The Whittling

As I read the account of the Articles of Impeachment against President Trump I was underwhelmed. Although I have felt strongly since before he took office that Trump is unfit for the job and has proved it every single day of his term my initial reaction to the counts of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress was to ask, “Who cares?”

And that is the problem isn’t it. That’s where President Trump has succeeded. He has so lowered the bar on what we see as acceptable in matters of public affairs that there no longer seem to be any rules. He has successfully confused the issues in a way that makes it impossible for the average American to discern the truth so the reaction is to ignore it and see it as a sideshow that is not relevant to our daily lives.

In the current case against the president that is quite an achievement because the evidence of his corruption is overwhelming.

The House investigation has proven and the president has admitted that he used the Office of President to extort the president of Ukraine to help him win re-election. Specifically, as we all know, Trump wanted the president of Ukraine to publicly announce an ethics investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son. If Ukraine proceeded with the investigation President Trump would release close to $400 million in military aid to the country and schedule a White House meeting with the Ukrainian president.

I feel Democrats have failed to adequately explain why this should matter to the American people. I don’t think they have made the point strongly enough that the $400 million at the center of this crime is taxpayer money. Your money. Money Congress appropriated for a specific purpose because it believes helping Ukraine hold Russia at bay is in the U.S. national interest. And in case anyone needs to be a reminded, members of Congress make these decisions - take these votes - as representatives of the American people. They debate the issues and vote on our behalf.

President Trump of course does not even pretend to understand, or show any interest in understanding, that level of nuance about how our government is supposed to work. He comes at the job of president as he approached his job as the head of the Trump Organization. The one man at the top with all the power. He has often tried to take power he does not have only to be reigned in by the courts and in some cases Congress or public opinion.

Accusing the president of failing to cooperate with Congress is a badge of honor for Trump and plays right into his hands as he tries to frame the impeachment process as a partisan exercise. Although impeachment is a political process and not a criminal proceeding, most Americans believe in the fundamental right of a defendant to confront his accusers, or not. The president, claiming Democrats are trying to overturn his election through impeachment, has chosen not to mount a defense so far. The numbers in the U.S. Senate are still on his side. The jury is rigged.

The saddest thing of all is not the president’s behavior. We know who he is. The saddest thing to watch is Republican members of the House and Senate and various characters around Trump fall in line and protect this criminal. The House investigation revealed not only the president’s behavior, but the involvement of other top officials in the government including; Vice President Pence, Secretary of State Pompeo and the once distinguished former mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani, who has turned into a villainous figure out of a Batman movie.

If you are a public person who has a tarnished reputation, under normal circumstances, you would become a champion for the cause that most represents the opposite of whatever issue serves as your Achilles Heel. President Trump has not followed that path and his decisions are directly contrary to pulling out the thorn that has vexed him since he won the election in 2016.

Beginning on Inauguration Day, Trump has been fighting the perception that the Russian government helped him beat Hillary Clinton and therefore the legitimacy of his presidency is in question. This fear was actually present before Trump took office, but I choose the day of his swearing in as the moment most of us became aware how deeply Trump was concerned about this appearance.

Any normal politician concerned about such a problem would devote a large portion of his time and political capital to the cause of securing American elections against foreign influence. Trump however decided to engage in the exact behavior he has so strenuously denied. He may not have colluded with the Russians in 2016, but he sure as Hell tried to get the Ukrainians to intervene on his behalf in 2020. He claims he did not shoot the sheriff, but he has let us know he plans to shoot the deputy.

And Republicans in the Senate specifically, and across the country generally, seem to be fine with it. And again, it needs to be repeated often, that Trump’s means of extorting help from Ukraine was to rely on the leverage he could create by using $400 million in hard earned U.S. taxpayer money. Money you could have used for a variety of purposes in your life if you had not given it to the government through your taxes to be used in a way meant to protect your interests in the world.

Are we really OK with all this? It seems so. It seems most of America doesn’t care and sensing that Republicans in the Senate seem prepared to let the president get away with a high crime, because this is no misdemeanor.

This week I am starting the second leg of a long journey to nine different countries. Three countries in South America are next on my itinerary. In several of the southeast Asian countries I visited, government corruption is accepted as a given. The people know it happens, are frustrated by it, but feel they are powerless to do anything about it. One party is in control and there is no one to complain to who has an interest in changing the system to benefit everyone. 

Senate Republicans, by refusing to acknowledge the president’s manifest corruption, are moving the United States in that direction and we the people, by allowing them to do so, by allowing them to look the other way, are part of the problem. By shrugging our shoulders as Trump carries on we are signaling that we are giving up the power we have to hold our elected officials accountable. That’s how Trump sees it. He lies to the country on a daily basis and gets away with it. He sees us all as suckers.

President Trump is only the third president to be impeached and the fourth to face the possibility of removal from office. In addition to his success in whittling away at standards of political discourse, morals, and human decency, he appears to be on the verge of turning the act of impeachment into nothing more than the routine registration of dissatisfaction by an opposition political party against any president of an opposing party. The same as a labor union holding a vote of no confidence against management. Unsurprising and irrelevant.

If this madman we have in the Oval Office has any strategy at all it is a strategy that relies on others to do the right thing and play by the rules as he turns the rules upside down. Democrats have gone out of their way to present the impeachment process as non-partisan. In doing so they have held back when it comes to making the strongest public arguments the evidence against the president supports. They have limited their charges against Trump to the Ukraine matter when Trump has violated his oath of office at least once a week since taking the job.

There are those who believe that by winning the impeachment battle Trump is strengthening the office of president allowing any future president to act with impunity by ignoring the oversight role of Congress. That remains to be seen. Assuming that Trump is eventually replaced with a political leader who operates within previously accepted norms, it is just as likely that that person would spend his or her political capital getting the country back on track by un-doing the damage Trump has done. Under normal circumstances that person would put the elimination of corruption at the center of the American agenda.