News has it that Speaker Pelosi wants the impeachment inquiry to focus somewhat exclusively on the Ukraine scandal.
Although apparently the door has not yet closed on the possibility of other Trump “high crimes and misdemeanors” getting packed into Articles of Impeachment – i.e. whether they will include anything about Trump’s obstruction of justice or his violations of the Emoluments Clause (or any others of Trump’s numerous “abuses of power”) – Pelosi is reportedly leading hard to keep things simple.
Simple—meaning make it all about the Ukraine drama, because the wrong-doing shown there is so easy to understand. Simple, so as not to confuse the public with other stuff that they might not comprehend, or whose gravity they might not recognize, in the way that people can grasp the story of a President selling out the national interest and national security for his own personal political benefit.
I recognize that, in putting such a priority on simplicity, Pelosi might be right. But I think she’s wrong.
I expect there would be general agreement on the criterion for judging what would be the right way to frame the Articles of Impeachment: the goal is to present the picture of Trump’s criminality and corruption in whatever way will persuade as large as possible a portion of the American people to support his impeachment and removal from office.
The question, then, is: Which strategy would best achieve that goal?
Will “Simple” Be Powerful Enough?
Pelosi could be right if either 1) bringing in other matters would confuse the people, and that confusion would actually reduce their support for Trump’s impeachment and removal; or 2) the Ukraine scandal in itself will expose Trump’s criminality and corruption so impactfully that nothing more is to be gained by showing the American people more evidence of how Trump’s presidency has been pervaded by impeachable wrong-doing.
On the first point, Pelosi could be right in fixing on a strategy that demands little capacity for absorbing information and forming a picture with several pieces. (It is interesting to note that Pelosi comes from the same city, Baltimore, as H.L. Mencken, who famously said, “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.”)
On the second point, one source of uncertainty lies in this: “How much of Trump’s criminality and corruption will the Ukraine-gate investigation be able to show the public?” The plot (of the Ukraine scandal) has certainly thickened, and maybe that thickening will enable the Ukraine scandal to convey the dimensions of Trump’s broader abuses of power.
But I fear that the Ukraine scandal will be seen – by that vital part of the American public that needs to be brought enthusiastically on board in fighting to reject this Presidency and what he represents -- as a single self-contained little drama, a small part of the larger story of Trump’s presidency, albeit one in which he behaved badly.
I fear that Speaker Pelosi underestimates how important it is for the American people to see not just “an impeachable offense,” but the scope of the criminality and corruption that have governed Trump’s presidency.
Getting the American people to see that pervasive criminality and corruption is important, first of all, for the immediate task – that goal identified above – of getting maximal support behind the impeachment of Donald Trump.
And I fear that Pelosi’s approach will leave many in the American middle – seeing only the Ukraine thing in isolation -- to think “Wrong-doing, yes. But hey, not every bad behavior warrants impeaching and removing the president.” And indeed, some Republicans are already trumpeting that fallback defense.
The “simple” approach may have the virtue of being easily comprehensible, but it might fall short of rousing the potential public passion for Trump’s removal.
An Opportunity to Go After the Deeper Problem of Which Trump Is a Manifestation
In addition, focusing only on the Ukraine thing will do little to prime the American people for the other part of the political re-balancing that needs to be done: i.e. to expose the indefensible complicity of the Trump Party—that Republican Party that has consistently chosen to be the servant of this President, even at the betrayal of the nation and their oath of office.
I don’t think Speaker Pelosi recognizes what an important opportunity this impeachment process presents the Democrats: the opportunity to dramatize, at last, to the American people the fundamental truth about the Republican Party that the Democrats have consistently failed to show the American people over the past generation, since this ugly thing began to take over the Republican Party, starting back in the early 90s as Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh began corrupting the soul of conservative America.
By dramatizing how profoundly Trump’s presidency has been pervaded by criminality and corruption, posing a profound threat to our democracy, the Democrats can by implication expose the Trump Party for what it is, that it would stand so slavishly behind a President they knew was a danger to the nation.
(Trump, after all, is an extreme expression of what the Republican world had increasingly become even before Trump set foot onto the Republican stage: the lying, the corruption, the empowering of the force of greed, the hypocrisy, the self-serving at the cost of the nation’s well-being. All of that has been increasingly ascendant in the Republican Party for a generation.
For a generation, the Democrats have consistently failed to make the Republicans pay a price for their bad behavior—which enabled the worst elements on the right to take that party over utterly, a process that can be traced from the Clinton Impeachment to the W Presidency to across-the-board obstruction to the final obscenity, the Trump Presidency.)
What a loss it would be if the American public is not shown how the Ukraine scandal is one slice of a larger picture!
There could hardly be a better time to strike boldly than now, when all the corruption and dishonesty and norm-busting impulse of the Republican Party of our times is on full display in the form of this grotesque President -- a President who not only
Did all that Ukraine-gate exposes about him – betraying the nation for his own benefit, corrupting our government, abusing his powers; But also worked repeatedly to place himself above the law, with his “multiple felonies” of obstruction of justice laid out in the Mueller Report; And has brazenly violated the emoluments clause, and reinforced the evidence that this man is not only lawless, but will sell out his country for his own benefit.I believe that such a stereo-optical picture of Trump’s contempt for anything that would restrain his freedom to grab for what he wants would have the American people would be impacted by that. (“When you’re President, the world lets you do anything, grab it by any of its vulnerable places.”) Looking at Trump from all three of those angles would capture that pervasiveness of wrong-doing that makes his removal mandatory. (Just as a three-legged stool stands stably.)
And meanwhile, as part of the Democrats’ movement toward impeachment, pressure can be brought to bear on the Republicans in Congress. “Stop supporting this threat to our constitutional order, and instead do your constitutional duty as your oath of office requires.”
This is not a time to repeat past mistakes of timidity.
Pelosi might be right about what the public can successfully be shown. But I’m betting against that, because it is as clear as day to me that Pelosi is part of that Democratic mind-set that has never been able to make the Republicans pay a political price for acting in (often unprecedented) destructive ways, violating norms, deceiving the people.
Pelosi’s choice is what we’ve been seeing from the Democrats throughout this time that Evil has taken over the Republican Party. She wants to be careful, just as the Democrats have been careful for a generation, fighting scared instead of fighting outraged. Always fearing defeat more than charging toward victory.
Bringing the Mueller Report to Life, Defeating the Trump/Barr Stonewalling
So I say it is a time to be bold. Show the people a good sampling of Trump’s crimes—like what is clearly laid out in the Mueller Report, however much Mueller’s weakness and Barr’s lies made it fizzle upon its release.
I realize that the Democrats never managed to bring the Mueller Report to life, because the President’s complete stonewalling of Congress prevented their proceeding with the kind of hearings they had in mind.
But just because they couldn’t accomplish what’s needed the way they wanted doesn’t mean it couldn’t be done some other way. I believe the Democrats just weren’t imaginative enough about how to do their drama, and that letting Trump’s obstructionism defeat them was unnecessary.
In a forthcoming piece, I’ll propose how I think the Democrats can bring the Mueller Report to life, overcoming the barriers that thwarted them last spring, and successfully wrap the high crimes and misdemeanors shown there into the Articles of Impeachment.