Eric Boehlert at Press Run Media has been taking the press to task for the way it spent four years kowtowing to outrages by the Trump administration and otherwise failing to do its job. (Latest here.) However, he also notes a helpful event.
I've written a lot about the New York Times' years-long obsession with documenting every passing thought from Trump Voters, even in the wake of Trump's lopsided election defeat. Where are the Biden Vote stories, I and and others have wondered?
Well, on Wednesday, the Times actually published one, so let's all take credit. The article didn't run on the front page, the way so many Trump Voters stories have. But the Times did interview dozens of Democrats.
From the Times' "Prosecute Trump? Biden Is Wary, but His Voters Are Eager":
Interviews with two dozen Biden voters across the country found near unanimity that it was important for the Senate, the Justice Department and state prosecutors to aggressively pursue Mr. Trump, his family members and top aides — holding them accountable well beyond the impeachment charge against the president for inciting the Capitol riot on Jan. 6. The consensus cut across differences of ideology, income, race and sex.
Here’s a sampling from the NY Times:
...“Many of us voted to get Trump out, not necessarily to be pro-Biden,” said Nancy MacEoin, 47, a criminal defense lawyer in Philadelphia. “Backing off any sort of prosecution of Trump is going to alienate those people.”
...“He’s a crook and he needs to pay for the crimes he’s done,” said Teresa Steele, a Republican in Denton County, Texas, who voted for Mr. Biden.
...“The next guy who wants to be dictator or whoever, he’s going to be a lot smarter than Trump,” said Robert Landry, a retired truck driver in Two Rivers, Wis. “If you don’t hold these people accountable and say, ‘No, this is too far,’ somebody’s going to come along and push it further. I believe some of those people are already in Congress.”
...“The Democrats have unsuccessfully tried to be moderate in order to gain compromise and cooperation over and over again, and it hasn’t worked and it’s not going to work,” said Dave Bone, 54, an energy efficiency consultant who lives in Philadelphia.
The NY Times being the NY Times, they do have to find contrary opinions (“fairNbalanced”) and they are trying to frame Biden as reluctant to impeach. This rather goes against the thrust of his inaugural speech which seemed to hint strongly that those who lie for power will not get the free ride they’ve been enjoying.
It is, after all, not Biden’s job to call for impeachment — that responsibility lies with Congress, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is firm that it should go forward. Biden’s duty to protect and defend the constitution follows from that.
...“It will be soon, I don’t think it will be long, but we must do it,” Pelosi said Thursday. She said Trump doesn’t deserve a “get out of jail card” in his historic second impeachment just because he has left office and President Joe Biden and others are calling for national unity.
...Pelosi said it would be “harmful to unity” to forget that “people died here on Jan. 6th, the attempt to undermine our election, to undermine our democracy, to dishonor our Constitution.”
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer concurs.
Schumer told reporters Thursday that he was still negotiating with McConnell on how to conduct the trial, “but make no mistake about it. There will be a trial, there will be a vote, up or down or whether to convict the president.”
This one from the NY Times is evocative of the dangers of letting Trump just walk away.
Arturo Sutter, a Biden voter in Miami, said that if the actions of Mr. Trump and his family are not fully investigated and punished, Trumpism will extend a grip over Republican politics for decades, in the same way that Juan Perón, another demagogic populist, still overshadows Mr. Sutter’s native Argentina.
“I’m 60 years old, Evita was dead seven years before I was born,” Mr. Sutter said of Mr. Perón’s wife, a partner in power. “In Argentina, they are still claiming Evita and Perón were the best things in the world.”
“Whatever justice can do to show how this person used the government to enrich himself and his friends and family, it will help,” he said of Mr. Trump.
“So many people are convinced of so many fantasies,” he said of Trump supporters.
“I saw this movie before.”
Trump may not achieve the same levels of idolatry that Peron still enjoys, but Trumpism needs to have a stake driven through its heart because there are other Republicans ready to make their own run at going full authoritarian. This profile of Senator for Sedition Josh Hawley in Mother Jones is a cautionary tale.
On impeachment, this is the big takeaway from the NY Times. To repeat:
Interviews with two dozen Biden voters across the country found near unanimity that it was important for the Senate, the Justice Department and state prosecutors to aggressively pursue Mr. Trump, his family members and top aides — holding them accountable well beyond the impeachment charge against the president for inciting the Capitol riot on Jan. 6. The consensus cut across differences of ideology, income, race and sex.
Sounds like unity to me.