I

t’s been three weeks since Special Counsel Robert Mueller submitted his report on Russian interference in the 2016 election to Attorney General William Barr.

Whatever the facts of the report, which was compiled over two years, it has now become mostly a political weapon wielded in the service of ideology. Democrats are still hinting at impeachment while demanding a full, unredacted version of the report. And Republicans, feeling vindicated by the report’s findings, are now painting the Democrats as obstructionists who use the levers of the federal government to punish political opponents.

In other words, the Mueller report is sure to be a prominent feature of the 2020 race. According to Steve Rabinowitz, founder and president of Bluelight Strategies, a consulting firm in Washington, D.C., that’s a good thing for Democrats.

“I think [Democrats] are right to see how vulnerable Trump and the Republicans are right now,” he said. “[The report] is going to have a negative effect on Trump and the Republicans. The only question that remains is how big.”

Mark Mellman, CEO of the polling and consulting firm Mellman Group, and a pollster for Senate Democrats for two decades, takes a more measured approach. He said that Congress is right to further investigate the details of the Mueller report, regardless of which party benefits politically.

“I think it’s important to recognize that our country was attacked,” he said. “We need to understand exactly what happened and why it happened, and how to prevent it. Those are very important things to find out. And that requires continued investigation.”

Noah Pollak, a contributor to the conservative Free Beacon and a Republican consultant, believes the Democrats’ strategy might backfire. “On the left today, extremism in pursuit of Trump is no vice,” he said. “But most voters aren’t members of the ideological left, and I suspect they will be reluctant to vote for a party that is chasing an obsession rather than attempting to govern the country.”

Pollak said such a Trump-centric strategy might pull the whole party down, not just the presidential contenders. “Democrats are caught in a situation in which the political obsessions of liberals may undermine their electoral fortunes,” he said. “Liberals spent two years convinced the Mueller report would overturn the 2016 election, and they still haven’t accepted the reality that if they want [Trump] out of office, they will have to remove him the old-fashioned way — by beating him in an election.”

“It’s getting to the point now where I pray that Trump doesn’t put out a message in favor of Mother’s Day, because then I’ll have to come out against Mother’s Day — and vice versa.”

—Rep. Brad Sherman, a California Democrat, finding an amusing way to illustrate the hyper-partisan atmosphere in Washington while attending the Congressional Israel Allies Caucus Reception on Capitol Hill last week.

(Excerpted from Mishpacha, Issue 759)