Incompetence in Washington

Yes, yes. I know it is a popular American sport to rail about the incompetence of Washington politicians. But really, can it get much worse than this??

I am no fan of Donald Trump, and I actually agree with most liberal goals, if not always with the way they try to achieve them. But I have to say that this whole impeachment business shows a level of incompetence among Democratic politicians that I would expect of a banana republic.

The Democratic majority in the House ran a sham investigation, in which they sharply restricted the Republicans’ ability to call defense witnesses or cross-examine prosecution witnesses, and then voted to impeach along strict party lines without a single Republican vote.

The Republican majority in the Senate will now no doubt return the favor by voting along strict party lines to acquit without a single Democratic vote. The whole thing is nothing more than time-wasting partisan political theater, and it sets a dangerous precedent (actually first set by Republicans in the Clinton impeachment) of using impeachment as a partisan political weapon. Expect the next Democratic president to have to face the same thing now.

And the charges? (1) That Trump tried to use the threat of withholding U.S. aid to encourage a foreign government to do what he wanted, something every president since the end of World War II has done on occasion, and which then Vice-President Biden even bragged publicly about doing (see the video clip here). And (2) that Trump used claims of executive privilege to obstruct Congress, something which every president at least since World War II has done when Congress tried to muscle in on the executive branch.  Trump is no saint, but if Democrats want to replace him, they need to do it at the ballot box, not by shabby political knife fights like this.

And then Speaker Pelosi delays the start of the trial, which forces some of the main Democratic candidates for the 2020 election to sit silent in the Senate six days a week, while some of their opponents get to campaign freely in the early voting states. Was this just stupidity on her part, or a cynical attempt to disadvantage some candidates in favor of others (like Biden?). But then of course letting the whole impeachment movement get started in the first place ensures that Biden’s sleazy relationship with the Ukraine, that earned his son some $3 million dollars, gets maximum and continuous public exposure, damaging his chances of getting elected. What was she thinking?

More than that, the Democrats have fielded the most pathetic set of candidates. The leaders are all old (almost as old as I am, and I am certainly too old to run the country well), the leading progressives, Sanders and Warren, are proposing outlandishly expensive giveaway programs that could never pass Congress, and could never be funded if they did, despite their fanciful dreams of soaking the rich to pay for it. Biden can’t remember what state his in on some days. Buttigieg is the darling of the media, and certainly says a lot of the right things, but in fact has never been more than the mayor of a mid-sized Indiana town, and never won more than 11,000 votes. Really? Is this the best the party can come up with?

Not that Republicans are in any better shape, but it is the Democrats who need to up their game if they are to win back power, and I don’t see them doing that. They seem to be driven by the most extreme and naïve voices in the twittersphere, rather than by any cool political calculations.  And as a result the election looks to me like Trump’s to lose, and the betting public seems to agree.

Another election in which I want to check the “none of the above” box on the ballot.