Where's the Big Plan to reform our political system? Without that, the rest is just talk.
by digby
I remain convinced by this argument:
House Democrats have steadfastly refused to begin impeachment inquiry hearings, favoring a strategy focused on courts and prosecutors. They have made crystal clear that they believe there will never be polling favorable enough to pressure Republicans to convict Trump in a congressional impeachment trial, and that the Senate will ultimately acquit him. They also maintain that working through the courts to expose Trump’s misdeeds will lead to a stronger case in 2020, when Democrats can win at the ballot box.
The 4th Circuit decision shows just how risky that strategy is.
Let’s assume Democrats are right and that impeachment hearings would lead to impeachment by the House and acquittal in the Senate. That is still a far better option than losing in the courts.
That’s because Americans generally look favorably upon the Supreme Court. In a Gallup Poll last year, the Supreme Court had a 51–40 approval rating. Any decision in Trump’s favor from the court would carry a great deal of weight with undecided voters heading into 2020.
Meanwhile, approval levels for Congress are deeply underwater — 19–78 in the latest Gallup Poll. The latest Economist poll finds Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell at 29–54 approval nationally.
If Trump has to be acquitted, it would much better come at the hands of a group of people as corrupted and partisan as the Senate Republicans. It would also rob Trump of the halo of Supreme Court victories against Democrats, on which he could legitimately run.
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Even assuming the Senate ultimately votes to acquit him, the end result will be a public that is more certain that Trump violated the law, and more aware that the Republican-controlled Senate is too partisan and corrupted to stop him. That is an incredibly powerful position going into 2020.
While we do not doubt that Democrats in Washington still hold an idealistic view of our governmental and judicial processes, the decision on the emoluments case demonstrates the perils of such a strategy, especially right now. Their adherence to norms is unlikely to be rewarded, any more than Trump's destruction of norms prevented his victory in 2016.
Donald Trump’s daily whirlwind of contempt for laws and norms has muted our ability to be shocked by much anymore. Democrats must use every tool at their disposal to counter this whirlwind by immediately commanding the media's and public’s attention and laying out the strongest case possible. That means avoiding court victories for Trump and using the ultimate tool given to them by the Founders — impeachment — before it is too late.
More and more Democrats come out in support of impeachment every day. Nonetheless, the CW which says it won't happen and would bad if it did, has gelled largely because the Democratic leadership is acting as if that's the case.
In fact, as I watch this election campaign begin in earnest it looks to me as if Democrats plan to pretend that our politics in 2019 are basically just a healthy debate about issues. It's not. Their opponent isn't Ronald Reagan or John McCain or Mitt Romney. He's an alien from outer space and pretending he isn't seems as weirdly out of touch as watching Sean Hannity blather on about Bruce and Nellie Ohr every night.
I think we just have to hope that enough people are tired of Trump's freak show and a Republican Party that has proven it will welcome the second coming of Hitler, that they will simply vote for any alternative. But if Trump passes out of office unscathed, with the whole world seeing that the American political leadership will do nothing but wring their hands at best (and act as accomplices at worst) in the face of this incompetence, corruption and chaos then we really don't have much hope for the future. The Republicans will have learned they can get away with anything and the Democrats will let them do it.
Democrats will talk and talk and talk about our fabulous 10 point plans and they'll talk about freedom and liberty and some cunning fascist will come along and take advantage of the precedents that were set today --- just as the Republicans took advantage of all the earlier failures to demand accountability for GOP defiance of the rule of law and erosion of norms that kept our flawed constitution functioning.
The lessons are clear. In 2000 we saw a partisan Supreme Court majority intervene to install a president who had not won the popular vote and took the electoral college under extremely dubious circumstances in the state run by the candidate's brother. It was brushed under the rug. He then started a war based on lies and watched as the world economy imploded. 16 years later a presidential candidate won another extremely narrow electoral college victory after losing the popular vote, this time after openly welcoming electoral help from a foreign adversary. He then blatantly obstructed justice, defied every norm that prevents presidential corruption and displayed obvious unfitness on every level. The congress did nothing.
So they know they can get away with anything. All they have to do is get into office by any means necessary.
2016 will not be the last time this happens. In fact, it's entirely likely it could happen in 2020. If it doesn't and the Democrats do manage to pull it out, if they once again refuse to "look in the rearview mirror," it will likely be the last time they will have the chance. This undemocratic authoritarianism has been growing for a long time and gets stronger by the day.
I know we all want to hear about all the systemic economic and social reforms that have to be done in order to make this country work for all its citizens instead of a few. But I haven't heard any plans for the kind of political and electoral reforms that will be necessary to ensure that the government on which these fine plans all depend will be functional in the future.
That's the "systemic reform" I'm waiting to hear from the Democratic candidates. The first step will be accountability for this rogue regime. Without that, nothing will change.
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