Democrats Starting To Urge Their Party To Pump the Brakes on Impeachment
For Democratic lawmakers in deep-blue regions, simply the idea of an impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump is a guaranteed win. But Democrats who narrowly won in conservative areas are beginning to worry.
Some, especially those facing re-election, are worried that the impeachment proceedings could spill over from Trump’s conversation with Ukraine’s president and drag on.
Sen. Joe Manchin, who won re-election in West Virginia in 2018 by only a few percentage points, is urging his fellow Democrats to stay focused.
“I think it’s much better if it’s going to be focused because there’s a whole load of hay out there that they’ve been talking about for so long,” Manchin told The Hill.
West Virginia, a state where Trump carried every single county in 2016 and ended up with more than twice the total votes of his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, would not look kindly on impeachment proceedings turning into an anti-Trump circus.
Manchin’s slim victory could mean that his good graces with the people of West Virginia are close to running out, even without a Trump impeachment. The senator remains adamant that an investigation should be conducted, however.
“I just think anytime a foreign entity is involved, it needs to be investigated,” he told The Hill.
Manchin is not the lone voice in his party urging caution, either.
“It’s really incumbent on the House to really be laser-focused. The president is a master of pivoting and deflecting, and I think it’s really important to stay focused,” Montana Sen. Jon Tester said, according to The Hill.
Tester experienced a victory almost as close as Manchin’s, and Montana’s pro-Trump values promise to close that gap if impeachment gets out of hand.
With the way Democrats are handling impeachment, it likely won’t take much to turn many Americans against it.
Rep. Adam Schiff, the lawmaker seemingly leading the charge against Trump, already has his motives in question after a prank call last year caught him allegedly asking foreigners for dirt on the president.
Although he claimed to know the stunt was a prank, not everyone is convinced. It’s hard to imagine an impartial investigation with this man behind the helm.
Beyond the obvious problems with Schiff, there’s the shaky ground the whistleblower’s complaint is built on in the first place.
Relying mostly on secondhand information and news articles, the complaint is more hearsay than a damning accusation of the president’s wrongdoing.
Going all-in on impeachment may be a winning strategy for liberal Democrats in “safe” districts, but for many with constituents on the fence, this could very well cost them re-election.
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