Democratic Congressman Don Beyer (VA-8) has been one of the most outwardly opposing figures against President Donald Trump since the 2016 election. More recently, at a campaign forum sponsored by the Arlington County Civic Federation, Beyer said of the President, “He’s a disaster.” Though, this is fairly subdued to some of the press releases sent from his office in Washington, and other comments hurled towards the Commander-in-Chief.
Beyer, along with the entirety of the Democratic Party who currently hold elected positions, has been calling for the impeachment of the President over the last year or so, spurred by partisan fighting and the opposition of everything stemming from the White House, whether it actually helps people or not – i.e. the “crumbs” of the tax cuts.
NextGen America, the political funding arm of California billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer, has vowed to dump $30 million into House races this year in hopes of flipping the red majority in Congress blue, with the end goal of serving Trump impeachment papers at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
It seems, however, more and more Democrats have been backing off impeachment chants as the November midterms draw closer. This was echoed by Congressman Beyer just days ago.
“I don’t believe impeachment should ever be partisan – it should be done together,” Beyer said during the forum, according to a report from Inside NOVA. He suggested that partisan-based impeachment proceedings could lead to a “tit-for-tat” response from Republicans the next time a Democrat wins the presidency.
This may be one of the first times that Beyer has actually attempted to reach out to the other side of the aisle, considering he still gets upset about airports named after conservative figures.
In the 1998-1999 impeachment proceedings of President Bill Clinton, just five Democrats in the House of Representatives voted for at least one of the four charges brought against the president. Although majority Republicans, led by then-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, were able to move the vote into the Senate, it was abruptly halted as no members of Senate Democratic Caucus voted in favor of impeaching the president. Just 50 senators, all Republicans, voted to remove Clinton on the obstruction of justice charge, and only 45 voted to remove him on the perjury charge – far less than the two-thirds plus one, 67-member supermajority vote needed to follow through with impeachment.
The party that failed to follow through with the impeachment proceedings paid a big price – some of which is still being felt by Republican members of Congress who have held their positions since the late 1990s.
Even if Democrats take back the House in November, with the main goal being impeachment, and the proceedings are voted on, passed, and then to the Senate, those opposing the President would be lucky to get 40 votes, 27 less than the 67 needed. This, of course, is if the Senate remains with 51 Republicans and 49 Democrats as it stands now. This is not even taking into account the fact that there are 10 Democratic senators up for re-election in states that Trump carried in 2016.
In a parallel universe, even if impeachment were to go through, as many of the political lambasters in the streets wish every night before they go to bed, who do we end up with sitting in the Oval Office?
Vice President Mike Pence.
Now, Pence is someone that makes even William F. Buckley look a bit liberal. So, is it that progressives have no idea what happens when a president is impeached? Do they believe there would be another election, wherein they could bring back Barack Obama, or finally vote in Hillary Clinton?
Maybe the progressives running about in the streets still believe in third term for Obama, but it is quite possible that elected Democrats have now realized that consequences of removing President Trump from office. They have now realized that if they achieve their goal of impeaching Trump, in return, they get, arguably, the most conservative man in elected U.S. politics. Not really great for their brand.