I wish Democrats weren't such pussies. Let's ignore that Trump committed impeachable offenses because we won't be able to remove him anyway. Pelosi seems to think it would hurt them politically in the next election. My opinion is that not starting impeachment proceedings when faced with such obvious criminality will backfire. To the layman who doesn't follow politics closely it only looks like that's an excuse and they really don't have enough evidence to impeach.
And then there's this notion floating around that Trump is "counting on" impeachment. Like he thinks having his crimes aired in a public forum (rather than merely buried in a 400 page report) will help him in the next election. I just don't see it.
It would be the moral and right thing to do for the Dems to codify all the abuses outlined in the M report and present them to congress for impeachment proceedings. That would be the right thing to do.
However....
We can't afford to make this ding-dong a political martyr. With a corrupt AG on his side and a majority in the Senate, this is the kind of mudslinging shitfight Trump loves. He knows that few people will actually read the report and see the actual facts. He built his career on hype, bullshit and army of lawyers which he will use to obstruct any investigation for years.
Remember, Bill Clinton actually got a bump in the polls during his impeachment and we actually had a sample of presidential spooge on the infamous blue dress. ( and if I recall, the dems also picked up some legislative seats.)
The Republican party hated Richard Nixon. They didn't like him personally and they didn't like his policies. But when the investigations started, they rallied all their resources to protect him from the treasonous attacks of "the liberal jackals." Keep in mind, Nixon was a lame duck president and yet they still sold their integrity to protect him.
Donald Trump is a first term president with the potential to put another conservative justice on the Supreme Court. The Republicans have already demonstrated they are ok with his corruption, lying and pussy grabbing. We can assume they will do whatever it takes to get him re-elected, even accepting help from the Russians. (or as Guiliani might say, not preventing the Russians from helping him but not actually coordinating with them.)
Impeachment would be justice but we need him gone. Just let him keep screwing shit up, tweeting stupid shit and we'll crush him in a landslide on election day. The problem is that we can't be sure that the Democrats aren't going to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by nominating someone more fucked up than Trump like they did last time. Darth Vader isn't real and El Chapo isn't a U.S. citizen but with so many nominees who knows what kind of Occupy Wall Street, communist freak-out they might come up with.
Anthony Weiner just got out of prison.Remember him? The New York congressman who got bust sending pictures of his weiner to women AND HIS NAME IS WEINER! This guy is calling out for the Democratic nomination.