. Political solutions can only follow the possible to be successful.
The left has worthwhile goals but their self righteousness is no more than self consciousness that they have not any idea how to achieve what they want.
Not wanting to pursue impeachment inquiries because of how it might effect the next election seems to be a version of Party before Country. But wait, its the Democratic leadership doing this, not the Republicans! Actually, its both.
Suggestion: start proceedings against McConnell. See how many Republicans defend him.
3
Since it is unlikely to have articles of impeachment ready before the election and even less likely to remove Trump from office with this Senate, what's the harm in turning Nadler loose? Televised and blogged testimony from witnesses under oath would seriously undermine this president's reelection.
4
The question that I, and no doubt other progressives, are struggling with is whether impeachment hearings and a vote to impeach by the House are worth the risk of a voter backlash that ensures Trump's reelection. The answer to this question can only be known by undertaking the impeachment proceeding--hopefully one that is narrowly focused on crimes where the evidence of his guilt is strongest and least susceptible to Trump's love of dishonesty and obfuscation. Meanwhile, there can be no reasonable doubt as to one issue: the failure of the Democrats to pursue impeachment coupled with another Trump electoral college victory will be the death knell of the current Democrat Party establishment, if not democracy in America.
2
Take what you can and steal what you can when all around are you are consumed with something else. It has work for Trump is whole career to the point of garnering the presidency. Don't spoil the advice by trying to hold him accountable. I have faith in the American way.
2
House passage of Articles of Impeachment for obstruction of justice, followed by failure of the Senate to convict, will deny the country the opportunity to resolve the damage done by Trump.
The only constitutional imperative left standing is that he will be indicted after leaving office, and will have to publicly confront proof of the things he did that no US President should ever have done, or ever do again.
Attempting to hype the Senate trial into a conviction because of noisy outrage at Trump's early campaign crudities will not work out any better than forcing Mueller to testify about his report did.
2
Quite frankly its difficult to know the merits of this column.
Snark vs. substance. The more time folks dedicate to snark they further we will remain from substance. Substance is what this country was founded upon. Our Presidents relies on snark. WE should rely on substance and return to a sense of integrity.
7
@Lynn Russell - Exactly.
2
Given the absence of support for conviction in the Senate, an impeachment vote in the house carries little more weight than a nasty letter. The Democrats need to win the swing states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and maybe Florida to win the White House in 2020. Everything else is a distraction. A vote to impeach carries the risk of energizing a counter-reaction that will turn out Trump supporters in the states at stake.
2
It also carries the substantial risk that Congress does its job, rather than worrying exclusively about the electoral consequences. Clearly something that must be avoided at all costs.
Pelosi is allowing Trump and the GOP to dictate the terms of (every) argument. One of the advantages of impeachment is it lets the Democrats set the terms of the debate by making the Republicans answer the charges before Trump. Besides, look how much good the cautious approach did Al Gore and Hillary Clinton. This is a moment were great boldness, not timidity, is needed.
4
Agree, the moment requires boldness. Sometimes pragmatism, like Al Gore and Al Franken resigning is more damaging.
There is a correlation between youth and inexperience to radical policy proposals. The policies which are proposed are very logical as far as they go which is to resolve a problem so that it logically cannot be expected to persist. They are seemingly the best and probably only good solutions that the advocates can imagine. People who resist these proposals seem so unreasonable that only deliberate intention to let the problem endure seems to be the intent. The experience of most people as they mature which causes them to drop such perfect radical solutions needs to considered.
The day comes when one observes that one’s way of accomplishing the task of achieving a desired result is achieved in a difference way by another with as good or better results. Another is the experience of completing a logically planned and accomplished result that provide the intended result with a frustratingly wrong consequence. Such proof of the limits of human thinking leads to skepticism about radical and simple solutions.
We must reduce the carbon gases in the air which our ways of doing things are increasing. We have little time to do it. The nightmare of global warming into a planet like Venus is remote, but the foreseeable outcomes for the next century could destroy our modem life and result in mass extinctions, and devastating loss of human life, as well as a new dark age. If we wait, we face a grim future. But have not the means to change it all at once.
3
Great column. Words to heed but will the nearly two dozen candidates listen? No, the only way to break through to primary voters seems to be by attacking each other. They are not marching as a group nor are some of them even trying to do their job in the Senate. Why would I want to vote for someone who bailed on the job they have to move up? Didn't we used to call that the Peter Principle? Democratic roll call must be an exercise in futility, and warm McConnell's crooked empty heart.
Power corrupts everyone and so far all but a few have been swallowed by it. Biden has proven it's his calling, Buttigieg is premature but a welcome voice. Harris just wants to attack, don't we have enough of that? Warren has great ideas and a great mind but will she remain standing? Sanders if fun. The others are just in it for the glory or their resume or their ego.
I live in hope but every time I listen to a Democrat speak I fear for my country's future. We're at a crossroad and it's a long journey out even if we choose correctly.
7
I agree with EVERYTHING said here, thanks for this. However, one thing I've been looking for in all of these similar pieces is a look at why the Repubs were successful at playing the "purity game" in the '08-'10 period of the tea party, freedom caucus, etc. Can someone elucidate that?
4
Good point. But they lost in 2012.
1
@Paul
Yes, but only the presidency. They were successful in keeping control of the Senate, President, and Supreme Court in 2016
1
In impeachment hearings Trump will be forced to testify under oath. He's already lied under oath when answering Mueller's questions. Actual impeachment hearings will not allow Trump to twitter away and spin it on Fox & Friends.
And while the impeachment of Clinton was politically motivated, and at the time we rallied to Clinton's defense, the proceedings forever stained his legacy. If we are honest in 2019 about the things Clinton did, we would have welcomed impeachment.
Not impeaching Trump allows Trump to win and allows all those who aided and abetted him to continue to get away with it.
7
Trump can’t be “forced” to testify in an impeachment trial before the Senate. But if he chooses to testify, his testimony would be under oath.
1
Dems need voters on their side to show up in droves in November 2020. They've got to bring in many more voters than the Republicans because of the electoral college favoring the red states.
Michael Moore on Late Night with Seth Myers had a very good idea on how to bring Democrats out to the polls in November 2020: put ballot initiatives of legalizing cannabis and outlawing voter suppression and gerrymandering. The cannabis legalization will get the young ones to the polls in larger than average numbers. The vote against suppression and gerrymandering will get the African American community to come out in larger than average numbers. While they're at the polls for the ballot initiatives, they'll also vote for the Dem nominees.
This tactic was taken from the Republican playbook. When they wanted high turnout for a particular presidential election: they put an anti-gay marriage initiative on the ballot which got Republicans to turn out in large numbers to vote for it.
Let's do it.
7
Richard Nixon resigned in the 19th month of his second term. He would have been impeached and convicted soon after.
Bill Clinton's impeachment process failed in the 25th month of his second term.
We are already in the 30th month of Trump's first (and, please, Lord!) only term. Perhaps a smoking gun will be found soon, one that will reshape the public opinion of the less educated.
If not, it is too late to begin a House process of impeachment/education that would not interfere with the process of choosing a Democratic ticket and getting it elected. Trump will be running nonstop for that second term and Democratic unity and focus will be essential. Stronger together!
5
@David in Toledo whoever you are, i would buy you a beer a doc watson's for your great, smart comment.
"...idealism, untempered by realism, is dangerous." Could not have said it better.
Assume the House impeaches Trump. A mere vote. Two-thirds of the Senate is not going to agree to remove Trump.
But during this made-for-24-hour cable tv spectacle, nobody will be talking about the issues we need to discuss. And the political middle of America that will decide this race will be that much more uninformed on important policies. Winning the White House should be more important than putting our petulant man-child president in time-out. Play to win, even it means a sacfrice fly.
7
@Dr. Strangelove,
Falling in the bathtub is dangerous.
I agree with the third and fourth points. In order to start the proceedings the Speaker needs more support and at the same time her position is probably the best argument for the do-nothing crowd. Hard to solve.
The Democratic Platform is the best. When Senator Sanders moved on health care for all and better high education the response was very strong. The "elite" Democrats who want the money and support of Wall Street is prepared to walk away from these commitments as Obama did: he supported the compensation of Wall Street after 2008 but gave up against Geithner et all when they decided to not do much for the mortgage holders. They channeled $6-7 trillion to the former while a saving operation for the mortgage holders has been estimated to cost $1-1.5 trillion. Those who lost their homes and jobs figured that out. The only one who was speaking to this problem was Trump and although he was lying as usual they did not see the Democrats as the solution. We need to change that and stick to the Democratic values and planks.
About Medicare for all: everybody will end up with Medicare, a great program, much better than anything comparable. For most it will be sooner, for the younger ones later. At that time they will all lose their private insurance for the 80% that Medicare covers and if they are lucky the private insurance will cover the remaining 20%. Many will have to pay for that themselves.
1
A lot of people are commenting we need to impeach to fire up the Democratic base. The issue as I see it as that impeachment takes time - a lot of time that should be focused on getting the Democrats aligned on what messaging they will take into the next presidential election. Everyone in the party was so aligned on messaging for the mid-terms but that seems like a lifetime ago and I for one don’t see any alignment or any messaging. Expecting to win the next election on a platform that “at least we tried to impeach Trump knowing we didn’t have a 2/3 majority in the senate to convict him is not going to cut it as a reason to elect a Democratic nominee for President.”
5
Trump deserves to be impeached BUT a more important fact must be known: what country do I live in? Now that all know who and what Trump is and what he stands for, a win for him in 2020 will tell me, us and the world what America is and stands for. Was 2016 an aberration? I want to know. We all should know.
12
@Vinny Catalano
I agree. I want to know too, Vinny.
But the collective actions and attitudes of 150 million regustered voters and thousands of elected officials are very difficult to comprehend.
During the current chaos, I find myself reading various sections of our constitution on a daily basis. Whether it’s reasonable or not, I cling to the vision of our founding fathers and struggle to believe that the America they created still exists.
Today is a bump on a rough stretch of road. The dream of the True America endures.
3
Amen!
I’m a left of center Democrat from California by way of Massachusetts and have witnessed this leftist Puritanism ruination for decades: whether it was Hubert Humphrey in ‘68, Jimmy Carter in ‘80, Al Gore in 2000, or Hillary in 2016, they were all undermined by the self righteous purists in their own party only to end up being governed by far right presidents.
This time around, it is difficult to see much difference between the extreme intolerance of both the hard left and hard right
extremes of
3
Your father stayed up all night celebrating Harry Truman's election. That's great. Harry Truman today would be linked among those you deride as the "far left". That's an example of how far right the leadership of the Democratic Party, and corporate Democrats like you are.
It is a mockery of the U.S. Constitution to suggest that in pursuit of political expediency the rule of law and constitutional governance should be ignored. Do you really believe Democrats who advocate holding the president accountable don't understand how the GOP is going to behave regarding anything dealing with Donald Trump?
The real marionettes, libertarian-right billionaires, won't allow Mitch McConnell do do anything other than what they tell him to do and right now that is protecting the second-rate Caligula sitting in the White House. Nonetheless that should not stop Democrats from doing the right thing.
Nancy Pelosi is a skilled politician and a knowledgable parliamentarian. I cannot believe she and those surrounding her cannot figure out how to skillfully direct impeachment proceedings in order to not assure a Republican triumph at election time.
Ms. Dowd, you have New Deal Democratic Party roots but you abandoned those, voluntarily or otherwise, a long time ago. Long story short, you and the of D.C. establishment are out of touch.
9
I think you’re forgetting your history. As a commenter said earlier, both Clinton and Nixon were impeached in their second terms. Your naive faith that parliamentary procedure will somehow manage to have nothing but positive consequences is a maddeningly simplistic pipedream. I say this disliking Dowd profoundly. But here, I happen to agree. It’s foolish to start a game you can’t finish. And impeachment is, I assume, not your final goal, right? You want to remove Trump from office, right? Impeachment will not remove Trump from office. But the 2020 elections will.
@Alex
Again, no one alleges impeachment does not carry risks. The issue is do we continue to allow this administration to make a mockery of the separation of powers and the rule of law, not to mention the mores of democratic governance.
Would you suggest we wait until Trump gets a second term to do anything? Given the likelihood of presidential coattails I doubt if Trump wins in 2020 he won't have at least a Republican senate to cover him.
No one wants Trump gone and then punished for his lifetime of criminality than I. I also agree the best course is getting him, and all Republicans out of office. I shudder however at the precedent of allowing him to do as he pleases until that happens.
1
Nixon was a highly popular president; when reelected, he enjoyed a 65% approval rating. Yet, by time the Watergate/impeachment hearings were over, even the Republican Congressmen were begging him to resign; in fact, they forced him to do so.
Trump is weak. His foibles are on the table for the world to see. Even his base knows him for what he is. Why should we believe him immune to impeachment?
3
Nixon didn’t have a Supreme Court aligned with him, and he didn’t have the advantage of a polarized electorate and a bifurcated media through which large chunks of the electorate get conservative-biased alternate accounts of reality. In this environment, Nixon might well have hung on.
4
@Ben
Sure Pelosi has enough votes in the House
BUT there are NOT enough votes in the Senate
The republicans of the day had some semblance of justice/ right and wrong then. Not so today. They are now totally corrupt, some in oligarch pockets, some in Russian pockets, some in both. They know they stand to go down with the ship. So they defend it to the death. Even the justice dept. is no longer aptly named.
So times have changed. Right and wrong have no meaning to Republicans of today. Power and the holding of it is all that matters to them.
Thank you, Maureen, for finally acknowledging that Hillary's campaign did something right: focused on what a bad person Trump is. BTW: Voters cared, she won the popular vote.
Just a thought? Maybe the alt-progressives are mad at you because you didn't invite them to your party?
Congratulations to Carl Hulse on his book. He is a fine reporter!
3
Central to a saner post-social media civil discourse will be the recognition by the reasonable majority of people that the loudest blow-hards on social media do not speak for an entire movement, generation, party or larger socio-political group. With this column, it doesn't seem that Ms. Dowd has fully internalized this lesson yet. I'm sorry Ms. Dowd was mocked on social media and I agree that extremist activism from any political corner is detrimental. But in cherry-picking incidents of rhetorical excess and ascribing them to the whole progressive end of the spectrum is to commit the same sin.
Fervor for impeachment is hardly defined by progressive/liberal distinctions. And denigration of progressives by centrists—as in attacking "the squad" or openly mocking the Green New Deal, a novel, yet robust set of policy prescriptions—only sets up lines of attack that Trump has been very happy to exploit. The infighting cuts both ways. Unfortunately by disparaging progressives Dowd does nothing to calm the waters, she simply splashes back, adding to the confusion.
5
Richard Nixon resigned rather than face the indignities of an impeachment trial.
There must be some chance that the specific articles of impeachment produced by the house, if they are undeniably strong and convincing, will result in some outcome other than acquittal in the senate.
Trump might resign.
Some turn of events might rid us of this unfit, corrupt president.
We will never know unless we try.
2
Nixon was a truly deep and complex personality. When he campaigned across the country, he made it his business to know the individual local Party people and what was important to them and knew about their families. When he scheduled a meeting with an international leader, he studied that leader and that country in depth. Despite his obvious neurotic issues, Nixon was a competent and able man.
His resignation was necessary, he was becoming a leader who was rejecting the limits of power and faced impeachment and likely conviction.
Trump is not a deep nor complex human being nor is he capable as a President. He is a professional celebrity who has become a skillful entertainer who has used those skills to secure a loyal political constituency. The danger he poses is existential. Our President is a representative of the people with great authority which we require in our founding documents must be limited to prevent anyone using that power to secure power for himself, or herself. Trump has no control over his personal impulses and compulsions to restrain himself from turning the Presidency into the dominate and overarching authority over our government by means of demagoguery. That would destroy our liberal democracy by shifting sovereignty from the people to the President.
1
@Casual Observer
Very well said, CS, well said indeed.
I agree with every sentence of your well-written comment. All things considered, Don couldn’t carry Dick Nixon’s bowling shoes.
Trump is an unbalanced, unprincipled danger, both to the safety and security of the nation and to the future of American democracy. His knee-jerk neurotic reactions to day-to-day events make him extremely unpredictable. He is capable of putting his ignorance of his true power to nearly any imaginable purpose.
In the months leading up to the 2020 election, if all indicators point to a Democratic victory, I shudder to imagine what Trump might attempt to put in motion to avoid electoral defeat.
That is why I strongly believe we Democrats should do whatever is in our power (legally) to remove him from office before the election.
My only academic credentials made me a high school math teacher. Despite the lack of a mental health background, I honestly believe Mr. Trump is as mad as a hatter.
1
Not impeaching Trump, nor censoring him, for BREAKING THE LAW, reaffirms that he is indeed above the law. People MUST be held accountable for their actions, otherwIse they can get away with anything; like shooting someone in cold blood on 5th Avenue.
9
Absolutely right, Maureen. Thank you.
Trump understood intuitively (certainly, not by deductive reasoning, for which he doesn't possess the ability) that he would win election by stoking the malignant underside of the electorate.
Their affection for him resides in the fact that he validates their need to bully and push around those less fortunate than they themselves. That need is so potent that they ignore everything else -- his fiscal betrayal, his political betrayal, his treason, his corruption, his intellectual and moral vacuity and his obvious lack of interest in anyone and anything but himself. They love him because he gives them permission to be evil ... and they love it.
Trump's narcissism, however, is matched completely by that of the "progressive" purists in the Democratic party. They are carbon copies of him, and spend their time grandstanding and looking for the spotlight. Like Trump, whatever they say -- no matter how ridiculous and irrelevant -- brings them attention and so both satisfies their narcissistic urges and stokes their need for more.
Their goal is simple: keep themselves in the limelight. Just like Trump.
1
You are making the understandable mistake of attaching the far left label to the harsh vocal rejection of neoliberalism. Have your fun and your parties and shoes, I think we all like stuff. Sorry that some people are focusing on that instead of the underlying problem: the bad policy ideas that need to be radically rethought but aren’t because you all are self congratulating with chocolates and pumps.
3
Sorry, Ms. Dowd, your total neglect of anything that would be a political advertising bonanza for the Democrats is flabbergasting. To think that voters would ignore how much Republican Senators would ignore that preponderance of evidence you note, as it's widely broadcast, and still not convict anyway--that's what flabbergasts me. Yes, political advertising is probably the foundation of success in modern advertising agencies, given our current (corrupt) system for funding candidates running for office. To think that Democratic Party candidates wouldn't leap at that chance to use the Republican Senators' disregard of clear evidence is incomprehensible. No, Ms. Dowd's point doesn't even go that far. As noted above and should be repeated, she doesn't even recognize it--that advantage doesn't even exist for her. So, to the moral and just purpose for impeaching a monster occupying the office of the presidency we can add an actual avalanche of advantage to Democratic Party candidates. Ms. Dowd has gotten things reversed: The "purists" are on the side of Pelosi and her ilk. Just ask Lawrence Tribe, who literally wrote the book on the impeachment process and is crying out for it now to begin a.s.a.p.
4
Every word in your op-ed is spot on. However, I hope you don't change your mind about voting for Democrats because of criticism of your book party. Every vote counts to eject out the Rotweiler.
1
There is wisdom in Nancy Pelosi’s attempt to discourage impeachment. I live near Houston and can tell you there are Trump supporters all around me. They are hardworking, church-going and determined that the “Rottweiler” is what we need to fight off the politically correct nuts who want to disrupt their way of life. Continuing to uncover Trump’s faults over the next year and coming up with a strong alternative will work better.
3
Thank you for your column Ms Dowd. I was surprised during and after the Mueller testimony the cries of the Democrats that it was a disaster! I didn't think it was a disaster. I thought Mueller did exactly as he said he would. I thought the Democrats questioning stayed on message and reviewed the report so he wouldn't have to. But the howls of outrage from the pundits! Mueller didn't act like the attack dog they wanted and expected. He acted.....old!
More surprising to me was that they completely ignored the Republicans, whom I thought were absolutely hysterical, screaming and idiotic. How many times did we hear a Republican cut Mueller'as comment and testimony off by saying "I have little time". He showed restraint and dignity in the face of their hysteria about how the investigation was started - regardless of whether the investigation was fully warranted (pun intended) and that it was clearly documented that Trump campaign and likely Trump were in full cooperation with the Russians.
The republicans were outrageous in their bombast and screaming hissy fits replicated from the Kavanaugh and Cohen hearings. But the Democrats chose to criticize Mueller instead.
The Democrats think they have the moral high ground, attack their own and act very thin skinned. When I refer to the Democrat Party (grammatically correct since it is the party of Democrats, not Democratics) I get corrected with a huff. Apparently,Democrat is a bad word.
1
Why don't the so-called Progressives not see the obvious:
1) Impeachment is a waste of time when the Senate will never vote to convict.
2) As stated, Trump's base will be energized by impeachment to the point of re-electing him.
3) In the unlikely event that Trump is removed from office, the country ends up with Pence/Koch Bros. As despicable as Trump is, Pence is scarier.
2
If Ms Dowd thought an article like this would help progressives come on board, she totally missed the boat. To castigate "the left" because some trolls on Twitter complained about someone eating chocolate (as if 99% of any group actually cares about that) means she thinks Twitter actually represents anybody's opinions. Wake up, Ms Dowd, most of America isn't paying attention to pundits and Twitter trolls playing footsie. It wasn't progressives that lost the last election, it was YOU. Americans want real solutions, and most progressive solutions poll well above 60%. The mainstream corporate corrupt Democrats are paid to be soft...everybody knows that, and that's why you won't win in 2020.
3
Well Maureen some of us progressives are from Massachusetts and come by Puritanism honestly!
1
I agree that many members of the so-called progressive wing of the Democratic Party need to get it through their heads that there are positions on issues that are viewed by significant portions of the electorate as so extreme that adopting them would jeopardize the party’s chances of defeating Trump. But impeachment is not one of them. Trump will play it either way. Will he exult in victimhood if he’s impeached? Of course. But if he’s not impeached he’ll proclaim just as loudly that, had he really done anything illegal or otherwise impeachable, he would have been impeached. Significant portions of the swing vote will punish the Democrats if its nominee were to embrace reparations or Medicare-for-all. But I think that same portion of voters will get it that principle has its place for realists as well as idealists.
2
Ferdinand I was an effective leader; yes, let justice be done and not be held back by the FEAR that the world will perish.
1
Maureen makes an excellent point. Hillary made the case that Trump was unqualified to be president and yet he still won. The American people decided to accept his corrupt ways, his xenophobia, his racism as long as it got them what they wanted. And that was a non politician, someone who could give them a big tax cut, and someone who would create jobs in the economically depressed areas of the country such as those swing states that were the difference in the election. Americans knew quite well what Trump was. The Democrats would be smart to focus on what they will do to make America great in contrast to the failed policies of Trump. It should be easy to make the argument that Trump has failed at infrastructure rebuilding, holding down the deficit (>$1 TRILLION in 2019), improving health care, combating global warming, improving foreign trade, his immigration policies at the border, demilitarizing North Korea, gun control, saving Social Security and Medicare, etc.
7
As Ms. Dowd essentially says, millenials want a seat at the grown ups table and influence public policy in our country but often times don't have the perspective, maturity or voting consistency to do so. Being taken seriously by others requires responsibility and accountability. The progressive age demographic has a ways to go in this aspect. They generate heat but often shed no light.
5
Hear hear.
A colossal expenditure of energy for a prospect that's maybe, at best, 50/50, and carries significant risk of a catastrophic outcome. It's reminiscent of age-old arguments about waiting out the winter in a defensible position for an assured but bloodless victory versus risking all in a battle for a more glorious victory right now, with the latter too often carrying the day, tragically, by painting proponents of the former as lacking courage and spine and now purity.
Impeachment will usher in the usual media microfocus. It will provide another excuse to avoid seeing or talking about the underlying structural issues and drift that led to this outcome we're living in, which is already on track to be catastrophic unless it can be made temporary.
If impeachment becomes the thing, it will become the only thing. A unicorn will be found, and if not then one will be manufactured. The villains will be kept front and center in the spotlight. The spectacle will be branded and endlessly analyzed. People might remember someone like Elizabeth Warren had lots of sound plans for lots of worthy things, but they won't know what a single one of them is once this circus and horsey show gets going.
3
I just wish the Democrats would base what they do and say on re-establishing the rule of law for everyone, working to defeat ongoing redistricting that takes the power of the vote away from individuals, restoring checks and balances in the courts and in office with people who really DO respect the Constitution, of joining other countries on climate change and protection of limited natural resources, opposing the machinations of Putin's Russia and China, protecting all of us from outrageous drug pricing and the excessive costs of medical care, exposing and ending the blight of for-profit colleges, and bouncing Mitch McConnell out of office. I'm all for THAT candidate.
6
What is all this talk that Trump will somehow prevail for a third term? Unless one believes that the SCOTUS will forget thatthe constitution was changed to prohibit it. And if they should change that somehow, dems could run Barack again...
2
So it comes down to doing the right thing or winning in 2020.
Impeachment will only be remembered in the history books; even if Trump is impeached, it won't mean his removal, given the McConnell Senate. We'll get four more years of Trump.
I'd love to see him get the boot, but it just isn't possible. Let's marshal our forces to take back the WH, and see what is possible.
7
It would be much more satisfying to have Trump repudiated by LOSING the election in 2020, followed by his conviction for obstruction of justice. And any statute of limitations would probably be tolled for the entirety of his term because of the DoJ policy that a sitting president cannot be charged while in office.
Even if polling indicated that 99% of Americans were in favor of impeachment, Mitch McConnell and the Republican Senate will not allow it. Already it is abundantly clear that members of Congress do not act on the will of their constituents or clear majorities of Americans. Congress is a private club bought and paid for by private interests (e.g., casino magnates) and corporate power. Impeachment will do nothing to Trump except give him a megaphone. Pelosi is right. She knows what the Republican Party is up to in its modern takedown of Democracy.
8
What have been the benefits of Pelosi Pragmatism?
Instead of a Medicare-for-all healthcare plan, the Dems rehashed & warmed over Nixoncare / Dolecare and the GOP have been trying to kill even that for a decade and may well succeed.
The GOP shut down the gov't several times during the Obama years and still kept the House AND took the Senate.
Okay, the most recent budget deal may look like a win but the debt is ballooning and the military gets more money - AGAIN
1
@MorinMoss - how are things in the fictional Middle Earth? Those of us in the real world of the USA look considerably different. Patience, Grasshopper!
A cautionary tale. We Wisconsin Democrats and progressives tried to recall Scott Walker. The whole thing went up in smoke. Mr. Walker became a hero to the right as he gained a second term. He based his run for President on his heroic stand against Wisconsin's "union thugs." He was able to destroy public unions, restore right to work, line the pockets of his corporate friends, defund public education and deregulate environmental protections. I see sad parallels with his governorship and Trump's Teflon presidency. I hope Democratic leadership continues to proceed slowly on the impeachment issue.
9
There is a way Democrats could proceed with impeachment--honoring their obligations under the Constitution and engraving Trump's misdeeds into the markers of history--without promoting a fairytale of victimhood. Do it soon, do it fast and move on to other business. No celebrations, no trumpeting of "gotcha," no aftermath funk.
Yes, Mitch McConnell will "smother it in the Senate," and, of course, the president will set a new 24-hour record for Tweets. But over the next 15 months he will likely do things equal to acts cited by Mueller, casting impeachment in a hindsight glow of having done the right thing. Moreover, negative impact of the impeachment would recede as other likely events occur: economic downturn, international crises, military actions, natural disasters, political scandals. Such developments closer to the 2020 election would surmount any negative impact from an impeachment in 2019 that left Trump in office.
The solemn duty of public service should abide no fear. Our representatives must work towards a more perfect union, establish more pervasive justice, and embrace the better angels of our people to achieve progress on their behalf. If Democrats seek to take command, they should be prepared to lead.
4
Marureen: I see two problems with your arguments.
Trump’s talent for energizing his base exceeds that of Democrats engaged in impeachment proceedings.
Impeachment proceedings, if properly conducted, will expand and clarify the arguments for impeachment. For example, Trump is clearly beholden to Putin for some reason, but we don’t know why Trump. A review of his financial dealings with Russia will discover the reason.
The voters in 2020 will decide whether to remove Trump from office. The impeachment proceedings will show them why they must do this.
9
You nailed it Maureen, the Democratic Party has circled the wagons, but it seems all the sharpshooters are (once again) aiming toward the inside of the circle.Wasn't it Sun Tzu who said: 'Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without out strategy is the noise before the defeat '?
If our strategy is to focus on fighting a battle we've already lost (impeachment) and our tactics largely involve purifying our ranks of the individuals who have doubts about this strategy (or are somehow deemed unworthy of the 'Liberal' mantel by the high Priests of Progressivism) then its all noise and posturing right-up until the time when the Republicans have their victory march down Pennsylvania Avenue January 2021, with their Grand Dragon leading the parade
5
Most Americans try to raise their children to respect the law and to respect other people. Trump's example cannot be left to stand without challenge.
As the saying goes, You don't need to stand tall, but you DO need to stand.
There is no downside to holding public impeachment hearings. It worked well for Democrats in the Nixon hearings. The Clinton impeachment consisted of a single hearing: Ken Starr's report to the committee. The public was clearly not behind Starr or the GOP who overplayed their hand; but, the public rewarded the Democrats who took the time to expose the Nixon criminality over a period of four months of public impeachment hearings. (nearly daily parade of witnesses)
Maureen Dowd complains about the petty criticism of her petty criticisms (pumps, clothing, etc). We can thank Maureen for running down Ms. Clinton and giving us Trump. Not totally of course but she did all she could to run down Ms. Clintong
6
Investing the myriad aspects of corruption in the Trump Administration is the responsibility of the Congress. They are doing that. In aid of conducting the inquiry by seeking enforcement of the subpoenas through the federal courts, Congress has said that impeachment is under consideration. The decision to move to impeachment does not need to be made now because the investigation is still underway. In other words, it is premature to conclude that it should go forward or not. I believe that is Pelosi's considered opinion.
3
Let our full focus turn to making sure our election apparatus are safe from foreign and domestic attack. If we don’t do this the best campaign is doomed to failure.
This is a great example of educating the electorate so that the power of the many overwhelms and shames the inaction of the current elected officials. Thank you Puerto Rico for your shining example this week!
Another beautiful column by Maureen! We can all learn a lot from the laser focus the republicans have on messaging.
4
Do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Politics is the art of the possible, not the perfect.
When I was studying Philosophy, I wanted a perfect, logical result. But then, most of the time, I had the time for crafting that paper to get that A. When I was a programmer, I wanted to create the perfect system to let my users do their job easily. However, I learned the "Pick Two" rule, you can have the system quickly, cheaply or correct, pick two. And if you try to do all three, you won't get more than one of them, and often none of them.
As a history teacher, I probably had about five perfect lessons, mostly by luck and many, many hours of planning, or by using something that someone else had put a ton of work into. On the other days, I had lessons that were good enough. Now retired, I still run into students that remember many of those "good enough" lessons.
Impeachment is not a realistic goal. There are enough people in both the House and Senate that will not go along, unless someone finds hundreds of bodies buried in the Rose Garden.
Impeachment will take a lot of time, it will take a lot of effort, and unless the situation changes, it will not happen. You need a 2/3rds vote (290) to impeach in the House. There are 235 Dems. You will need 55 Republicans to go along (over 1/4 of them). It has to start in the House, we don't need to look at the Senate unless the bodies start showing up buried in the Rose Garden.
14
@AS Pruyn - Oh, come on. If they find hundreds of bodies buried in the Rose Garden, Trump will just blame it on Obama.
1
Unfortunately, Democrats have always been good at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. When I was young & idealistic, I was a BIG fan of George McGovern. He was a good man, but not electable. So, while I understand and in many ways support "The Squad", I am older and wiser now. The Democrats did so well in the midterms because they concentrated on issues, not vilifying Trump. They can do the same in 2020, but it must be done with care.
12
Agree. Report then ignore the tweets. Show how his policies are hurting Americans. Less attention to Trump and more attention to the consequences of his policies. Go back to the kitchen table.
6
You are right Ms. Dowd, the focus should not be on impeachment. What is needed is a hard charging investigation into Trump's finances, business dealings and their links to foreign entities. The fight is in the courts and the states. The TV campaign comes after you got the intel/facts/evidence that is waiting to be exposed to voters. Show the public Trump's taxes! Our country's treasures are being looted while Congress and the Courts dance to Trump's tune.
Trump, Barr and witnesses thumb their noses at congressional subpoenas and they will ignore any Court orders they don't like. Trump, Barr and the R-gang view the law as a tool to hide behind and bend/break to achieve their ends. Trump wants to make money and be king, Barr wants to make an imperial presidency that can advance the interest of the rich and powerful without the interference of the People's House.
Never has it been more clear that the web of laws in this country are for insnaring little people, while the wealthy and powerful pass straight through. Keep in mind that the most likely reason Bernie Madoff went to jail is because he cheated the rich and powerful not the middle class like the rest of Wall Street.
13
The oath of office each representative and senator took requires them to protect the US Constitution. Trump has committed "High Crimes And Misdemeanors" according to the Mueller report and therefore should be impeached. To do any less is to fail their oath of office. To resist impeachment because neither the polls or the republicans show support for impeachment is a failure to protect the US Constitution based on politics and is also a failure of their oath of office.
The impeachment process is just like a court of law. In it, proof of a failure to abide by the law by the defendant is not always found by the jury even though the law was broken. Does that mean we should not hold a trial. No. It means the trial is held to determine if enough evidence is available to convict. If there is enough evidence to convict but the jury (in the case of impeachment, the Senate) does not convict, then the jury needs to be held accountable.
9
@dfhamel
Juries are never "held accountable."
It's like winning the battle and losing the war. Not sure you really protect the Constitution by enabling Trump's reelection and that of the Senate Majority leader who trashes the Constitution e.g No hearings for Supreme Court Nominee Garland.
1
@dfhamel
The problem is, impeachment does not take place in a court. In a court, you get as unbiased a jury as legal process can develop. This Senate "jury" seats everyone, no challenges allowed. Slightly over half of this jury would have been legally bought and paid for by the defendant,the other portion by the prosecution (probably some Democratic legal pukes from the House of Representatives). No president has ever been impeached and convicted (Nixon resigned before impeachment was voted on by the House); about half the federal judges impeached have been convicted (two resigned, though, before trial). This compare badly with the federal court conviction rate in jury trials, which is over 98%.
Not a fan of impeachment at this stage, let's just throw the bum out when the election comes around. He can't do much more damage than he's already done in 2 1/2 years. Can he?
A two party system doesn't work if both parties work for the rich and powerful. It's not a US problem alone though, they're running things everywhere.
6
I remember Clinton's impeachment proceedings as a long, hyper-partisan slog that reeked of brinksmanship. I remember it felt exhausting and never ending. I also think everyone I know felt more optimistic and financially secure during those years. I have a gut feeling that most Americans spend about 15 focused minutes on the news a day, if that. My question is: How does impeachment do anything other than take all the air away from our own 2020 candidates platforms? What if we simply exhaust average voters who already think what they think about Trump? What if it makes them feel unrepresented and disengaged?
5
The Republicans impeached Clinton in the House, the Senate found him not guilty and in the following mid-terms Democrats gained seats in House, followed by Newt Gingrich resigning as as Speaker of the House. If "past is prologue" and " a word to the wise is sufficient," the Democrats could lose the Presidency, Senate, and House in the net election if they have actual impeachment proceedings in the House of Representatives. Gaining more investigative authority while considering impeachment seems okay but not an impeachment in the House with Trump found "Not Guilty" in the Senate, giving this serial liar a true slogan to use to win reelection.
On an up note, if the Democrats focus on issues such health care, global warming, income inequality, sane international policies etc. with vision and vigor, they win and more importantly Trump loses.
6
No one is progressive enough for the far Left. No one. I consider myself a "Progressive" but it's gone way, way too far. No one has the pristine bona fides some of these folks are looking for in their next president. And here's the really bad news: anyone with those bona fides is unelectable, because we have to care what everyone in America thinks. Not just the people we think are "woke" enough.
You know what I would like to hear someone (literally anyone, at this point) talk about? We're going to have to tap the Social Security trust fund next year because more people will be withdrawing than contributing. That will be the condition going forward, for the foreseeable future, and the well will run dry without legislative reform. No one on the national stage has talked about fixing that problem in a very long time. How about that budget deficit and the national debt? Those are big problems! Who on the Democratic side is talking about (or even concerned about, seemingly) those issues? We're living in Chekov's Cherry Orchard right now - arguing about minor issues while around us the trees are falling. Please, anyone who is willing to take a sane, measured view on the issues and listen to all sides of an issue, run for president! Regardless of whether or not you're liberal enough for the Hezbollah-like faction currently driving the conversation in the Democratic party. "Any Functioning Adult 2020!"
13
Maureen, you had me until your assertions about impeachment. I agree about the purity and silliness and danger of attacking your own allies.
However, just because you (or any Dem) declare it so, does not make it so: "...you also have to recognize that, historically and politically, it is not the right thing to do because it will lead to disaster." These are different times; completely different situation/pres. There is absolutely no reason to assume "disaster" or to predict it. It just might be the best way to re-invigorate both the Democratic base and the people as a whole as well as to educate them Promoting the Americans as snowflakes that can't handle the truth is deleterious. Caving into and reinforcing impeachment "threats" is cowardly.
If not now, then when? If we don't do something now then there will never be another chance to demonstrate a) Congress's equal power and duty; b) Congress is capable of more than talk and obstruction; capable of actually doing something. c) recognizing potential risks to themselves, the Dems (and any GOP who join in) have courage of conviction and would sacrifice for the sake of the "democracy" and preserving democratic/Constitutional principles.
My sense is that's what the country as a whole is craving. The risks to the country and to the party of not impeaching are far greater than doing it. No guarantees either way - Trump/GOP will use it either way. They need to ignore him/them.
5
The fearful, do-nothing establishment Dems showing their colors again. They're worried that impeachment would allow Trump to fire up his base. What about firing up OUR base? Taking the bold step of impeaching a truely criminal president would show that, for once in the last 40 years, the Democrats are willing to actually stand up to Republican liars and crooks. The "proletariat" is aching to be led by bold leaders who actually believe in justice and the Constitution. Pelosi, of course, is too busy fretting out what might go wrong instead of fighting for what's right.
827
@Steve: Exactly. Trump supporters are always fired up on their own rage. They will vote no matter what. I'll vote for whoever the Dem nominee is, but as time wears on, there is aloss of momentum for the Democratic party. Impeachment is about the process as much as the outcome. Impeach. Now.
57
@Anne
The Dems are mired in the Clinton quagmire that taps Wall Street for its finances. As long as this situation exists they will continue to support candidates like Joe Biden who project only the "golden oldies." Impeach now! The situation demands moral and political leadership.
45
@Ed Kearney: I agree. I supported Warren even before she began calling for impeachment. A Biden type candidate just keeps us stuck. Yes, I'll vote for him if he wins the nomination but he'd be slow to repair any damage done to our country and slow to hold corporations to any new standards.
50
Maureen, I love and agree with everything in your column today, except for one line, (and believe me, no one wants the LRB impeached more than I do). Rottweilers are not racist, they are wonderful, fair, intelligent, loving companions and in no way similar to the resident.
8
It is quite possible that Mr. Trump will win re-election without being impeached. In my opinion, Mr. Trump is not the problem. Americans who seem to believe that the whole country is a racket are. Mr. Trump should be impeached. Ms. Pelosi needed not have gone around the country explaining reasons for not allowing impeachment proceedings to start. Mr. Trump is a stain on the American conscience and a disgrace to every American including those who love or loath him.
4
Foregoing impeachment now means foregoing it at any point in the four years following Trump's victory, should that happen. Because at that point, regardless of what legitimate basis had existed and will exist, Democrats will be accused of being purely political - and at that point, it will be. Democrats will be correctly accused of accepting Trump's crimes when it suited them (aka when they though that doing their jobs would not be politically expedient), and then resorting to it as a tool when they couldn't win an election fair and square. Fox News, Breitbart, Drudge, TPU and all the loonies will blast that from the mountaintops, and every single one of them will be indisputably correct. Thanks to "pragmatism."
Pelosi needs to do her job and Dowd needs to buy a heart-shaped box full of dignity to sample from.
7
Right or wrong, the 2016 election was about how bad Trump would be as president. The 2020 election, right or wrong, will be about how bad Trump has been as president. We can’t get away from it. It is about Trump and the bigotry and hatred he stands for. Impeachment or no impeachment, Democrats, left, right and center, must and will rally, no matter who is the candidate, to get rid of the disgrace and cancer that now inhabits the White House.
2
Whatever happened to the days when journalists and politicians weren’t pals so the journalists could actually be impartial when writing about those politicians and their actions? This is one huge reason our press is rightly ridiculed. I just don’t know who to believe anymore.
8
I would much rather see Trump be thrown out of office by the people and then go to jail. He doesn't care about the embarrassment of impeachment but I think he would care about spending a few years in a cell.
4
Supposedly the left wing of the Democratic Party requires a House impeachment (and Senate acquittal) in order to be mollified. A principled stand for Presidential accountability is understandable.
However, I am not convinced that failure to impeach will result in progressive Dems staying home on election day. That didn't turn out so well three years ago. People who have been marching against misogyny, against racism, against constant lying, against erratic behavior, etc. etc. are not going to stay home in 2020 in a fit of pique if President Trump is not impeached.
The greater political risk - and it's a risk to our whole American experiment! - is impeachment, doomed to fail in the Senate.
Impeachment was never intended to be some sort of integrity test for the House of Representatives. Impeachment is a tool for removing a President and Trump surely qualifies as impeachable, but it is a dead end if the removal is not going to happen.
We got into this mess at the ballot box (or by staying home) and the ballot box is where we will get out of it.
3
The main objective for the Democratic Party, for the country, should be defeating Trump in 2020. Impeachment does not guarantee removal from office, and it certainly doesn't guarantee losing an election. Just ask Bill Clinton.
Most of these comments suggest we lost in 2016 because the Democratic Party was short sighted, offering a flawed candidate in Hillary Clinton. Ridiculous. Clinton was the most qualified candidate. But she ran into a wall of misogyny, racism, election tampering and "faux news." She lost not because of our arrogance or our refusal to be progressive enough. She lost because some members of the party believed voting for a progressive was move important than keeping Trump out of office. Let's not make the same mistake again.
4
The main point is, Democrats kill each other off, shoot themselves in the foot, sabotage each other, reject unity and wonder why or how they (we) could lose when they know they are right. Enough!
All this disharmony just makes noise. Let's accept the leadership of Speaker Pelosi, she is our leader. She is in it for the long haul and sees the long game. Disagreements need to be civil discussions within each group and not public grand standing. Are we the adults in the room? Can we accept differences among ourselves without hysteria. Can we create a platform that makes sense and builds on the core beliefs we hold? Can we accept leadership from those with experience, patience and wisdom, without picking them to death? So far we are defeating ourselves. We need to wake up.
6
This push by centrist Democrats to spread the tiresome cliche of progressive "purity" is fascinating to me, considering that they are the ones who are constantly threatening to bolt if the Dem nominee isn't a pure enough moderate or centrist.
And I'm sure Republicans are having a good laugh watching centrist Democrats take up their talking points and use them to bash their fellow Democrats.
4
Trump is going to run against “the Squad” and probably win re-election.
8
And for the life of them they couldn’t see that this lesser of two evils would be worse than everybody? Almost the entire world could see this. It was in plain sight and still is. Who are these people? Pox on them!
1
So what is an acceptable cost for pursuing the justice that calls for impeachment?
1
Why do so many pundits who hate Democrats continue to tell Democrats what they need to do to win?
Why is it considered that impeaching Trump for committing 'high crimes and misdemeanors' is terrible and will cause Democrats to lose in 2020?
Do you think that if Democrats impeach Trump and the Senate will not convict that no Democrat will vote in 2020?
That other voters who are 'Independents' will suddenly say 'Gosh, Trump is great because he was treated badly by the mean old Democrats'?
That the Republican base support will move from 90% to 92% and blow Democrats out of the election? (Republicans will do this in the red states regardless of what Democrats do)
That the Democratic base will be so demoralize that they will not turn out in the 'swing' states or in the blue states?
The Pundits say 'the way to deal with Trump is vote him out'. Why isn't that still a viable way to deal with Trump after Impeachment fails in the Senate? (Remember, we'll still need to vote Pence out if Impeachment were to succeed)
Impeach or 'vote him out' are not mutually exclusive options but yet we are being told they are. Shame.
4
Ms. Dowd. You had me at "the progressives are the modern Puritans." You forgot only to capitalize the P in Progressive. Righteous anger and perhaps guilt and shame over their conspicuous privilege, zip codes, urbane worldliness or even (horrors!) elite status seem to wring any fun out of being 'plain old' liberal. And in the first debates we could almost feel the pressure on moderate democrats to put their hands in the air in support of the most unworkable propositions fielded by the moderators. The principled moderates in those debates must have felt like parishioners who hesitate to utter hallelujah at the right moment in the fire-and-brimstone sermon.
I fear that the party of no fun will stand little chance in a contest with the party-on-like-there's-no-tomorrow Trumpians. Moral superiority worn by secular humanists simply comes across as smugness. It makes the rest of us feel like "deplorables."
5
Self-righteousness. That's the loudest note from the far left. And that is what is floating out across the rest of the country, which means they are absolutely handing the election to Trump. I suspect this because some of my family members -- long term Massachusetts Democrats -- voted for Trump, and they are going to do so again. They are tired of being yelled at for being white, for their "privileges" that came from generations of hard work. That hard work includes my grandmother who raised 7 kids alone after my grandfather, a Boston cop, was killed by being hit in the head with a brick by the guy he was arresting. Middle class people don't really have the power and prestige that the left rants about, but the left alienates them via their tone deaf accusations -- and yes, anger. I don't like to call the far left progressive because their ideas are exclusionary; they as singular in their preferences as any Republican loyalist. They also come off as racists but you can't say that because they have built -- exactly right -- that wall of purity Someone brought a knife fight to the Democratic party and I really wonder why.
16
If standing against the actions of a horrifically immoral and unlawful President by calling for impeachment is seen as too risky an act by the Democrats, then I suspect Trump can be reelected simply because the "do no harm" Democratic candidate will be unable to with stand the Trump onslaught in 2020 against decency, liberalism, government regulation, and the environment.
4
Maureen Dowd is a wonderful writer with humor and a wonderful command of the language. Having said that, it's interesting to me how completely she misses the mark in this op-ed relative to content. She begins by correctly stating that the Democrats will not succeed in impeaching Trump, and therefore should not waste the remaining time until the November 2020 decisions pursuing impeachment; a course of action that was, and still is, dead on arrival. Her blindness comes in continuing to focus her animus and name calling on Trump. The Democrats, if they want to win, need to focus on coalescing around a sound, reasonable platform on which any candidate could run and sound rational. Strident calls for open borders, elimination of ICE, reparations for descendants of slaves, voting rights for illegal aliens, forgiveness of student debt, and abandonment of capitalism will not succeed in removing Trump from office. I hope the myopic hatred of Trump continues to blind Democrat leadership.
3
You said it all, Maureen. Progressive Puritanism will re elect Trump. Since the last debate I have been having this conversation with my friends. All of us over 65, Democrats and center/left politically. Even we know that Medicare For All is a doctrine that will fail in middle America. We get so tired of these folks shaking their fingers at us for not supporting policies promising " The United States of Utopia ".
However, I still want to see Trump impeached if only to know that it will be part of history he can't erase! Something that never happened to President Obama.
That's something that will drive him nuts.
3
I don't get why this so hard understand. The House has a vote, THIS WEEK, to impeach Trump. If it wins, it goes to the Senate where it doesn't win.
Case closed. The Democrats then go on to work on health care, the environment, etc.
Instead, we have Pelosi still not getting anything she wants, and people like Maureen telling us progressives how dumb we are.
One more think. The Democrats already had a chance to run a moderate against Trump. She lost in 2016.
4
I don't care if you have modest roots, Maureen Dowd. This column just shows how out of touch you are - after all, you are living the life of the Washington elite, the life of media person who gets too chummy with politicians and has more in common with them than with the average citizen. The rest of us are past worrying about chocolate and heels. The Earth is burning, and liberal democracy is under threat. If the Democrats manage to suffocate what seems to be a strong progressive movement, prepare for pitchforks.
9
Two and a half years into Trump's Presidency and "Dem Liberals" like Ms Dowd STILL haven't figured out how or why Trump was elected POTUS - which means that it is all but certain that Trump will be reelected as President in 2020...
4
Oh great, condemning progressives for upholding the ideals of the Democratic Party. And doing this in the name of unity. But of course, we should blindly trust Pelosi just because she has been in the belly of the beast for so long. Really? If you haven't noticed despite Pelosi's bullying tactics, Dems are inching the other way. People like Dowd and Pelosi are making it easier for the new progressives to gain control. It cannot happen soon enough.
5
Ms. Dowd, my compliments on an excellent piece of writing.....not that I entirely agree, but you make some excellent points. However, I must emphatically protest your defamation of Rottweilers, a fine & respected breed of canine. The supporters of the Occupant were evidently seeking a twisted breed of rabid hyena....and they got one.
1
@MaureenDowd
Thanks for a great column, Maureen! One of your best!
3
Real "purity" would have been Obama jailing some bankers
and taking those in who participated in torture by the US government.
6
Fantastic column Maureen. Always enjoy your work.
1
"They wanted a racist Rottweiler". No, actually, they didn't. Liberals want to paint all conservatives as racists, we're sick of it, and we voted for Trump as we will again in 2020.
Living in your bubble, it'll shock you once again because the disdain you have for people that aren't your friends.
How are we three years in and you still don't see this?
4
@Stu do you really think that Trump is a conservative?Forget who it favors, one of his first acts as president was to push through a $1.4 trillion, yes $1.4 trillion, tax cut. Hardly something that a conservative, whose primary principles include fiscal sensibility, would do. It seems far more likely that Donald Trump is a man who truly has no ideology. This seems to be clearly reflected in his numerous tweets,, and elsewhere.
1
@Stu. Dowd has family members who are Trump supporters. Don't assume everyone who opposes Trump is shut off from his supporters . She knows what she is talking about.
1
Thank you Ms. Dowd. This column is exactly true.
I voted the lesser of two evils too, and between the loudmouth developer with a failed TV show and the person who had been first lady, a U.S. senator, and secretary of state, it was no contest. Why oh why must we bend over backwards to appease Trump voters? Leave them and stop worrying instead.
1
Pragmatism "Trumps" idealism. Impeachment will never come up while Mitch McConnell runs the senate. He is a Republican first, and maybe, an American second. He looks for excuses to promote his party's myopic view of government. McConnell celebrated Harry Reid's use of the "nuclear" option in appointing federal judges, knowing fully well that "what goes around...comes around"...ie Merritt Garland. An unsuccessful impeachment would give Machiavelli Mitch and his "gang" enough reason to ignore the will of the voters and the constitution and somehow impeach any future democratic president. Impossible you say, think...there is no level so low that this man will not descend to promote his malignant notion of government. Slippery slope!