He certainly thinks that, and a lot of DNC politicians seem afraid of that.
But impeachment proceedings and investigations (of any sort) put evidence and the Administration’s actions in public view. In hard to deny ways. And every time that’s happened public opinion has shifted more in favor of investigations and impeachment. And the number of house members and prominent DNC members advocating it ticks up. They’ve even got a GOP guy pushing it now. So I think there’s very little reason to fear backlash unless they go off half cocked and do something baldly political.
The problem they’re in right now is that impeachment is not popular with the general public or within their caucus. You’ve got to continue shifting public opinion, but they’re being blocked from the primary thing that can do that. The Mueller report is functionally meaningless without its backing evidence. And other investigations and releases are being blocked by the subpoena fight. So there’s a lot of very frustrating, circular legal wrangling going on right now.
They’re definitely being very frustrating in their messaging and I don’t think they’re generally making enough noise. Trump’s claims of executive privlege are unprecedented in their scale, and an abuse of power in and of themselves. And the brass’s (including Pelosi’s) unwillingness to give clear statements on impeachment are rapidly entering pointlessness. Maybe that was a useful posture in the early offing but its become a crappy bit of horse race coverage for the media, and its antagonizing the Democratic base.
I personally don’t think its wise to pull the trigger before the subpoena problem starts to clear and they get at the Mueller documents, find a way to make people testify. But it’s going to be out of their hands before long. And its fairly obvious impeachment is in the offing. At a certain point its more embarrassing to deny it.
I think that recent polling and those leaks should put a nail on that coffin. When even their internal polls show the guy losing 60-40 to anyone its not clear that waving impeachment around is gonna meaningfully shift the thing. 80+% of GOP members already oppose impeachment and it still looks like his polls under perform his shitty, shitty approval ratings.
The bigger concern for me is a mishandled impeachment validating and feeding that horseshit.
I don’t think they’re stuck on “if”. I think they’re stuck on the don’t feed it part.
