I’m worried. Worried about the fate of American democracy. That’s not exactly big news—I’ve been worried about where our nation was heading, full-time for the past 15 years. (And I’ve been worried about whether humankind would get it together and survive on this planet for the past 50 years.)
But sometimes I’m more worried than others. With this ongoing battle between Donald Trump (and his allies), on the one hand, and the American constitutional order (and its allies), on the other, I seem to move back and forth between more hopeful and more profoundly worried. This weekend, I find myself with that heartache of the more profoundly worried.
I found myself finding it all too plausible that Donald Trump might win another term.
And it all has to do with how this impeachment business is playing out.
I’ve been in favor of impeaching this unthinkably more-than-impeachable president for a long time, and I’ve envisioned the process as striking a significant blow against Trump (and against the Trump Party, and against the force that gave us someone like Trump as President).
But it’s doesn’t seem to beplaying out that way.
I’d held hopes that the percentage favoring removing the thug in the White House would move from 50% to 60%. (I was willing to concede that a good third of the American public is totally in thrall to this amazing demagogue, who can violate all the values they claim to have while retaining their undying support.)
But I thought that the percentage of Americans who – if shown a vivid and effective picture of this President’s criminality and corruption – would reject him in favor of fulfilling what our founders’ demanded (“protect and defend the Constitution of the United States”) would be greater than it now looks like it will be.
I thought the evidence — for Trump’s being such an extreme, exaggerated, multi-dimensional illustration of precisely what the founders of our nation wanted impeachment used for -- would be so overwhelming and vivid that we’d get those many Americans who believe in our basic American values (and who are not in a trance) would sign up with a bit of passion for removing this President from office.
But, we’ve gotten pretty far into the impeachment process, and that does not seem to be happening.
The percentage supporting impeachment is basically unchanged since the hearings began. And, from all I can tell, appears that the absolutely appalling behavior of the Republicans in this process is working well enough for them.
It should be an utter scandal for the Republicans to behave this way. Never has the Republican Party exposed more stunningly for the utter moral bankruptcy into which it has now fully descended.
Even in the face of the most solemn obligations to protect the Constitution and the rule of law – i.e. to fulfill the solemn oath they took – even in such an absolutely crucial moment the Republicans are sticking with evil out of their own self-interest. Moral bankruptcy doesn’t get more complete than that.
But if I’m right that they’re getting away with this travesty, why would that be?)
Was I being overly hopeful because I simply misread the American people, how much they’d understand or care?
(I have a bit of a history of expecting people to act better than they do, partly out of my working to make it happen, partly out of my tendency to choose hope for my images rather than the most grittily realistic assessment. Sometimes, people rise to the occasion and do something beautiful.)
Or is the disappointing result we’ve seen so far the result of the Democrats having been less effective than they could have been.
My hopes were based on doing this impeachment a bit differently. I don’t assume that my way would have been better. But there are at least good reasons for doing it my way. At the same time, with Nancy Pelosi having impressed so many people with her ability to make such judgments, and play her hand accordingly, I don’t assume that Nancy Pelosi chose wrongly.
But I’d like to raise that possibility— to show how Pelosi’s choices might have forfeited the opportunity to use impeachment to have a more profound impact on the American political world, one far more favorable to Democrats, to the rule of law, to the future of American democracy.
Let me be clear: I am hugely impressed with the performances of the Democrats in the House Intelligence Committee and in the Judiciary Committee. I am particularly admiring of Representative Adam Schiff in a major starring role, and of Rep. Jamie Raskin of the Judiciary Committee. Both of these men have combined beautiful skills of legal argumentation with the prophetic voice of condemnation of evil and call to defeat it.
But they are acting within a frame the Democrats chose that, I would argue, weakened the Democrats’ impact on the American people:
They decided to keep the Articles of Impeachment narrow, confined to Ukraine-gate. Meaning, there would be an article for “Obstruction of Congress,” but no article for “Obstruction of Justice,” despite the Mueller Report having laid out a “roadmap for impeachment,” spelling out “multiple felonies” of “Obstruction of justice” that more than 1000 former Justice Department officials said would have gotten anyone else but the President indicted. They decided to get this all wrapped up in as short a time as possible. Get indictment before Christmas, have trial in January. (And then get on with 2020.)Now, clearly there is a cost to that second decision.
If one’s goal is to mold the thoughts and feelings of the American people, clearly the more they can be exposed to the picture/message you’re trying to convey the deeper into their minds it will go. Which gives you a better chance of their coming to see Trump for what he is.
(Perhaps the Democrats should have used a Watergate-level time-span – months – going for more thoroughness so that the story kept on playing in from of the eyes of the public.)
And that issue of “thoroughness” leads to that first decision—i.e. to impeach solely on Ukraine-gate matters. They decided to leave out evidence of how pervasive Trump’s wrong-doing has been. They decided to go narrow even though there is a powerful reason to want to flesh out the picture more than just the Ukraine-related offenses.
The reason: To persuade the American people, the job is not so much to show people WHAT TRUMP DID as to show them WHO TRUMP IS.
It is the man himself they need to see. The conduct is the evidence that shows who he is. But what will move people to want him out is less that he breaks rules than that he’s a despicable, reckless, selfish and self-obsessed, dishonest, unfaithful, power-hungry and sadistic man.
Of course, the impeachment process can’t deal with every aspect of that comprehensive brokenness of this remarkable man. But it would help if the process would make clear the patterns in the conduct. The guy who stonewalled Congress and the guy who sought to destroy the perfectly legitimate investigation into his wrong-doing (with Comey and with Mueller and even AG Sessions)—they are the same guy.
So it would have served a useful purpose to show at least the pattern that shows he’s a guy who puts himself above the law, and who gives not a whit about his responsibilities to the nation.
An ordinary man gets convicted if it is proved he committed a crime. A President will get removed only when it’s proved that the idea of such a man is occupying the Presidency is repugnant, that because he is what he is it is a danger to us for him to have the powers of the presidency in his hands.
But by confining it to Ukraine-gate, the Democrats (presumably Pelosi), moved the picture back much more toward WHAT TRUMP DID and away from WHO TRUMP IS. And I am postulating that it is Trump himself — not his misdeeds — who should be presented as the object of serious disapproval and rejection.
(Another pattern: One might also bring in the emoluments offenses – which are crystal clear. And that could be used -- in combination with his putting his own political interest ahead of the national interest in his dealings with the Ukrainians -- to show the pattern of Trump’s willingness to betray the nation, his sociopathic fixation on getting for himself.)
Perhaps the right strategy would have been to have the judiciary committee send several other articles to the floor – as a function of getting them aired in hearings – and then have the House focus however seems best for purposes of the Senate trial.
Pelosi doubtless had her reasons. And perhaps the reasons were good enough to make her choices right. But while conceding that Pelosi might have chosen wisely, I’ll just make two points:
There are costs to those choices—both choices weaken the Democrats’ message, and lessen the chance of its moving public opinion in the direction that the nation needs so desperately to move. (If there were 60% support, that would put the morally-bankrupt Republicans in a terrible bind – a lose-lose situation. They would be damaged, and the nation would emerge from this Trump crisis in better condition.) There are grounds for suspecting Nancy Pelosi’s ability to make such judgments well. She’s quite representative of the Democratic ethos generally, which has consistently been weak in its ways of confronting the Republicans has they have been taken over by a very dark spirit (a destructive force, a veritable force of evil). The Republicans have consistently waged war with all-out intensity, while the Democrats consistently fail to match their ferocity and strong-willed determination to win.(That sounds like what these decisions are. It’s “we’ve got to impeach, but let’s do it as carefully as possible. Let’s do only those points that are simple and should be really easy to convey to people. And let’s get this confrontation over with, because we’re afraid that we’re going to lose this battle politically, and that we’re better off putting as much time between the end of impeachment and Election Day, so that people will not be voting on the basis of how the impeachment impacted their feelings about the two parties.)
So I have my reasons for thinking that when Pelosi weighs her strategy, she’s more fearful of the battle than we need for Democrats to be. We need the all-out fight, when there’s so much on the line.
And there will never be a better battlefield to have it out with that force that here and now. If you can’t make Trump and the Trump Party pay a political price for being so profoundly criminal, dishonest, greedy, power-hungry, corrupt – so morally bankrupt -- as they now so blatantly are, there must be something profoundly lacking in your capacity to fight the political fight against such a force.
Either that or the American people are quite insufficient in their ability to understand and/or to care about the importance of the gift our founders gave us, and that those founders still compel every official take a solemn oath – hand on Bible – to protect and defend.
If so many Americans can’t see THIS, then there’s a kind of blindness. And if they don’t care about THIS, then something has gone out of the soul of America – land of the free – that should worry us all.
But I still believe that most Americans can be led to see, and would care if they saw it. Can we yet find effective ways to show it. Can the speeches on the House floor – Jamie Raskin, please – tell the American people WHO TRUMP IS, through a litany of the patterns that underly the two articles of Impeachment.
I think it’s still quite possible that 60% could have been achieved. And maybe still could be:
Use the presentation of the issue to the House as an opportunity to present the real picture to the American people. Present the two articles of impeachment, in other words, by putting that presidential conduct into the context of all the other wrong-doing we, the American people, have seen from this President.
The pattern of behavior shows the “intent,” i.e. a picture of the base motives that animate his ways of proceeding,
whether it be through enriching himself through the presidency or through sacrificing the national interest to help him guard his power (Biden investigation). whether it be through an indefensible refusal to respect Congress’s constitutional role, or an indefensible effort to prevent a legitimate investigation to be carried out.The intent shows WHO TRUMP IS.