Chuck Schumer's Pathetic, Embarrassing Impeachment

Mitch McConnell is still the leader of the Senate and if Chuck Schumer were ever cast in a movie, he’d have to be cast as the Gimp in Pulp Fiction with Donald Trump his master.

A year ago, Chuck Schumer said an impeachment trial would be a sham if there were no witnesses to call. On Saturday, after a week of hedging on witnesses, a bipartisan group of senators agreed to call witnesses. In fact, 55 senators decided to call witnesses.

Then they didn’t.

Chuck Schumer had the opportunity to deliver a real impeachment trial. The Senate is not going to be in session this week. They could have deposed witnesses this week. The Senate could have recessed from the impeachment and confirmed Biden appointees or voted on COVID relief while the depositions of witnesses were happening.

But they chose to move on.

They were never really into an impeachment trial. This was Chuck Schumer’s sham.

While Washington may have been fixated, the political press may have covered it, and both members of congress and reporters who cover the Hill may have confessed to being in tears at times, most Americans were watching the snow.

Schumer could have given the public a spectacle they paid attention to. But he moved on. He could have given the nation a memorable impeachment trial. He declined.

He had the votes. He could have done it. He did not.

If the Senate Democrats won’t even call witnesses after getting bipartisan agreement to do so, you’l have to excuse me if I laugh when Democrats and the press assure me the public will hold the GOP accountable moving forward.

You know that is not true even if you can’t admit it.

Moving forward, over the weekend, former Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ) says the GOP cannot survive as the party of Trump. There are parts of the country that this is true. But in those parts of the country, the GOP has gotten members of congress elected who are not Trump Republicans. In other parts of the country, Trump Republicans outperformed other Republicans. Nationwide, Donald Trump came within 43,000 votes of getting re-elected.

I don’t think we’re going to see Trump 2024 at this point. I think over the next four years, prosecutors, civil litigators, and corporate activists are going to bleed every drop of money they can from Donald Trump to ensure he is not viable. He is no longer a hypothetical and no longer a candidate Jeff Zucker, Roger Ailes, or any other media titan can casually promote for ratings without consequence as so many did in 2015 and 2016.

I don’t know whether he will want to run again. I just foresee a legal quagmire for him that makes it all but impossible to do so. Mitch McConnell is right that Trump has not yet faced the full fall out of what is coming.

Undoubtedly, that will solidify part of the GOP base for him in solidarity with him. But it will allow other voices to step forward. The path forward for the GOP is the path that takes elements of what Donald Trump did that blue collar voters appreciated and wraps it with a happy warrior veneer — someone who fights, but with a smile and a laugh, not a wink toward QAnon.

One thing is for sure. As we move forward, impeachment will not be an albatross around the GOP’s neck and neither will Trump. As much as some of the media and Democrats want to tie the GOP to Trump and sink it all, Chuck Schumer had 55 votes to call witnesses at an impeachment trial and declined.

Schumer’s sham shows the path forward for the GOP — a path that begins with not worrying about what Democrats think about them.