Dems won't give up the spite

IF you’re in a mood for political contrasts, Wednesday is your day. It’s going to be a splitscreen feast.

At the White House, President Trump is set to sign a new trade agreement with China, bringing a pause to the acrimonious trade war. While the deal is being called “phase one” because it is limited in scope, it marks an important milestone in Trump’s goal of ending the unfair rules that led to the loss of millions of American jobs.

The deal should give another boost to the already-booming economy, with China reportedly agreeing to buy $400 billion worth of US products, ranging from agriculture to manufacturing, over two years. Trump plans to celebrate with a signing ceremony involving 200 guests and the Chinese delegation.

Also on Wednesday, the House is scheduled to vote to send its two impeachment articles to the Senate for trial. Because it’s a history-making event — it will be just the third time a president has been impeached — expect plenty of acrimony and endless references to the Founders, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton.

Expect also that Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who will designate the House managers who will argue the case for conviction and removal, will order Dems to suppress their joy and act as if they are saddened by the burden of impeachment.

Meanwhile, the contrast between the two major events will be jarring, but also instructive. The trade agreement will create jobs now for more Americans and lay the groundwork for more balanced trade with China — and thus more jobs in the future.

For decades, presidents have complained about China’s unfair trade practices, but Trump is the first one to do more than complain. While phase one won’t solve all the problems, it is still far more than any other president achieved.

But jobs or intellectual-property rights or even national security will not be on the docket for Pelosi and the impeachers. In fact, nothing seems to concern them, except trying to rid America of a president they loathe.

They’ve done nothing to fix the border mess and couldn’t even applaud the droning of Qassem Soleimani, the Iranian terrorist responsible for killing and maiming thousands of American soldiers.

For many Democrats, impeachment always was a cause waiting for facts. Regarding him as an interloper who wasn’t fit to be president, some talked of trying to remove Trump before he was inaugurated.

Driven by radicals rising in their party, Dem congressional leaders largely refused to negotiate with the president over anything, even when they took the House in 2018. They carried out character assassinations of Justice Brett Kavanaugh and others as bureaucrats and Obama-era holdovers made sport of leaking secret information, all designed to thwart a presidency.

The media, of course, fanned the flames and often suggested Trump was a traitor.

This Dem/media alliance assumed for two years that special counsel Robert Mueller would give them Trump’s head on a platter over Russia, Russia, Russia.

But despite unlimited time and budget, and a team led by certified Trump haters, Mueller came up empty. Yet even then, Pelosi and her top henchmen, Reps. Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler, insisted there were gold nuggets buried in the Mueller report proving Trump committed crimes, and they demanded that Mueller testify.

He did — and it backfired. Bumbling Bob killed their case with his incoherence and inconsistency. His testimony took place over seven dreary hours last July 24. It meant, I wrote at the time, “Impeachment is no longer an option.”

I underestimated the venality let loose in Washington. The next day, Trump had a telephone call with the new president of Ukraine, and presto, Dems had their new talking points.

It was very weak tea, especially once the president released the transcript, but it was all they had and they were running out of time. The election was fast approaching and the sense that the decision about the president should be left to voters was gaining traction.

Letting voters decide was out of the question. They had elected Trump once, so they couldn’t be trusted. As Texas Rep. Al Green unforgettably admitted, “If we don’t impeach this president, he will get re-elected.”

So here we are, even despite the growing evidence that FBI officials and others committed crimes in targeting the Trump campaign in 2016. But even that doesn’t matter to Dems, who are so crazed by his presidency that facts no longer matter to them.

Never mind that the impeachment articles don’t include an actual crime, or even compelling evidence of misconduct. This is war.

Pelosi, the swamp mistress, has evolved into a very strange figure. Her personal hatred for Trump, in combination with the zealotry of many of her members, has driven her into a bizarre predicament.

She initially resisted impeachment for months, then signed on and said it was urgent — before refusing to send the approved articles to the Senate for nearly a month. Knowing they are doomed to die there, she tried to force the upper chamber to call the witnesses and conduct the investigation she said there wasn’t time for in the House.

Her weirdness underscored the incoherence of the case against the president. As Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell put it, “If the existing case is strong, there is no need for the judge and the jury to reopen the investigation. If the existing case is weak, House Democrats should not have impeached in the first place.”

Nonetheless, the trial will begin, likely next week, with Chief Justice John Roberts presiding. The rules will track the impeachment of Bill Clinton, with the House managers presenting their arguments and evidence, and the president’s lawyers responding. One report said each side might get 24 hours, spread out over four days each. If you’re going to watch, bring a pillow.

Many questions remain unresolved, including whether there will be majority support for other witnesses and documents. The only thing we know for certain is that this disgraceful spectacle is taking place for one simple reason: Democrats can’t get over 2016.