The "Pelosi Problem" - If she could turn back time. [UPDATED]

UPDATED: 11/07/2018*

Mainstream media are calling it the "Pelosi Problem". Democrats have lost four out of four special elections since Donald Trump was sworn in as President.  A blue-on-blue political feeding frenzy has erupted as Democrats eat their own.  With the President rubbing salt in the wound, Nancy Pelosi is being blamed by some on the left.  Democratic desperation is palpable and the growing Progressive panic is not limited to the beltway political class.

When even the solid support of liberal entertainment industry icons turn on Nancy Pelosi, a political firewall has been breached. Pelosi lost Cher  ...

👏🏼.CONGRESSIONAL RACE IS NOT OLYMPICS,THERES NO MEDAL🥈FOR 2nd PLACE‼️I ADMIRE & RESPECT NANCY PELOSI,BUT IN“EVERY”RACE,GOP RUNS AGAINST HER🥀 pic.twitter.com/QX5I26Yl3s

— Cher (@cher) June 21, 2017

... and Cher may be right. Republican strategists credit invoking the specter of - Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House - as a cudgel keeping disgruntled Republicans in the fold and contributing to the GA-06 win. From CNN:

"Why the relentless focus on the Democratic congresswoman from San Francisco? It was at the heart of their strategy to turn out reliably Republican voters who might be queasy with Trump's first five months in office, but did not want to see Pelosi and national Democrats celebrate a marquee victory in their own backyard. Pelosi "consistently polls very unfavorably," said John Rogers, the executive director of the National Republican Congressional Committee -- the House GOP's campaign arm. "I think in this instance it had a motivating effect for our voters on the turnout front."

Exhibit A: This right wing Super-Pac ad was one of several mining the Anti-Pelosi vein that saturated GA-06. It was effective and is exactly what we can expect to see in every contested district in 2018:

What it takes to impeach a President & why we're not remotely close to impeaching President Trump. [UPDATED 08/21/18*: It's getting close.] [UPDATED 02/27/19**: We're there.]

UPDATED: 02/27/2019**

 Graphic Updated after Michael Cohen Hearing 2/27/2019* 

To Impeach or Not to Impeach...
Conventional wisdom informs us that impeachment proceedings against a sitting President will not happen while the legislative branch is in control of the same party as the President. History bears this out, as impeachment actions against Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton were all initiated when the House of Representatives was controlled by the opposition party. But with President Trump, history and conventional wisdom may be steering us in the wrong direction, as many establishment Republicans would far prefer Mike Pence as President. Regardless, it is certainly true that divided government would make impeachment easier and the 2018 midterm election looms large.

The unfolding James Comey testimony, and in particular his opening statement published a day earlier, has precipitated predictably contradictory analysis of whether the threshold for impeachment has been crossed or not.

That is the Question
For those of us of a certain age, the question of what it takes to impeach a sitting President, or force a President to resign under threat of impeachment, is not a hypothetical historical exercise. We've seen it twice in our lifetime. We saw President Clinton impeached but not convicted. We saw President Nixon resign under threat of impeachment. In both cases, congressional leadership from the party of the President calling out the President were critical factors.  In both cases, there was an evidentiary Rubicon that had to be crossed before impeachment became a realistic possibility.