Pat’s Polemics

I heard recently that the “moderates” and “progressives” in the Democratic Party were in disagreement over the articles of impeachment, the moderates wanting to narrow the focus to something clear and comprehensible to the average person and even acceptable rather than a “kitchen sink” approach, while the progressives wanted to go whole hog and throw in many more articles.
While there certainly are many more charges that could be brought, we have to keep the hoi polloi in mind, even some Trump voters who will at least look at the articles. Why complicate it when the charges brought are sufficient? It is not like a criminal case where you want conviction on multiple counts in case later one or two convictions are thrown out you still have the culprit locked up. The Senate needs to convict – highly unlikely – and Republican senators need a simple story to go home with (not that they will do anything except lie).
The Progressives (capitalized because it is a movement, as in Populism and Progressivism) bring to mind a quote from Zadie Smith who heard a companion say at a party after Brexit where everyone was bemoaning the ignorance of the Brexit voters, the Deplorabales, that the problem with Liberals is that “we have to always be right.”
The Progressives, not unlike a lot of Liberals, just feel they have to show off their extensive knowledge of current events as well as of the underlying structural factors blah blah blah blah. Then the simple minded deplorables come along and bomb the whole thing with their VOTES. They vote, and anyone who does not keep that in mind is stupid. Stop hammering these people over the head with what they don’t know and instead push the Democratic platform that addresses their issues: health care, education, immigration, and, most of all, jobs. Then hope most of them stay home because they will never vote for a Democrat aka Communist. The intent is to discourage them, not make them so angry they will stand in line for hours just to vote against the Dems.