Nancy Pelosi is intent on carrying out her “clever by half” slow-walking of the constitutionally mandated impeachment proceedings against perhaps the most vile and corrupt individual ever to occupy the White House.

One of the Speaker’s “main reasons” for tamping the brakes on even beginning an impeachment inquiry is that it would rile up Trump’s base. Hey, you wouldn’t want to stir up a hornet’s nest, right?

Impeaching Trump would also allow the master con man and media manipulator to play the “martyr card,” all to the detriment of a Democrat winning the presidency in 2020. And since the Senate will never vote to remove Trump from office, what’s the point?

Yet what Pelosi fails to recognize (or give enough credence to) is that by not doing her job, she is demoralizing her very own base. The same group that swept Democrats into power in the 2018 midterm elections on the hope and promise of holding the lawless Trump to account.

Pelosi’s calculated move of letting Trump twist in the wind for as long as possible could very well be the reason Trump gets re-elected in 2020.

Just like in 2016 when many Democrats were so disillusioned by the corrupt way the Democratic National Committee did everything to help Hillary Clinton get the Democratic presidential nomination, they just might sit out the 2020 election or vote third party.

When you add that very real possibility to the fact that Trump and his Republican cohorts will do everything in their power to stay in power, you have the recipe for electoral disaster for Democrats in 2020.

Disillusionment, in political terms, can often lead to voter cynicism and withdrawal. It gets people to believe there just is no justice and all politicians are the same (crooked). It’s the old “politics as usual” syndrome. It goes directly to the  “I hate politics, a pox on all your houses” way of thinking.

Nancy Pelosi, as shrewd a politician as she is, may just resign many Democrats to the belief their vote doesn’t matter. The thinking could run along these lines: “We came out in droves in 2018 to give Democrats the power to remove Trump and you did nothing!”

Time is of the essence. An official impeachment inquiry needs to begin ASAP. Or Democrats run the risk of a demoralized and disillusioned blue electorate in 2020.

Photo | nypost.com