There have been increasing calls, including from some of your members, for impeachment of the president.At least in the order it appears in the Post article, Pelosi basically brushes off the idea of impeachment. In the next answer, she says that the American democratic system may not survive a second Trump term as President.
I’m not for impeachment. This is news. I’m going to give you some news right now because I haven’t said this to any press person before. But since you asked, and I’ve been thinking about this: Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path, because it divides the country. And he’s just not worth it.
A lot of Americans are really anxious about where the country is right now, and some of them feel the nation’s institutions are in a perilous state. Do you share that concern?
No. Here’s why I don’t: Our country is great. It’s a great country. Our founders gave us the strongest foundation. … All the challenges we have faced, we can withstand anything. But maybe not two [Trump] terms. So we have to make sure that doesn’t happen. [my emphasis in italics]
The Congress does have a Constitutional responsiblity to hold the President accountable to the law. The Democratic Speaker of the House just announced she doesn't care about it. Not only does it reinforce the already bipartisan trend of impunity for Executive officials for committing crimes. It means that the Republicans will use impeachment for frivolous and crassly partisan reasons, while the Democrats won't use it for even the most legitimate reasons.
Charlie Pierce was pretty grumpy about this news, and rightly so:
Sorry, Madam Speaker. If you really believe the president* is an unprecedented threat to the Constitution, your oath demands that you begin the process to remove him. It's your job. https://t.co/yzRrWPWv4S— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) March 11, 2019
Given the trend of increasing disregard of law by Presidents, it would be silly to say Trump is the worst it can get. But if a Democratic Party with the current type of leadership won't use impeachment against Donald Trump based on what we already know of his conduct, it's hard to imagine they would use it against any Republican President, ever.
This confirms my suspicion that Pelosi is approaching the current situation as a repeat of 2006-8. The Democrats won the House majority away from the Republicans in the 2006 midterm elections. They refrained from launching any bold progressive programs and passing such bills in the House to force the Republican Senate and President Shrub Bush from taking a politically damaging public stance against them. They concentrated on emphasizing Bush Administration scandals and failures like the Hurrican Katrina response.
And, from today's perspective, in 2008 the Democrats successfully elected a corporate Democrat as President and for two years controlled both Houses of Congress, as well. But it's also important to remember that in the primaries, Obama was generally perceived as the more liberal of the two major candidates, with Hillary Clinton's campaign calling his supporters "Obama Boys". And since Obama was the first major party black candidate, at least some primary voters presumably viewed a vote for Obama as a liberal/progressive statement in itself. Most importantly, Obama used a movement-building organizing model for the 2008, headed by former United Farm Workers organizer Marshall Ganz, who described the project this way (Organizing Obama: Campaign, Organizing, Movement Aug 2009):
Over the course of the previous two years, a movement took shape within a political campaign, the "movement to elect Barack Obama." Like earlier movements, it was rooted in shared values (equality, hope, community in diversity), driven by the creative energy of young people, demanded personal and political change (racial attitudes, acceptance of civic responsibility, etc.), focused on a clear strategic objective (electing Obama) and grew faster – and deeper - than anyone imagined. Because organizing was at its core it generated far more than a list of donors, potential donors, and a network of elected officials, funders, and campaign operatives: it trained some 3000 full time organizers, most of them in their 20‘s; it organized thousands of local leadership teams (1100 in Ohio alone); and it engaged some 1.5 million people in coordinated volunteer activity. And because this national campaign built its own local organization – and eschewed the usual goulash of interest groups, party organizations, contractors, and 527‘s – it was able to develop a new political culture, a foundation for a genuine renewal of American politics. [my emphasis]Also very important was that Obama had publicly opposed the Iraq War while Hillary Clinton as a Senator had voted to authorize it, but the Iraq War was very unpopular among Democratic primary voters in 2018.
In other words, Obama in that campaign and the general election campaign took a different approach than the Democratic establishment would normally use. But it's easy to see how corporate Democrats would be amenable to a view of the 2006-8 period that sees it as the House Democrats just cruising and raising money off Bush's unpopularity and then coasting into the Presidency.
And it really sounds like that is Pelosi's assumption:
Do you feel that he has done anything that has been good for America?I'm not sure how that comment can be read as anything other than Nancy Pelosi thinking it's politically a good thing for the Democrats to keep Trump in the White House through his first term. Liberals like to mock leftists for supposedly saying that having Trump as President would "heighten the contradictions" and help the left. Pelosi doesn't say "contradictions" there. But I don't see how that differs from those (mostly apocraphal) lefties who say that.
He’s been a great organizer for Democrats, a great fundraiser for Democrats and a great mobilizer at the grass-roots level for Democrats. [Laughs.] And I think that’s good for America.
Of course, since Pelosi thinks a second Trump term could endanger the foundations of the American government, presumably she is confident that the Democrats will win the Presidency in 2020. Although, as Joe Heim notes in the introduction, "Pelosi ... never thought that Donald Trump would be elected president."
And in the passage to which Charlie Pierce referred, Pelosi says:
We have a very serious challenge to the Constitution of the United States in the president’s unconstitutional assault on the Constitution, on the first branch of government, the legislative branch. … This is very serious for our country. Forgetting politics, forgetting partisanship, just talk about patriotism. So in terms of divisiveness, that we don’t see a commensurate - I don’t want to say reaction, just action - on the part of Republicans to the statements and actions the president is taking, yeah, this is probably the most divisive and serious. Serious, because again it’s about our fundamentals; it’s not about our politics. [my emphasis]And she says near the end:
What keeps me up at night is the concern I have about the lack of respect for the Constitution, for our values, for our responsibilities and the rest that exists in the White House. And how can we, because you have so many issues, how do we stay focused and just make sure the public knows this isn’t, again, about politics, it’s about who we are as a nation. [my emphasis]Matt Bors did a cartoon last summer called Socialist surprise poking fun at the timidity of the Democratic establishment that closed with this:
So it's seems like Nancy Pelosi is still betting on the Hundred Years of Darkness strategy.
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