TO IMPEACH OR NOT IMPEACH

[def_fr0g_42]

So now the Mueller report is publicly available (redacted, of course) and the hot take now is:

1. Mueller was indeed looking very narrowly at the Russian conspiracy part, but leaves no doubt that Russians were meddling in the election to help Trump, and Trump campaign officials were keen to get some help from them.
2. The reasons Mueller punted on obstruction were (1) he was working under the legal notion that a sitting president can’t be indicted, and he didn’t want to put that to the test, and (2) most of Trump’s attempts at obstruction were thwarted by his own people.
3. While Mueller didn’t think criminal indictments were feasible, he definitely hinted that impeachment was an option based on his findings.
4. The media, for the most part, got the story more or less right in terms of what happened.
5. William Barr's 4-page summary and pre-release press conference is so at odds with the content of the report that it's difficult not to conclude he was hoping to spin perception of the report in favor of Trump.
6. The report is a damning indictment of Barack Obama because he knew the Russians were interfering in the election and didn’t lift a finger to stop them. (Okay, the Mueller doesn’t say anything remotely close to that - that’s coming exclusively from conservative pundits because well OBVIOUSLY.)

Anyway, there’s a lot to unpack (this Lawfare blog post is very long but worth reading for a good initial analysis), but the report’s public release brings us to the next question: do Demos impeach him or not?

The current debate (such as it is) goes something like this:

1. FUCK YES
2. Well hold on, there’s an election on, see, and …

To expand on these:

1. Impeach: It’s not just about the Mueller report (which would be enough), it’s the totality of Trump’s entire presidency, from using it to enrich his business and installing his family into key posts without security clearance to his racist immigration policies, and general denigration of the dignity of the office. He had help from Russia (whether he actively colluded or not) to get elected. He is in every way unfit for the job. The process of impeachment was created for this very situation. If we don’t even try, we’re basically giving him a free pass and telling every POTUS to follow that they can abuse the office as much as they want without consequences, and democracy will be further undermined. We can’t let politics keep us from our constitutional duty.

2. Don’t impeach: Well, yes we can, because impeachment by design is a political procedure, not a legal one, so it’s reasonable to consider the political implications. On that note, there’s no point to impeachment because we know Trump will be acquitted, which means the ONLY way we’re getting rid of this clown is to beat him in 2020, and we can’t afford to blow it, not least by giving him tons of political witch-hunt ammo at a time when current polls suggest the majority of voters are NOT in favor of impeaching Trump. So, if defeating him in 2020 is the only way to kick him out of office, let’s focus on that.

So for me, since I assume both sides of this agree that they want Trump to lose his re-election bid, the two key questions to ask are (1) will a full-on impeachment bid (which we already know will fail) backfire spectacularly and ensure a second Trump term? And (2) is it worth putting principles and ‘constitutional duty’ first in the name of protecting American democracy if there’s a real risk that it could strengthen Trump’s push towards authoritarianism?

This of course raises the question of how big a political risk impeachment is. It’s possible as the trial goes on - and as more evidence of shenanigans comes to light - public opinion will shift in favor of it, and even if it doesn’t, the continual focus on Trump’s behaviour could at least hurt his re-election prospects. Some are already pointing to the apparent fact that the Mueller report indicates that either Russia has compromising sex tapes of Trump, or Trump thinks they do, which raises blackmail concerns. (I remember a lot of people justifying Clinton’s impeachment by saying his sexual proclivities could make the POTUS vulnerable to foreign blackmail - surely the same people would apply the same standard to Trump hahahahaha no, I know.) Maybe that could be an angle?

If nothing else, the redacted Mueller report did manage to knock Trump’s approval ratings down to 37% (from around 40%).

On the other hand, Trump could bounce back from that - certainly by now the Trump/GOP/Fox News machine is so perfectly aligned (and inoculated by the Fake News Enemy Of The People meme) that they’ll be able to maintain the Hoax Witch Hunt Total Exoneration meme with the base and maybe build his ratings back up to the low 40s. I know that sounds impossible, but then it seemed impossible in 2016 that Trump could ever win as scandal after scandal piled up.

So I think the Impeach Now camp is kidding itself if it thinks it thinks even an unsuccessful impeachment trial will increase his chance of losing in 2020.

But don’t get me wrong - I’m sympathetic to them, because I gather that they're also motivated by the fact that they absolutely cannot stand the idea of Trump getting away with this. Which he’s likely to do - whether he leaves office on 2020 or 2024, Trump will likely never spend a day in jail for what he’s done, and at least 40% of the country will swear blind until the end of time that he was a great president persecuted by the Evil Liberal Fake News Cabal run by the Barack Obama Deep State.

I hate that too. But let's be honest - impeaching Trump won’t fix that, and it won’t be a deterrent for the next Trump or Nixon or whoever. That’s because - like it or not - if the American democratic system is exploited by a crooked POTUS, the only remedies are the ballot box or impeachment (or the 25th Amendment, but that’s only for specific cases). And any effort to change that (especially if it involves constitutional tweaking) is likely to either fail or inadvertently make things worse.

Remember that there’s a reason it’s hard to unseat a POTUS - at its heart, impeachment is the political act of undoing the results of a democratic election. Yes, in this case we’re talking about a POTUS who not only lost the pop vote, but also benefited from outside interference from Russia. But the former is technically legit, and the latter has no legal recourse in terms of do-overs. If we do try to reform the system, it requires both sides to agree to the changes. And that’s a tall order in 2019 America.

So to come back to the question of impeachment: should the Demo-controlled House impeach Trump on the principle of constitutional duty?

My personal opinion: sure, go ahead, just don’t be stupid about it. Have a strategy that takes into consideration the political consequences - don’t pretend they don’t exist or don’t matter. Be mindful also that Trump will be acquitted - and set yr expectations and goals accordingly. The mission is not to kick Trump out of office early - it’s to defeat him in 2020.

If you can run an impeachment trial that helps accomplish that goal, great. If not, I’d rather you didn’t, because at this stage I’m not convinced that standing on principle is worth the tradeoff of four more years of Trumpapalooza.

The teaches of impeaches,

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