Report: Dem Groups Organizing to Push Public Support toward Impeachment
Democrat groups are reportedly organizing in order to build public support for impeachment and to pressure GOP senators to vote for removal from office.
In an article entitled, “Dems scramble to counter Trump with grassroots impeachment campaign: Outside groups on the left are coordinating to build public support and pressure GOP senators as Democrats get fully behind impeachment,” Politico details a meeting of over 100 Democrat activists who are focused on “selling” the American public on impeaching President Trump.
Politico reports:
More than 100 Democrats gathered on a Wednesday call to get the party organized on an existential question: How to sell the public on impeaching President Donald Trump.
For several years, the impeachment push has been defined by activists beating the drum on Trump — and powerful Democrats in Washington ignoring their calls. But in the two weeks since House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced an impeachment inquiry, this organizational hub has sprouted in Washington, commissioning polling, sponsoring ads and trying to guide the energy in the party toward a message and result the public will support, while counteracting a blistering, expensive anti-impeachment campaign from Trump and the Republican National Committee.
At the center of the emerging movement are several progressive groups that boast big memberships, including Indivisible and MoveOn, that have been joined by an array of other groups spanning the Democratic Party. Outside strategists including Zac Petkanas, former director of rapid response for Hillary Clinton, have started aiding the effort.
“It’s going to be very intense. It’s all hands on deck for grassroots folks and everybody in D.C.,” said Meagan Hatcher-Mays, director at the grassroots organization Indivisible.
On the one hand, this is good news. If they are organizing, they are worried. This suggests that Democrats are not yet satisfied that there is sufficient public support to commence with a formal (i.e. actual) impeachment in the House, the kind that requires a vote.
The failure to hold a House vote, the increasing secrecy of the impeachment “inquiry,” and the raw display of Democrat double standards and hypocrisy are harming Democrats in their latest attempt to nullify the 2016 election over President Trump’s phone call with the Ukrainian president.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was against impeachment before she was for it. And she had a good reason for opposing it: without public support, impeachment is a non-starter.
In March, I blogged that Pelosi stated, “Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path, because it divides the country. And he’s just not worth it.”
That was true then, and it’s true now. Thus, the proposed assault on the public by assorted Democrat and progressive groups.
While it’s good news on the one hand, it’s bad news on the other. The left excels at organizing and at nudging public perception. It also excels at pressuring politicians with a barrage of phone calls, letters, emails, texts, web and television ads, and etc.
Politico covers how these tactics will come into play in the ongoing effort to shift both public support and that of GOP senators toward not only impeachment but removal from office.
Democratic organizations are beginning to launch ad campaigns to counter Trump’s lead and make the case to voters that he should be impeached. Need to Impeach has already begun spending $3.1 million targeting Senate Republicans on impeachment. The ads no longer feature the group’s former leader, Tom Steyer, who is now running for president, and instead target individual senators: “Tell Susan Collins to put country over party,” one ad airing in Maine says.
The progressive digital organization ACRONYM this week launched a $1 million online campaign focused on impeachment in five swing states, and Indivisible and MoveOn are among the other organizations also considering running media campaigns. Need to Impeach plans to air more ads and ACRONYM is considering expanding its advertising to a national scale.
. . . . Several of the groups with grassroots members feel Democrats will have the votes they need to impeach Trump in the House, so they are already looking to pressure Republican senators to break ranks with their party and vote to remove Trump from office.
Indivisible, which has 5,000 local chapters, has outlined plans to target 13 Republican senators, including several vulnerable lawmakers up for reelection, such as Sens. Cory Gardner of Colorado and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, as well as retiring Sens. Johnny Isakson of Georgia and Pat Roberts of Kansas, and select others who have been critical of Trump, such as Sen. Mitt Romney ofUtah [sic].
In addition to tapping organizers in those senators’ states, Indivisible and other groups have begun using phone banking and peer-to-peer texting to allow out-of-state volunteers to rally support across state lines. Some of that work started during the congressional recess, though leaders from grassroots organizations said they are preparing members for a lengthy, intense issue campaign.
The left also, obviously, has the full force and weight of the leftstream media at its disposal to keep the pressure on the public and on GOP senators. It is tempting to dismiss this weapon as hoisted by its own petard of dishonesty and hackery, but there are broad swaths of the American public who do not share the right’s skepticism of (once) well-regarded news outlets.
It is not clear that the right has an effective means of countering this sort of massive, organized effort by Democrats and their allies. Perhaps it should.
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