Thread by @pastpunditry

By not digging into the ways the GOP has driven polarization and the thrashing of political norms, this article ends up both-sidesing a really important point. /1
nytimes.com/2019/12/12/us/…

Impeachment may well become more common, bc the GOP is very likely to use it casually. But it doesn't follow that *Democrats* are using it casually, or that Trump has not committed multiple impeachable offenses. /2

Yes, the country is more polarized. And yes, it's more partisan. But there is an asymmetry at play that is so extreme it should shake us to examine the ways we talk about it. /3

The impeachment of Donald Trump will be partisan. But that doesn't make it the wrong thing to do.

"Partisan" is not in and of itself a negative value. /4

Indeed, the fetishization of "bipartisanship" parallels the fetishization of "objectivity" in journalism, which both come from the same set of values forged in mid-century America. /5

Which is not to say bipartisanship or objectivity are bad, just that they aren't in and of themselves good. All sorts of awful things have had bipartisan support, from opposing equality movements to invading foreign countries. /6

So yes, Trump's impeachment will be partisan, because Republicans in Congress refuse to do their jobs. But just because something is partisan doesn't mean it's wrong, and we might want to spend more time examining the ways we reflexively use "partisan" as a pejorative. 7/7