Oh, be quiet, J.B. You're confusing us!

All the more reason we ought to hear less chatter from officials about presidential impeachment who aren’t directly involved in the process. Because it all too often seems like they don’t have any comprehension what it is they’re talking about.

Everybody has opinion on Trump outcome, … 

Take the case of Illinois’ governor, J.B. Pritzker, who back in April engaged in rhetoric that tried to make it seem as though he has long been a supporter of those people who want Donald Trump removed from office by force of Congress.

BUT THEN LAST week, the Politico newspaper published a Pritzker interview in which it seemed our governor was not quiet as hard-line on the impeachment issue. Perhaps he’d rather see Trump lose the 2020 general election and be removed from office that way.

But now, the Capitol Fax newsletter points out that J.B. may be backing away from that stance. Or as the Springfield-based newsletter phrased it, he’s “backing away from backing away.”

As the newsletter quotes the governor, “I think he should be out of office as soon as humanly possible. The only question to me is, is that gonna happen with an impeachment process or is that gonna happen with an election?”

Huh?!?

IT SEEMS TO me that Pritzker wants to be in the camp of people who don’t think much of Donald Trump (which according to the most-recent Gallup Organization poll includes 51 percent of the country). But the ranks of people who think it a national embarrassment that The Donald was ever permitted to occupy the Oval Office are split on this issue.

Pritzker not being able to take a definitive stance on presidential impeachment does nothing more than clutter the public discourse with more vague pronouncements that don’t do a thing to make the issue more clear to the public.

Personally, I’m amongst the ranks of people who’d see the impeachment process as a complete waste of time – largely because even if the House of Representatives with its Democratic Party majority votes to impeach the man, he’d still have to go on trial before the Senate.

… but does Pritzker know enough for it to matter?

Which has a Republican Party majority loaded with officials who are determined to protect the presidential reputation no matter how stupid he gets.

I REALIZE THAT the pro-impeachment types argue they’re making a political statement and that they want to be on the record as wanting to Dump Trump from the White House. They talk of putting the Senate on the record as being for The Donald, because they want to believe it will hold the GOP up to shame and ridicule.

Which, if you want to be honest, is nonsense. Largely because I’m convinced the Trump political backers have no shame. They’re also more than willing to spin the process into a claim that Trump has been vindicated – a word they’d prefer to use over “acquitted.”

Which they’ll hate to use because it would imply there was legitimacy to the charges against Trump to begin with.

Pushing for impeachment could do little more than create a lengthy process that ends with Trump remaining in office – and further motivating the ideologues into thinking they’re morally superior for backing Trump to begin with.

IF ANYTHING, IT’S going to take an outright electoral defeat to actually get Trump out of office (although it wouldn’t shock me if Trump backers were to think in terms of a coup ‘d etat to remain in office beyond January 2021, regardless of what the people say).

Yes, these are irrational political times, and we have to think in such terms, which are appalling but honest and truthful.

So Pritzker might have been right when he told Politico that there might not be enough time to work our way through the impeachment process and actually remove Trump from office. It doesn’t help matters if his stance keeps switching on the issue.

Could Trump return just like Smith did?

But if we look at Illinois political history, there’s an even more-embarrassing scenario – take the case of former state Rep. Derrick Smith, D-Chicago, who was expelled from the Illinois House in August 2012 following a criminal indictment. Only to get re-elected in the November election that year. Don’t put it past the Trump-ites to vote for the man out of spite to any impeachment attempt!

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