FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE 2.0: AMERICAN DEMOCRACY, AUTOCRACY, PLUTOCRACY, OR FACISM?

American intelligence agencies have confirmed Russian interference in the 2020 United States presidential election. They recently advised the House Intelligence Committee of their conclusion Russia wants to do again what most believe it did in 2016 - help tip the scales in President Donald Trump’s favor. A consensus exists that Russian social media activity, other forms of disinformation, and computer hacking helped Trump in 2016.   By talking with Congress, the intelligence briefers provoked Trump’s ire. He reacted by firing Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire. Trump reportedly raged that Democrats will use the reports of meddling against him.  The interference disturbs us, especially since the nation was warned this was coming, and precious few precautions have been taken against its possible effects. In his congressional testimony during the summer of 2019, former Special Counsel Robert Mueller emphasized his belief the Russians were meddling, “as we speak.” With it now established the Russians are at it again, the question of why we should care arises. American Elections for Americans We wouldn’t have thought we’d need a rationale for eliminating foreign interference in our elections. Sanctity of the ballot enjoys a treasured place in American democracy. Having the ballot means much less if citizens can’t depend on a secure electoral system and campaigns free of foreign meddling. In many contexts, American history shows the value democracy places on voting. Much of the civil rights movement concerned voting rights. Lyndon Johnson  thought giving blacks the vote would level the playing field in the South where they suffered under the spell of Jim Crow. Before he ran for president, Barack Obama expressed the view that advocates for social progress should focus on elections as a way of winning rights and power, not litigation, reasoning that what courts can give, they can take away. Once a majority of Americans have spoken through their ballots, elected officials are less likely to go a different direction.   From the beginning, the nation’s leaders took steps against foreign interference in America’s internal affairs. The constitution’s framers, for example, included an emoluments clause that keeps foreigners from buying influence with U.S. officeholders. Congress enacted legislation, like the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and a the ban on foreign campaign contributions, aimed at limiting outside influence on the American government. Managing our own affairs, including voting and elections, without foreign interference occupies a sacred place in American democracy.       Results v. Process Despite this seemingly obvious rationale for elections decided without fake Facebook ads Fake Facebook ads posted by Russians per Intelligence Committee and flyers containing falsehoods composed by Russian operatives, we know some Trump supporters who accept such interference because the 2016 meddling produced the right outcome. The result, they say, justifies the means.   They note the strong economy, Trump’s immigration policies, his judicial appointments, and other aspects of the incumbent’s tenure they like. They can overlook the process, so long as they get their desired result. The three of us view process as imperative. Are American campaigns and elections run fairly and on a playing field that gives everyone a fair chance? Has an unseen force, like Russian operatives, placed a thumb on the scale, corrupting the process? With campaigns and elections run fairly and without interference from outside our borders, we think democratic principles have prevailed and we can live with whatever outcomes such elections produce. With a fair process, Americans more likely trust results that ensue. What Goes Around Comes Around We’d prefer believing no Democratic president would behave as Trump has or accept foreign help in getting elected. Sadly, we could no more guarantee that than we can perform magic tricks. Of course, a future Democratic president could engage in his or her own set of deplorable acts. Take Lyndon Johnson, the 36th President, to whom we referred earlier. Johnson’s most 36th US President Lyndon Johnson significant biographer, Robert Caro, wrote in the preface to his 1982 book, The Path to Power, the first volume in his series, The Years of Lyndon Johnson, that the more one follows Johnson’slife, “the more  apparent it becomes that alongside the thread of achievement running through it runs another thread, as dark as the other is bright, and as fraught with consequences for history: a hunger for power in its most naked form, for power not to improve the lives of others, but to manipulate and dominate them, to bend them to his will.”   Caro further argued that “if during the long evolution from a ‘constitutional’ to an ‘imperial’ [p]residency there was a single administration in which the balance tipped decisively, it was the [p]residency of Lyndon Johnson.”  Caro’s observations on Johnson make chillingly clear a Democrat capable of Donald Trump’s excesses is quite possible. It’s so possible, it’s already happened. Perhaps only the details differ. So, we remind Trump supporters who see results they’re getting from the current presidency and, therefore, support anything that keeps it in place, that American politics runs in cycles. A president you don’t like will hold the office someday, perhaps a president who advocates forced abortions or wants confiscation of firearms. Are you really comfortable with THAT president getting help from foreign governments?     America stands at a crossroads. Do we stay with democracy  and keep working out its imperfections or do we toss it onto the scrap heap of history and try fascism, autocracy, plutocracy, or some other form of government? The current occupant of The White House shows little interest in strengthening democracy and its institutions. Rather than take our word for it, we again recommend former State Secretary Madeleine Albright’s  insightful Fascism: A Warning. She makes the compelling case that our current president takes his cues from a long line of leaders who were popularly elected but turned their countries into autocracies, plutocracies, or fascist states. We feel compelled to sound the alarm.

IMPEACHING A PRESIDENT: FOR WHAT WE ARE ABOUT TO RECEIVE

Now that the House Judiciary Committee has

approved two impeachment articles against President Trump, and a vote in the full House of Representatives impeaching him appears inevitable,  we ask, “What’s next?” The easy answer –  trial in the  Republican-controlled U.S. Senate –  only partly tells the story.

Impeachment could impact the 2020 election (or not). Americans may long debate this impeachment (or not). This might represent a watershed moment in American politics (or not). We find looking at the possibilities more intriguing than reviewing the tedious judiciary committee debate that brought us to this point.

Impeachment and the Election

Many Democrats who can’t stand Trump resisted impeachment as long as they did because they saw it negatively affecting the party’s 2020 chances. This theory found support in public reaction after Attorney General William Barr

Special Counsel Robert Mueller

exonerated  Trump upon release of the Mueller Report. Barr mischaracterized the Special Counsel’s work, something a lot of people now understand, but he set the narrative for a good while. In the short term, Barr’s bad faith spin doctoring set up Trump for spiking the ball and dancing in the end zone, proclaiming, “No collusion. No obstruction.” It seemed a Senate vote acquitting Trump after impeachment in the House might produce a repeat and give him big advantages next November.

Continuing the football analogy, upon further review, history doesn’t necessarily support that idea. Bill Clinton’s highest approval ratings followed acquittal in his impeachment trial but, arguably, Clinton'simpeachment fueled George W. Bush’s victory over Al Gore in 2000. At the

very least, it provided Bush a ready-made slogan about “restoring dignity” in the Oval Office, a thinly disguised shot at Clinton for having sexual relations with an intern in that very office.

Oval Office

The impeachment articles against Trump don’t accuse him of sexual misconduct, but the overwhelming evidence of his malfeasance in connection with Ukraine lets the attack ads write themselves. Arguments Republicans make in defending him are as flimsy as crepe paper in a hurricane. Trump should survive the Senate trial because enough GOP senators won’t defect. The American people may well play the role of referee and throw a flag for excessive celebration. In truth, only those long bamboozled by Trump’s act will see acquittal as a reason for voting for him. Impeachment, therefore, may not much affect the election after all.

The Debate

Many words got thrown around in the seemingly endless judiciary committee impeachment debate. We lived through the Nixon and Clinton impeachments. This seemed different and not in a good way. The result, both in the House and Senate appears so baked in, even political junkies might ask, “Why bother?”

House Democrats answer with the irrefutable contention that they couldn’t avoid impeaching Trump and still claim they’re protecting and defending the constitution, as their oaths require. Being lawyers, we get that.  Still, we all know how this movie ends. In the absence of an astounding

development none of us foresee, the House will impeach Trump on a party line vote with defections by four or five Democrats from districts Trump won, the Senate will acquit him with the only mystery being how many Republicans defect. The betting will center on whether a majority of senators vote for conviction, a possibility, given vulnerable GOP incumbents like Maine’s Susan Collins and Colorado’s Cory Gardner and Trump skeptics like Utah’s Mitt Romney who may join Democrats in voting for removal.

 

We fear this impeachment saga will not produce memorable moments. We won’t see brave, principled House Republicans bucking their party and voting for impeachment as seven did against

Nixon in 1974. Texas Congresswoman Barbara Jordan isn’t around, proclaiming her faith in the  constitution, despite its initial mal-treatment of her racial ancestors. In a few months, post impeachment political discourse probably sounds much like pre-impeachment political discourse.

 

An Impeachment Legacy? What Legacy?

                 

Trump, like Clinton, like Nixon, and like Andrew Johnson will now have impeachment in the first

paragraph of his obituary. But, with a president who has lied as much and committed as many offenses, many of them criminal, how much difference does that make? Is this a watershed moment in American politics or something else?

 

We can offer one unpleasant possibility. The legacy of the Trump impeachment may lie in the fact our hyper partisan politics means the nation can now never remove a president from office, no matter what that president does wrong. Republican support for Trump, in the face of overwhelming evidence of his corrupt conduct, suggests we’re stuck with misbehaving chief executives, no matter their sins. Democrats say they’d behave differently with the shoe on the other foot, but are we sure?

Unless the opposition party holds 60 plus Senate seats, an improbability if not an impossibility, no

president gets removed. It won’t happen unless the country so turns against the president, senators of that president’s party believe they will pay a higher political price for loyalty than turning the other way.

 

This situation, therefore, presents troubling questions for American democracy. Have we reached a point at which only elections can remove renegade presidents? Can a president with a loyal, dedicated base really shoot someone on Fifth Avenue in New York and get away with it? Do people so badly want their guy or gal in office that nothing else matters? Perhaps that’s this impeachment’s legacy, a discomforting thought, but maybe where we are.