TOM BEVAN: Dems Want to Win in 2018. They Shouldn’t.

By winning back the House, however, Democrats would take control of committees. This sounds good until you realize that the new Judiciary Committee chair would be under immediate pressure from the party’s liberal base to begin impeachment proceedings against Trump. Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi would have great difficulty stemming this tide, because this is exactly what the vast majority of the base of their party wants: 76 percent of Democrats want their lawmakers to “begin the impeachment process against President Trump” if they win back control of the House of Representatives, according to a Quinnipiac University poll taken last month.

Here, history would be repeating itself, and not in a way that suggests a good outcome for Democrats. The problem, just as it was in 1998 when Bill Clinton was president, is that the country as a whole is against the idea. Pelosi has done a delicate dance for the past 13 months trying to tamp down impeachment talk among her most progressive members. Despite her efforts, in December 58 Democrats voted to lay out articles of impeachment against the president.

If Democrats win the House majority, it’ll be much harder for Pelosi to stem this tide among her members.

If Bevan is right, it might be worth losing the House for a couple of years just to watch the Democrats commit seppuku.