On Tuesday, the United States remains solidly in the middle of a constitutional crisis. It’s one that began when one party determined that they could manipulate the public narrative through pundits and deliberately slanted newscasts designed to exacerbate divisions in the nation along race, class, and geography. It picked up steam when a foreign power built on that effort to distort the outcome of an election through the use of technology, working hand-in-glove with a candidate to open those cracks in the national edifice ever wider. It became fully obvious when that candidate used his power to undermine faith in the institutions that safeguard public safety, public health, and public knowledge. And having reached a point where the rule of law is making one last effort to check the actions of that party and that candidate, the United States isn’t on the brink of a constitutional crisis. It’s nearing the end.
Now that Trump has confirmed he is seriously considering some sort of action against Mueller, Republicans will be asked once again if they will act to protect his investigation. …
Republicans are being asked to take steps in advance to forestall this possibility before it actually becomes a reality. And they don’t want to do this. What’s more, with very few exceptions, most have refrained from forcefully spelling out what even the theoretical consequences would be for Trump (such as impeachment hearings) if he did act. Now Trump has explicitly confirmed that he might do just that.
The Constitution fully acknowledges and plans for the idea that the nation might be subject to incompetent or malign leadership. It was obvious to everyone signing at the beginning that they were not blessed by an overabundance of selfless saints. That’s exactly why the system is designed with checks and balances, and with a division of powers, and with the tools to remove an executive who proves to have something other than the nation’s interest at heart.
What the Constitution didn’t plan for was a 40-year siege: a long-term plan to make competent government into the enemy, remove all constraints of tradition or bylaw, and replace representatives of regional citizens with an ALEC-ized monopoly, all marching to the same script.
The climax of a book is not in the opening paragraph. If Trump acts to remove special counsel Robert Mueller, or Mueller issues a report and it’s smothered behind closed doors, that’s not the beginning of a crisis. That’s the finish line.
Campaign Action
Greg Sargent’s morning column captures the specifics of that end-point. There’s a decision to make: Democracy, yea or nay—and Republicans have already given their tacit response.
At what point do we get to conclude that Republicans, in declining to spell out the consequences they would levy in the face of such an action, may be signaling that there won’t be any? And whatever their intentions, does anyone doubt that this is exactly the message Trump is likely to receive?
The United States—“A republic, if you can keep it”—has been in crisis almost from its inception. It’s been subject to suppression of the vote for most of its citizens, gerrymandering of districts to create a massive imbalance of power, and a basic failure to raise adequate protections to those at the bottom of social and economic ladders. Challenges to the basic foundation have been met at the ballot box and joined on the battlefield. Victories have been far from guaranteed, and almost never total.
The fact that we’re still around and still holding elections of consequence is absolutely no guarantee that this is a sure thing. Democracies die. They do so with sickening regularity and with frighteningly predictable form.
If a candidate tests positive on any part of this test, we should be nervous. The first indicator is if a politician, in words or practice, appears to reject the democratic rules of the game; the second is whether they deny the legitimacy of their opponents; and the third is whether they appear to tolerate or encourage violence. Finally, we should also be alarmed if a politician expresses a willingness to curtail the civil liberties of their opponents, including the media. In some countries, you see candidates like this quite often; thankfully, it is much rarer in the United States. With the exception of Richard Nixon, no major-party presidential candidate met even one of these four criteria over the last century. Donald Trump, when running for office, tested positive on all four indicators.
Trump didn’t seek office in stealth, then throw off a cloak of democratic leanings to reveal an autocratic core. He ran as an autocrat, for an audience that has been prepared for an autocrat through decades of stories designed to make their opponents other by race, other by religion, and other by simply not being part of the group that agrees to ditch “political correctness.” By which they mean decency, compassion, and the rule of law.
Trump isn’t an exception. He’s not even the tip of the spear. He’s the culmination of an effort to eliminate the greatest threat that those behind the Republican Party see: the lingering possibility that citizens of a democratic country might vote away some part of their wealth, privilege, and power.
That the representatives of that force in Congress are not moving to stop Trump from carrying the country across a ‘red line’ for democracy isn’t surprising. Like Trump, they’re just anxious to get it over with. Then, just as we still pretend to have an EPA, we can continue to pretend we have a democracy. And everyone will be happy.