The great impeachment confection...

American Thinker

The great Democrat impeachment confection starts to curdle

Democrats have puffed up impeachment as their latest bid to overturn the 2016 election and now polls show the public is getting wise to them. 

First, from The Hill, citing Morning Consult:

Support for President Trump's impeachment slipped 4 percentage points since mid-October, according to a poll released Wednesday. 

The Morning Consult survey found that 47 percent of respondents now back impeachment. In mid-October, a record-high majority — 51 percent — supported it. 

and this, from Twitter, linking RealClearPolitics:

Brutal impeachment numbers for Dems in new Monmouth poll: 73% have little/no trust in process, 60% say Dems are more interested in destroying Trump than finding facts, 51% oppose impeachment, only 37% say Trump's actions are clear grounds for impeachment. https://t.co/xmpCMujZn6

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) November 5, 2019

So much for the claims 51% of the public wanting President Trump out. Not after record-low unemployment numbers. Not after taking the thug leading ISIS out of circulation. Something is turning.

More to the point, both polls show a common denominator in what Peggy Noonan (yes, we are mad at her for her latest tripe) noted earlier was the critical element, the public perception of fairness. Any public perception of a lack of fairness in the process, she argued, would ruin the Democrats' dream of overturning the 2016 election via impeachment. She said it almost as an aside. But that's exactly the dynamic we see now, as public support tumbles.

The turning point, according to the Morning Consult poll, seems to have come right at the point whe Democrats announced their quickie-fast formal impeachment inquiry, a kangaroo court whose verdict was already known. 

It comes on top of the other evidence that Democrats have run their impeachment process spectacularly unfairly.

Led by Rep. Adam Schiff, an unfit partisan operative with spectacular conflicts of interest, Schiff is the worst sort of guy to be leading the effort - a rabid partisan who ought to be a witness in the hearings for orchestrating the whole whistleblower opener - not the puppetmaster.

Then there was the secrecy of the initial hearings in some dank Capitol basement, something Schiff claimed was needed to prevent witnesses from corroborating stories. As those went on, it grew pretty obvious that what Schiff wanted was to scope out witnesses in order to cherrypick the most useful ones and sideline the ones who didn't say what he wanted. He even coached and coaxed witnesses, telling some to not answer Republican questions. Nice fair process...

As that went on, selective leaks followed, all of them favorable to Schiff's partisan position, pretty well blowing apart the argument about corroboration. The non-leaks, from those who exculpated Trump, was even more proof that the whole thing was a railroad job, not a fair hearing.

Then came the unilateral rules-setting for the formal impeachment inquiry, which came solely from the Democrats. Their way or the highway, bi-partisanship is only touted when Democrats are in positions of weakness.

Democrats could call any witness they liked. Republicans would be reduced to asking permission to call witnesses from Adam Schiff alone. 

Participation in the hearings was cut by two thirds, with the rather relevant Judiciary and Foreign Affairs committee members cut out, the better to keep sharp Republicans, such as Reps. Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows, from asking any questions. (Republicans got around it by moving Jordan to the Intelligence committee where Jordan, lucky him, now gets to sit in a room with Schiff.)

Trump's attorney would be shut out from the hearings, despite his obvious interest and past precedent -- that was additional fuel on the burnt offering of unfairness.

Who the heck could see the process as fair? As more and more evidence comes out through other means exculpating President Trump and highlighting the coordinated plot that came beforehand, of course public support is falling.

Which would explain why Democrats aren't saying as much as they did earlier about impeachment on the campaign trail. Elizabeth Warren is making her campaign issues all about how she wants to tax everyone to pay for her vastly expanded social programs. She's annoying big banks and Silicon Valley with her yellings about them. Joe Biden is waxing about his woikin' class roots and supposed support for the little guy. Kamala Harris is dancing in Iowa as her state burns. She's not talking about impeachment, either.

Maybe that's because they all know the public is getting sick of the whole thing. Even President Trump, making a speech in Louisiana, spoke of local issues rather than the outrage of impeachment as he did earlier in Kentucky, where his endorsed candidate lost. 

Obviously, the Schiff show is a loser. And as more and more information gets out about the rank unfairness of it all, public support is now falling. The trendline is clear and Democrats are now forewarned that they're the ones who are going to be paying the price.

Image credit: Photo illustration by Monica Showalter from public domain sources