Retraction, July 18, 2019: Events have transpired that force me to acknowledge that the faith I have placed in Nancy Pelosi was foolishly misplaced. Consider this the Democratic Party’s last chance and that, with me, they have now absolutely blown it. There is no merit or legitimacy to be found in this party which I now refer to as the neoliberal party.[1]
When one confuses what should be with what is, they commit the naturalistic fallacy. And so it is with calls for impeachment reverberating through my Twitter feed.
In essence, the argument is still Will Bunch’s, that horrible things may well happen, but impeachment is the “right thing.”[2] This is supplemented by assertions that impeachment is the constitutional remedy for executive branch stonewalling of congressional investigations[3] and speculation that as investigations proceed, support for impeachment will increase or, at least, that opposition might decrease.[4] Read more
- [1]David Benfell, “A retraction: I now support impeachment,” July 18, 2019, https://disunitedstates.org/2019/07/18/a-retraction-i-now-support-impeachment/↩
- [2]Will Bunch, “Trump’s diabolical plan to blow up democracy, get reelected and avoid jail just might work,” Philadelphia Inquirer, May 5, 2019, https://www.philly.com/opinion/commentary/trump-wants-impeachment-2020-reelection-strategy-blame-democrats-ignore-subpoenas-20190505.html↩
- [3]Anna Palmer, Jake Sherman, and Daniel Lippman, “How would you explain the Democratic investigations to a Washington outsider?” Politico, May 15, 2019, https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook/2019/05/15/how-would-you-explain-the-democratic-investigations-to-a-washington-outsider-436677↩
- [4]Becky Palmer, [microblog post], May 18, 2019, https://twitter.com/palmer_becky/status/1129841881041559555?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw↩