Like some nightmare Greek chorus sounding dolefully from the wings, San Francisco swamp thing Willie Brown is telling Democrats they're about to go down like the Titanic in their obsession with impeaching President Trump.
In his San Francisco Chronicle column, Brown writes:
If the goal was to damage President Trump by formalizing the impeachment inquiry, it's Mission Unaccomplished for House Democrats.
If anything, the vote solidified Trump's hold on power. There were zero GOP defections, meaning we have zero drama heading into the public phase of impeachment. Everyone is pretty much in the same lanes they've been in since the Russian-collusion investigation, the obstruction of justice investigation and every other investigation.
Unfortunately for the Democrats, that gives people little reason to be glued to their screens when House committees take public testimony. The basic story ‐ Trump pressured Ukraine to announce investigations into Democrats that would help Trump ‐ is out there already. People know how they feel about it, and if you believe the polls, they're pretty evenly split on whether the president deserves to be thrown out of office.
The 80-something retired machine pol, who served as state House speaker and San Francisco mayor, and basically made Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom, and Nancy Pelosi, is now like Batman trying to slap sense into Robin or else some miserable pud-knocker of his alliance.
Brown's conclusion is withering:
So the Democrats will spend the next few precious months acting out a pretend cliffhanger to which everyone actually knows the script and the ending. No plot twists in sight. Remember health care, the issue that won so many elections for Democrats in 2018? You might, but they don't seem to.
Come next year, Trump will have an impeachment victory and quite possibly a solid economy. The Democrats will have ‐ what?
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