The Corporate Common Wisdom is that Donald Trump will be acquitted in the Senate. As Chuck Todd opined on Meet the Press, today Sunday 15 December 2019:
Everything that’s happened…the House Judiciary Committee voting to send the two impeachment articles to the full House for a vote this week—all of it felt so strangely normal. As is what’s about to happen: The House is all but certain to impeach Mr. Trump, and the Senate is just as surely going to acquit him.
It’s not actually certain Republicans will acquit Trump. That’s based on the assumption Republicans have really thought this through. They haven’t. Impeachment doesn’t end once the Senate takes a vote.
The Senate has the sole power to try impeachments of federal officials, but the American people have the sole power to render judgment on those officials—and on those who protect them when they abuse their power.
Republicans think they can just stiff the American people, but they need to understand the American people will not stand idly by while the Senate acquits Trump of some of the most serious crimes ever committed by a President of the United States. And, those states that sport two Republican Senators could bear the brunt of that fury.
Over half the people in the U.S. believe Trump has done such damage that he should be removed from office. After his trial, that number could well go up. Condoning Trump’s crimes could result in direct action by the American people. For example, a general strike would inflict a lot of pain on the people most responsible for Trump. Or, boycotts of states with two Senators voting to acquit could very seriously suppress the economy in those states.
Republicans should also consider that removing Trump is the only way to restore legitimacy to our elections. If Trump remains in office, even if he doesn’t run for re-election, his presence casts doubt on the integrity of our election system. If he should be acquitted and re-elected*, there will always be an asterisk next to that result, because no one can be certain he won in a fair election.
[* Donald Trump may not have actually won the 2016 election. It’s possible, due to the combination of Republican election fraud and Russian meddling, his apparent victory in the Electoral College was never honest in the first place. You see what his inviting foreign interference has done? We don’t trust Republicans now, and unless he is removed we will never trust them again, no matter what they do.]
If Trump is removed, then we might be able to go back to trusting our elections. But if not, a very large number of Americans, maybe a majority, will not believe Trump is legally President. That could create a Sunni/Shia split in the country, permanently damaging our society. And, if the President doesn’t have to follow the law, what’s the logic that says citizens have to follow it?
Republicans should be very careful to listen to the charges and the evidence, and then vote in the best interests of the country. About 300 million people will be looking over their shoulders, just in this country alone. Republicans in the Senate need to take into account the reaction the American people will have to their votes. The verdict of Americans, not that of Senators, will be the verdict that counts in the end.
Also on Meet the Press:
Category of Inevitable Impeachment Discussion
Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), a member of the Judiciary Committee, appeared to present the establishment Democratic view of events.
Senator Coons is looking for a rational trial of Donald Trump. He said:
Majority Leader McConnell needs to sit down with Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and negotiate over exactly what the terms of this trial will be.
But Todd presented Mitch McConnell saying:
I’m going to coordinate with the President’s lawyers.
Senator Coons replied:
What he (McConnell) should start by doing is trying to show the American people and history this is a serious trial.
A better answer is that McConnell needs to recuse himself, given he’s demonstrated the complete inability to impartially try the President. But, comity. So, I’m sure a sitting Senator can’t say that.
Category of Assumes Facts Not in Evidence
Chuck Todd:
Do you think it’s an odd picture to paint. If you are impeaching the President of the United States, you believe he’s an existential threat to the Republic, to the Constitution. And then literally the next hour you are cutting a deal with him on USMCA and NAFTA 2.0.
I’m going to answer that for Sen. Coons (who talked about what people in his state are asking him, a bland and acceptable answer). The right answer to this question is that Democrats are cutting a deal with Republicans, not with Trump. And we are doing that on the basis of what we think is in the best interests of the country. Trump is irrelevant to this, except he happened to be the impetus for renegotiating NAFTA, which actually has caused pretty severe damage to U.S. workers. Democrats are the ones looking out for American workers, not Trump or the Republicans. Republican interest lies with the money hoarders, not the American people.
Category of Right-Wing Talking Points
Todd:
What lessons do you take from Labour’s crushing defeat in the U.K.?
Coons:
We are different countries. But, I do think it shows that an electorate even in this difficult and divided time is looking for a concrete and clear plans [sic] that they think are achievable and enactable. And Labour got just too far out to gain the support of a majority of Britains. I do think that’s a cautionary note. That’s why I continue to support Joe Biden, who I think is our most promising Democratic candidate for President.
I imagine Biden’s fellow Senator from Delaware can’t reasonably throw him under the bus. But that doesn’t mean any of us have to believe this.
Labour did not get out too far ahead of voters in the U.K. Voters hated Jeremy Corbin, and found his anti-Semitism off-putting if not disqualifying. His opponents probably spent a fortune to further drive down his support. Britains also want an end to divisions over Brexit. Labour presented mixed messages on Brexit, which has been going for around three years. They may be understandably tired of it, and just want a solution, even if they don’t agree every detail.
Progressives in our country are offering clear and concrete plans for how to pull the country together and accomplish some of our long-standing goals, like affordable healthcare for all. Our plans are achievable and enactable. It’s the people who want to block progress that are impractical. They think voters will come out to vote for bland plans that don’t improve their lot in any material way. Biden’s boring message was so uninspiring the establishment had to have a billionaire come in and spend money to essentially rescue “the center”.
Democrats should not run to the center. They should run to the center of the country, and talk directly about progressive policy with Americans there. Americans support progressive values, usually by majorities of 60% or more. Democrats will not win if we run a guy who thinks it’s okay to work with Republicans.
Category of Hurting American Workers
After Sen. Coons reassured us there’s nothing to see in standard Democratic politics, Todd turned to Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA), mainly for a discussion of trade.
Todd:
You may be the lone vote on the Republican side against new NAFTA, USMCA. You don’t like it at all. …You believe it’s “a step backwards in trade”. Explain what you mean by that.
Toomey:
NAFTA is a free trade agreement. It is zero tariffs… It’s a free and fair trade agreement. It is completely reciprocal. There is zero tariffs on all manufactured goods. Zero tariffs on almost all agricultural goods. So, you have this free and fair reciprocal agreement, which by the way, resulted in a 500% increase in American exports to Mexico, Pennsylvania exports. And, somehow this was unacceptable to the administration, and I think we should ask the question, “Why?”
The reason is because we were importing even more from Mexico than we sell to them. …We have a trade deficit with Mexico. And, the purpose of renegotiating NAFTA was to diminish trade with Mexico so as to diminish the deficit. That’s the wrong direction to go on trade.
Todd: “Do you think trade deficits are bad or good?”
Toomey: “Trade deficits almost always don’t matter.”
Todd: “This President is obsessed with them.”
Toomey:
I think the President’s mistaken on this. …We’ve had trade deficits with the rest of the world for over forty consecutive years. And, what country has the biggest economy, the highest standard of living, the strongest growth, and the best prospects going forward? We do. And, that’s because trade deficits don’t matter. That money gets reinvested back in the United States.
So, unfortunately, USMCA is an exercise, through all kinds of new provisions, to diminish trade. And that’s why I hope Republicans will reconsider this. We’ve historically recognized that we are all better off with more open markets.
Todd:
[Maybe NAFTA helped the economy overall, but] you know there are spots in Pennsylvania and in Ohio and in Michigan where they didn’t feel it. …So, why don’t you make the next NAFTA at least protect those communities better?
Toomey:
This doesn’t protect any particular community except the auto sector. …It’s absolutely true that there are some people that their work was displaced, and that’s enormously problematic. But the same is true of technology. The same is true of automation. [So, we ask how we can help people displaced by technology.]
Todd:
Is that what we’ve failed at doing. …Politicians always make that promise. “We’re going to retrain”, and all this stuff. And, I think a lot of people say, “That’s never really happened.” …Wages are stagnant.
Toomey:
This is the best economy we’ve had in fifty years. And, if it weren’t for the modest recession in the manufacturing sector, which was caused by the trade wars, we’d be in better shape. And, no I disagree. Wages are not static. Wages have been accelerating, and the growth has been fastest among the lowest-income workers, because our economy has been so strong, despite the trade tensions.
Let’s just review the points on which Toomey is wrong:
- NAFTA is “a free and fair agreement”. No. It isn’t fair, and free trade is bad for the U.S. Why? See below.
- “The purpose of renegotiating NAFTA was to diminish trade with Mexico”. No, the purpose of renegotiating NAFTA is to eliminate the trade deficit. That may also diminish trade, but cutting trade isn’t the point—at least not for Democrats. It’s possible Trump wants to cut trade with Mexico because he hates Mexicans, but that’s his problem, not ours.
- “Trade deficits almost always don’t matter.” Wrong. Trade deficits are the deficits that matter. They constantly suck wealth out of the country. A trade deficit is based on people in our country selling assets to foreign interests. (Actually, that’s what Toomey means when he says, “That money gets reinvested back in the United States.”) Overall, our society is poorer because of the net trade deficits over the last four decades.
- “We’ve had trade deficits with the rest of the world for over forty consecutive years, [yet, our country] has the biggest economy, the highest standard of living, the strongest growth, and the best prospects going forward.” None of this is due to free trade. Over those forty years the U.S. has lost about $10 trillion in cumulative trade deficits. That is a $10 trillion drain on our wealth. Over the same time, wages in real terms have remained almost constant while productivity has increased dramatically. In fact, the adoption of free trade policies coincides with the time when wages started to remain constant in the face of increased productivity, in contrast to about 70 years before that.
- “There are some people that their work was displaced. …But the same is true of technology.” Apples to oranges. People whose work is displaced by technology normally find jobs in the wider economy because increased use of technology increases the standard of living. Technology generally doesn’t remove jobs from the U.S. economy, but trade with low-wage countries does, while depressing the standard of living.
What has caused us to have the biggest economy, the highest standard of living, and the strongest growth? I think Silicon Valley is responsible for this, and really much of that growth has been leveraged on government spending—both military spending and money invested in colleges and universities. It is also an artifact of our country winning the Cold War, which in many ways is a knock-on effect of winning World War II.
A society’s standard of living is directly related to increased understanding of science and implementation of that knowledge through engineering and good organizational operations. It is directly related to access to resources. It is inversely related to population. Those are the primary factors driving the standard of living. It isn’t driven by free trade. In fact, really, it is driven at the national level by mercantilism and the ability to obtain resources on a favorable basis.
Look, it’s easy to see why free trade is bad for our country, generally, but good for the money hoarders. If you are an investor you can go to China to invest and make a bundle. If you are a worker you can’t go to China to get better pay.
Trump, for all his flaws, was keen enough to understand how trade policy has been affecting workers, and he picked policies that appeal to workers, especially in the industrial Midwest, where free trade and open border policies have crushed workers. Democrats were equally un-keen enough to try to implement TPP, which called on workers in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan to compete with workers in Vietnam, where the minimum wage is around $1/hour. Trump’s break with the historical Republican Party may be the single biggest factor in why he inhabits the White House. Toomey notwithstanding.
The ultimate result of total free trade would be workers in the U.S. earning the exact same amount as workers in the poorest country on earth. But, they would still need U.S. wages because they live in the U.S. and have to pay U.S. prices. It’s obvious why the party backed by corporate owners would want free trade.
I have yet to figure out why the Democratic Party, backed by workers, would want the same thing.