Some liberal activists are pushing for an increasingly confrontational, bare-knuckle (metaphorically) approach to combating Trumpism. There's the impeachment push. There's the politicization of previously less-political aspects of life. And there is the burgeoning and controversial push for standing up to members of the Trump administration in public — whatever form that may take.
But it's worth emphasizing that much of the Democratic Party isn't on board with this kind of approach. In fact, a recent poll suggested there was significant concern that their party is too consumed with taking down President Trump.
Yes, there are those polls showing three-quarters of Democrats favor impeaching Trump and removing him from office. But a Pew Research Center poll released in recent days provided a more nuanced, and perhaps more telling, window into just how many Democrats want to take down Trump at all costs.
And the answer is: perhaps not as many as you'd think.
The poll asked voters about what people wanted to see if Democrats took control of Congress. Specifically, it asked them how much focus they would like to see on investigating the Trump administration.
In total, 58 percent of all voters said they were at least “somewhat” concerned Democrats would focus too much on probing the administration. And the number is actually substantial among Democrats themselves: 40 percent.
Democrats were more concerned about their own party overreaching than Republicans were about their party giving Trump too much of a pass. Asked whether they would be concerned that if Republicans keep control of Congress they wouldn't focus enough on oversight of the Trump administration, just 31 percent of Republicans agreed. And this despite Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.).
Part of the reason for this may be because Democrats simply aren't quite united when it comes to issues such as the investigation into possible links between the Trump campaign and Russian interference in the 2016 election. A CNN poll last week showed nearly a quarter of them (23 percent) don't approve of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's handling of his Russia investigation, for instance. Perhaps there is investigation fatigue, and people simply want politicians to get back to governing.
But to see the scenes of the past week, you'd think we were entering a place in our politics in which both sides were ready to declare war upon each other and that Democrats viewed Trump as a president to be taken down by whatever means necessary. That's simply not the case.