The two faces of ‘investi-gate’

OPINION:

Nancy Pelosi’s exasperating plan for more investigations into all things Trump, led by four of her committee chairmen in the U.S. House of Representatives, may not simply be just part of her standard political playbook. Instead, it’s very likely a smokescreen for a massive power struggle going on within the Democratic Party behind the scenes.

Here’s a short history lesson on how Mrs. Pelosi operated in the past: Back in 2006, when Mrs. Pelosi first took up the speaker’s gavel, she played this same game. Investigations were launched by her committee chairmen into all things Bush. They investigated the Iraq War, Guantanamo and even the president’s energy policy at the time.

Remember that?

It’s certainly defensible to assert that Mrs. Pelosi has simply dusted off her ’06 playbook and swapped out the names of people being investigated in order to update it for 2019. The goal? Keep Democrats on offense and Republicans distracted, in disarray and on defense.

But in 2019, there’s something else going on here.

Mrs. Pelosi and Jerry Nadler and the rest of the Democratic chairmen don’t appear to be in control anymore in the House, and they appear to be using “Investi-gate” in order to keep their new colleagues, in particular, Reps. Alexandia Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib sated and at bay, while they figure out how to shut them up and regain the upper hand over them.

The “let’s publicly investigate Trump 24/7/365” strategy, which Pelosi admirers might characterize as “shrewd politics,” is actually mandatory for Mrs. Pelosi and her leadership team’s political survival. Far from being the tip of the spear and a sign of strength, it’s an indication that they’re backed into a corner, desperate and fighting for relevance within their own party.

Part of Investi-gate’s purpose is to buy time as Democratic opposition researchers grind on the backgrounds of the three aforementioned rabble rousers; AOC, Ms. Omar and to a lesser degree Mrs. Tlaib.

While we haven’t seen a lot of reporting on this, rest assured that the origin stories for most of the ethics charges against AOC and anti-Semitism complaints against Ms. Omar will be found to be from Democratic circles, not Republican.

Why do we know this?

Because while these characters are clearly a threat to the American way of life, they’re not an immediate threat to Republicans in office. In fact, they’re a boon, a godsend, a miracle. In outing the Democratic Party for what it truly has become, the party of infanticide, anti-Semitism and economic socialism, they are accomplishing what Republicans could never do on their own.

Why would Republicans want to do political harm to them? The answer is that they don’t. Their fellow Democrats do.

Nancy Pelosi doesn’t want to be the Speaker-In-Name-Only. She wants the cool office space and the power that comes with it. Right now, she’s got the digs, but her hold on the raw power is tenuous. Reports from last week indicate that she even had to get up and walk out of a meeting because her own members wouldn’t stop talking over her.

This is clearly not 2006. This is something different.

Investi-gate is helping Mrs. Pelosi and her leadership cadre buy the time they need to tear down their younger colleagues and “put them in their place.”

And there’s more politics at work here for Pelosi and Co. No investigations and no talk of impeachment would mean fewer baseless allegations for the media to cascade to the American people. No investigations might mean we’d actually be focusing national attention on uncomfortable topics like those three legs of 2020 Democratic Party platform; infanticide, anti-Semitism and socialism.

Investi-gate, while torture for the American people, serves to keep these inconvenient truths off the front pages for the Democrats. These are loser issues. And more than that, they’re evil. These things have immense power because they transcend politics and force voters to question the morality of the Democratic Party.

No one ever said Nancy Pelosi wasn’t good at the Washington Game. Her Investi-gate strategy is shrewd politics for her. More important, it’s the best she’s got. It’s a sign of desperation and it just might be an indication that the Democratic Party is at war with itself and her side is losing.

• Chris Turner is CEO at StampedeConsulting.com. He also serves as a member of the national board of directors for the American Conservative Union, the organization that hosts CPAC.