The Nationally Televised Train Wreck

The first impeachment of Donald Trump has now sputtered to a most predictable end. On New Year’s Day, we knew that the votes to convict in the Senate were not there, and they were not. We knew that the Democrats in the House were bound and determined to go forward anyway, and they were. We knew that the Republican Senators are afraid of Trump, and — with the notable exception of Mitt Romney — they are.

Given past behavior, we reasonably expected Democrats would pull their standard persuasion methodology. “It’s obvious to me, so it should be obvious to anyone who doesn’t walk on all fours or sleep upside down.” They did not disappoint.

The capstone of the whole trial was the performance on 31 January. Lamar Alexander had already made his statement the day before:

I worked with other senators to make sure that we have the right to ask for more documents and witnesses, but there is no need for more evidence to prove something that has already been proven and that does not meet the United States Constitution’s high bar for an impeachable offense.

Here is a decision maker providing advance notice of his decision criteria. He accepts the correctness of the charges, so there is no point in bringing in evidence or witnesses to further convince him of what he already believes. The only shot at changing his vote is to persuade him that the behavior does rise to the level of an impeachable offense.

In response to this, the House managers spend the day calling for witnesses and evidence. I lost my wallet in Central Park, but I am going to look for it in Times Square where the light is better.

You can object to Alexander’s conclusion, but the fact remains: he has a Senate seat. He gets to vote on the outcome. I don’t. House managers don’t. There are 53 Republican Senators. You need at least 20 of them to vote your way in order to get a conviction. If your case is not to be dead on arrival, don’t you have to meet them on their terms and speak to them in a language that they understand? That’s not how Democrats go about politics, which is Exhibit A explaining Why So Many People Are Afraid of Democrats in Power. We can run roughshod over you, because we’re right and you’re wrong. How’s that working for you?

Republicans, meanwhile, hardly covered themselves in glory. Susan Collins, who agreed with Alexander that the House had not demonstrated the severity of the charges merit impeachment, hoped that Trump would learn a lesson from the experience. He did, and proceeded to demonstrate it in force. The day after being acquitted, he used the occasion of the National Prayer Breakfast to let us all know what a wrathful god he really is. The speech will be remembered as the #pettysburgaddress.

Trump followed that up with retribution against Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and Gordon Sondland. Yes, Trump doesn’t have to have someone on the National Security Council who opposes his policies, but the manner in which Vindman was walked out was unmistakable retribution.

Vindman’s brother Yevgeny was also dismissed. After all, what self-respecting dictator does not go after family members of disloyal persons?

Collins admitted that her previous comments were “aspirational.” Yeah, as in wishful thinking. It didn’t last a week. In 1994, the Republicans had the Contract with America; now they have submission to a king.

When you strike at a king, you must kill him.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

I blame the House Democrats for what happened to the Vindmans. They called these men in for testimony. They had a responsibility to use that effectively, and they did not. Now the impeachment managers return to their safe seats in Congress, and the Vindmans, along with Marie Yovanovich and others, are stuck with the consequences. What in Trump’s previous behavior would lead you to expect anything other than retribution?

As for Sondland, it is clear that he was way over his depth.

A mistake in the initial deployment cannot be rectified over the course of a campaign.
— Attributed to Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke the Elder (1800-1891)

This impeachment effort was behind the eight-ball the day it passed the House. Nancy Pelosi knew this, and tried gamely to salvage it, but did not really have any leverage. The Democrats in the House went in on a narrow front, hanging everything on this shakedown of Ukraine to get the Bidens.

Oh, I’ve got you, got you, got you.
— Eleanor (Katherine Hepburn), The Lion in Winter

The Democrats rushed impeachment through the House; they should have left the steaming turd on the table for months, where their allies in the media could be still running stories about how Donald Trump is about to be impeached, why he is about to be impeached, the latest development in the impeachment proceedings, and did we mention Trump is about to be impeached? Once they passed the articles on impeachment, they lost control of the process and the Republicans could see it off in less than a month. Worst of all, the Democrats did nothing to make their case to the part of America that does not already believe.

In order for impeachment to succeed, the Democrats had to bring over enough Americans, particularly in red states, that the Republicans in the Senate would figure they had more to lose from backing Trump than from opposing him. This is, admittedly, a tall order. It is made more difficult because so many Americans are afraid of the Democrats’ agenda and see Trump as the only person with the will to fight the Democrats in any way. We’re tired of being bullied, so we are going to sic our bully on your bullies. It’s hard to argue with that point of view after everything I have seen since 1980. Anyone with the temerity to push back on the Progressive agenda is a racist, misogynist, etc., etc., ad nauseam.

Some have been ostracized by close family members criticizing them for their vote, others confess they have been “called racist, a xenophobe, homophobe, whatever phobe they could come up with.” One woman’s son was bullied after his 1st grade class held a mock election: “my son hears us and he says, ‘I’m going to vote for Trump,’ and two of the kids in his class started yelling. Like, ‘You’re going to vote Trump? Are you crazy?’ And just started yelling at him.” This is personal.
— Stanley Greenberg and Nancy Zdunkewicz, “Macomb County in the Age of Trump” [https://www.greenbergresearch.com/macomb/2017/3/9/macomb-county-in-the-age-of-trump]

This week, Trump delivered another State of the Union address where he went out of his way to shove his points up the Democrats’ asses every chance he got. He’s a proven performer here. The capstone, from a sheer orneriness point of view, was his award of the Medal of Freedom to Rush Limbaugh. Meagan Vazquez at CNN was predictably bent out of shape, observing of previous recipients:

The elite group includes Rosa Parks, a civil rights pioneer, Elie Wiesel, a Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor, and Mother Teresa, a literal saint.

And also Marian Wright Edelman, given hers by Bill Clinton in 2000, and Ellen DeGeneres, who was so honored by Barack Obama in 2016. If I really wanted to put the cat among the pigeons, I could bring up Carl Vinson (LBJ, 1964) or Strom Thurmond (Bush I, 1993). Deserving appears to be in the eye of the beholder here.

But no matter. Mazie Hirono has the whole thing under control. On Thursday, she corrected Wolf Blitzer, saying that Trump was not acquitted because his trial in the Senate was not conducted according to her standards. Alan Dershowitz could learn a thing or two from Hirono: if you don’t get the outcome you want, unilaterally declare a mistrial and do it over.

See, Red State America? Why are you so afraid of Democrats?

This goat rodeo would be a lot funnier if it were happening in someone else’s country.