I watched Judy Woodruff interview Bernie Sanders on the PBS Newshour last night and saw something different in his demeanor. His speech was just as direct as ever, just as ardent, but he was unusually composed and calm. Maybe it was the heart attack that changed him, or maybe it has occurred to him, “I can win this thing.”
New public opinion polling shows Sanders’ popularity among likely Democratic voters beginning to exceed that of moderate front-runner Joe Biden. In addition, Sanders is an unmatched powerhouse among Dems when it comes to fund-raising. He is estimated to have raised $100 million in 2019, roughly forty million dollars more than Biden, and far surpassing even the enthusiastically backed Pete Buttigieg, who reportedly raised about $75 million last year.
After years of being a long-shot candidate, Bernie suddenly seems a lot more viable—even more mainstream. His talking points haven’t changed, but the political atmosphere and the wishes of the American people have. To a citizenry weary of the bizarre outbursts and imbroglios President Trump is so fond of, Sanders’ consistency and plain speech are almost soothing. He comes across as an aging hippy uncle who has mellowed and acquired good manners over the decades by rubbing elbows with people of wildly different persuasions on Capitol Hill. His views are reassuringly humane and, from his having repeated them over and over, no longer sound as crazy as they did at first. He is a peacenik who believes that the US can figure out how to be fairer and deliver national health care and education more affordably.
His remarks on the Newshour zeroed in on the issue of voter turnout and political energy. Sanders argues that he is the Democratic candidate best suited to oppose Trump because he’s most capable of energizing voters, especially young voters, and getting them to turn out. “To beat Trump,” he was saying, “you’re going to need a massivevoterturnout. And the only way you do that is through a campaign of energy, of excitement. You have got to bring working people. You have got to bring young people into the political process.” In short, the nominee must inspire voters to get involved.
A crucial point. Candidates’ varying ability to galvanize voters in the general election is a factor completely left to the side in primary polling. A positive excitement, a charismatic appeal: precisely the ingredients missing in the Hillary debacle. This time around, I hope to God Democrats will refrain from choosing a “meh” candidate who can’t rouse the electorate to go to the polls. If the Dems make this mistake again—a mistake they have made innumerable times, as they did with Dukakis, Gore, Kerry, and Hillary—Trump and the Republicans will almost certainly prevail. Then a disappointed nation will be feeling the burn.
I went to sleep last night worried that we would all be waking up to a war with Iran. I am so grateful that the administration interpreted Iran’s attack on our bases as a retaliatory gesture that was pointed but at the same time perfunctory. Actually, I don’t have a problem with the president’s formally expressed hard line on Iran, or with the two aims he expressed today: deterring Iran’s expansive militarism and deterring it from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
I want to see Donald Trump out of the presidency, but, when I hear him speak about Iran, I agree completely. His remarks today took into account the really desperate internal condition of that country, and he articulated the ultimate and ideal goal of seeing Iran reach a state of peace and prosperity.
The people of Iran have suffered terribly under years of international sanctions and government repression. They want a functioning economy and normal lives. This is why Iran has lately been witnessing widespread popular demonstrations, which the government has had trouble putting down. Internally, Iran is in a terrible position to go to war with any nation, let alone the United States. The people of Iran want to get rid of the ayatollah and the fundamentalist strictures that the clerics have imposed on the country for decades.
At the same time, I liked Trump’s emphasis on our energy independence, and how that gives us more latitude when it comes to getting out of the Middle East. Interestingly, the desirability of withdrawing US troops from Iraq in some fashion but as soon as is feasible is a point on which Trump and Bernie Sanders agree.
Some new years open on indeterminacy, the shape of the future vague enough to warrant a complacent optimism. “Happy New Year!” Not 2020. The United States, though still the planet’s most powerful nation, is in the thick of a political metamorphosis, and what character of government will emerge from it is anyone’s guess. Bickering parties, an out-of-control president, a resentful populace, oceans of Russian disinformation, even a tech-driven epistemological crisis: such are the forces pushing the American republic ever closer to a great collapse—or paralysis. Even if it isn’t curtains for the US, this is surely one of its most inglorious periods, its government full of cowardly and mediocre people.
Between the president’s pending impeachment and the certainty of a presidential election come November, what is possible, probable, and inevitable in this new year? Here are a few prognostications.
The possible: Democratic nominees
Although the field of Democratic presidential candidates remains broad and, as yet, no votes have been cast, only two of the candidates have a shot at becoming president: Bernie Sanders and Michael Bloomberg.
If Sanders retains his current support, his chief progressive rival, Elizabeth Warren, will have to drop out. Her voters will gravitate to him, giving him a strong lead over all the Democratic field. In a general election, Sanders would repel moderates and capitalists, giving a victory to the incumbent, President Trump.
None of the more moderate candidates—whether Joe Biden, Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, Cory Booker, or Tom Steyer—can attract a majority of Democratic support: if they could, that majority would have gravitated to them from other candidates already, and the attraction would have registered in public opinion polls.
As moderate candidates drop out, the moderate “frontrunner” Joe Biden will not necessarily get stronger. Pete Buttigieg will be limited in that he comes across as a product of entitlement. Michael Bloomberg, a wealthy and capable latecomer, could, however, draw enough support from among moderate and independent voters to come to dominate this weak and wide field. In a general election, Bloomberg would stand a fine chance of beating Trump.
The possible: a fair Senate impeachment trial
It is still possible, though not probable, that the US Senate will decide to conduct a thorough impeachment trial of the president, one that impartially explores the charges against Trump that the House has formally brought. That Senate Republicans have stood firm as a group and only faintly objected to the fawning proclamations of Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell and vocal Trump loyalist Lindsey Graham makes me doubt that the Republicans will ever do anything but fall on their swords in defense of their man.
More evidence could come out against Trump, however, of a nature impossible to defend, tolerate, or ignore. As long as Nancy Pelosi holds on to the impeachment charges, and as long as there is a chance of a major witness coming over from the administration to testify, there is a chance that a fair and full trial, with live-witness testimony, will be held.
The Senate is intent on stonewalling and preventing a fair trial, because, if a fair trial were held, the Senators would be compelled to find the president guilty and remove him from office. In that case, we could see a President Pence in 2020.
More probable is that the Senate trial will be a superficial affair, with a vote to acquit the president. That would leave him free to run for reelection. Regardless of the lip service constantly paid to Trump’s base, his erratic conduct and the controversy it engenders is weakening the Republicans. The unusually large number of Republican lawmakers leaving Congress instead of running for reelection is one sign of the party’s critical condition. It is rare for humans give up power unless they must.
The probable: a very close presidential vote but a loss for Trump
Americans who don’t approve of Trump outnumber those who do by about 10 percentage points. Trump’s victory in 2016 rested on electoral votes, while the loser Hillary Clinton dominated the popular vote, winning nearly 2.9 million votes more than he. According to the Washington Post, “Of the more than 120 million votes cast . . . , 107,000 votes in three states effectively decided the election.” The three states were Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Trump also won Iowa and Ohio, which Obama had carried previously. In all, margins of less than two percent decided the outcome in six states.
I don’t want to underestimate the Democrats’ ability to choose an unelectable candidate or run an undisciplined presidential campaign, but with the right candidate and a smart strategy, the Democrats could defeat Trump fair and square. In truth, this would be better for the country than removing him from office, which would embitter many of his supporters.
The inevitable: dangerously fierce partisan rancor
Here’s the problem with extreme partisanship. The parties end up competing for power, rather than tailoring their identities around ideas or the needs of the people. The government grows unresponsive and ineffectual, increasing discontent and cynicism among citizens. The bland, stale character of the parties largely accounts for the rise of Trump, a dangerous figure.
Unfortunately, unless a third party emerges to disrupt the existing balance of power between the two parties, or unless the parties reform themselves from within, American politics is likely to go on being nasty, vengeful, and mediocre.
The overall decline in the quality of American governance is not just wasteful and embarrassing; it is a real threat to our well-being, domestic tranquillity, and security. Yet it appears inevitable that party warfare will continue and perhaps even intensify in 2020. It won’t be unprecedented, but it will be both scary and a betrayal of the people’s trust.
Image: A 1993 Jack Boucher photograph of a close view of the Statue of Freedom normally atop the United States Capitol, from this source.
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We’ve heard a lot of bluster from Republicans lately, much of it pooh-poohing impeachment and the odds of President Trump’s being removed from office.
In Congress, Republicans used the House Intelligence Committee’s recently concluded public hearings to depict impeachment as uninteresting, unpopular, unfair, unnecessary, unsubstantiated, unpromising, and unwise. The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, likewise prejudged the whole endeavor, saying that should the Senate try Trump on impeachment charges, “It’s inconceivable to me there would be 67 votes to remove the president from office.”
So say the Republicans, with impressive bravado. Meanwhile, the nation is heading straight at a moment of truth that will show what every Republican in the House and Senate is made of.
The public has received a mass of credible evidence that the president violated his oath of office to pursue a delusional personal agenda at the expense of national security. Trump enlisted other senior White House officials to further this agenda, explicitly empowering a private citizen, former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani, to orchestrate it. The House Intel hearings were an effective whodunnit. A parade of witnesses described a president at ease with sacrificing America’s public interests to those of Russia and to what matters to him personally. Such are the “goods” Republicans are bent on defending, at the expense of nation, party, and their own place in American history.
For, if the president’s conduct is tolerated, our republic is gone.
Republicans have sought to diminish the gravity of this Constitutional crisis. They complain mightily about the Democrats, perhaps because it’s painful to admit the turpitude embodied in the leader of their own party. They evoke the 63 million Americans who voted for President Trump in 2016, as if the mandate he secured then forever freed him from Constitutional limits or Congressional oversight. Republicans even assert that the riveting testimony given before the House Intel Committee was trivial and boring, whereas this great week of political theater was singularly dramatic, momentous, and often moving. Americans are far more sophisticated and more concerned with political rectitude than Republican lawmakers care to consider. No poll can predict what will happen to Republicans who choose to enable Trump’s abuse of power.
Republicans like Jim Jordan and Devin Nunes pander to the sort of voter they imagine forms the unshakable bedrock of Trump’s support: this voter is ill-informed, narrow-minded, and easily hurt. Republicans point to Trump’s forty-percent approval rating, as though this were a justification for abdicating the responsibilities Congress has to the Constitution. Congressional Republicans come across as fearful of securing office on their own terms, once this amazing charlatan leaves the public stage (which, given presidential term limits, is destined to happen anyway).
Deference to Trump’s “base” is curious and self-defeating. Trump is one of the least popular presidents in recent history, on a par with Gerald Ford. (For graphical comparisons to other presidents, click here and scroll down.)
A simplistic and condescending view of the voter has the Republican establishment running very scared. Republicans wants citizens everywhere to believe that impeachment is doomed, because otherwise Republican politicians will have to face the crisis of leading their constituents into the post-Trump age. Will Republicans continue to shirk the responsibility of leading, which, in a republic, involves educating citizens on complex matters and figuring out how to change their constituents’ minds?
Impeachment is now before the House Judiciary Committee. In the coming weeks, Republicans in power will come under increasing pressure to lead the nation, rather than dither about how hard it is to do the right thing.
Image: Edmund S. Valtman’s “Don’t Put Up Any Resistance! Just Keep In Step,” published 13 April 1973,from this source.
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How congressman Devin Nunes behaved on the opening day of the House’s public impeachment hearings epitomizes how loyalty to Trump jeopardizes the personal honor of every House Republican while threatening the viability of the Republican Party.
The televised hearings invite a nationwide audience of millions to observe and evaluate the merits of every political actor involved in a momentous and rare Constitutional proceeding. As the ranking Republican member of the House Intelligence Committee, Nunes used his opening statement to deliver a partisan tirade, airing longstanding grievances irrelevant to the day’s proceedings, maligning his Democratic colleagues as liars, and insulting witnesses George Kent and William Taylor, whose accomplishments and integrity plainly far exceeded Nunes’s own.
Nunes and other Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee are intent on defending President Trump, but they have not really thought far enough ahead to understand how their prejudice in his favor will come across to citizens, who are counting on Congress to examine the president’s behavior fairly and impartially. The public hearings are a special test of Republican leadership and integrity, because millions of well-informed Americans already know that President Trump has abused his power for personal political gain–not least because the president’s official spokesman, Mick Mulvaney, has already told them so. Likewise, millions of Americans, including some of Mr. Nunes’s constituents, undoubtedly realize that the president’s behavior is an indefensible deviation from his Constitutionally sworn duties and a challenge to Congress. They are looking to see whether Republican lawmakers have the courage and independence to admit that Trump’s personal behavior threatens everything republican government stands for. Will House Republicans fail to admit that Trump must be stopped?
It was doubly ironical to witness Nunes’s crude attacks on the Democrats, given that the hearings were imbued with a concern for our national security and a patriotic determination to safeguard our republican form of government–issues historically central to the strength of the GOP. Democrats came off as patriotic defenders of our national integrity, whereas Nunes’s petty assertions must have dismayed anyone who cares about curbing Russian aggression or has been part of American efforts to support the principle of self-determination abroad. The injury that Nunes’s strategy inflicted fell mainly on his own personal reputation, for his fellow-Republicans and he tarnished themselves in defense of indefensible things.
House Republicans may be scared. Yet what is the nature of the hold Trump has on them? When will they see that their own best interest lies in being silent and attending solely to the facts presented, rather than whining about the unfairness of the proceedings? Nunes’s election margins back home in his district are diminishing; he might fear his chances of reelection are doomed unless he can count on votes from Trump’s base. It’s depressing to think that Republican congressmen have nothing more valuable or principled to offer voters. When political analysts say that the Republican Party has become “the party of Trump,” this is what they mean.
Republicans have only to abandon Trump to slip free of all these difficulties. Perhaps as the evidence mounts, Nunes and his ilk will see the wisdom of cutting Trump loose, a dramatic act that would give new life to embattled republican (and Republican) ideals.
I watched Judy Woodruff interview Bernie Sanders on the PBS Newshour last night and saw something different in his demeanor. His speech was just as direct as ever, just as ardent, but he was unusually composed and calm. Maybe it was the heart attack that changed him, or maybe it has occurred to him, “I can win this thing.”
