The Politics of Impeaching Donald Trump: How It Might Happen

As they say in radio, “The Hits Just Keep On Coming.”  That’s been American politics since May 15, when President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey.  Space doesn’t permit listing all the blockbuster stories absorbed in news cycles since then. Increasingly, the media and the public speculate whether the end game to all this is the “I” word – potential impeachment of the 45^th President of the United States.

One of us, Woodson, already is on record in suggesting Congress will impeach Trump this year.  The other two of us, as much as we’d like to see that, argue it won’t happen, if at all, until after the 2018 elections when Democrats could recapture the House of Representatives and control of the impeachment process. We realize impeachment implicates legal and political concerns and we ignore either at our peril. Now, we focus on politics. 

Some History   Three American presidents -- Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton – have faced impeachment proceedings.  No U.S. President has been removed from office by conviction following impeachment, though Nixon resigned in anticipation of certain impeachment and conviction. 

“High Crimes and Misdemeanors” represents the constitutional standard for impeaching a president.  Historically, a debate has raged among the political class and legal scholars over whether the term means an indictable criminal offense or merely political or practical misconduct.  The record in the three cases shows a combination of the two.  In reality, “High Crimes and Misdemeanors” means whatever Congress says it means.

The House impeached Johnson in 1868 over his violation of a likely unconstitutional statue -- the Tenure of Office Act.  Johnson tried to replace Secretary of War Edwin Stanton with General Lorenzo Thomas.  Congress passed that law to protect Stanton and when Johnson wouldn’t follow it, the House approved 11 articles of impeachment. Three conviction votes in the Senate each fell one vote short of the required two-thirds majority.  The Johnson impeachment, therefore, was blatantly political and Congressional Republicans, angry with Johnson over dealing with the defeated Confederacy after the Civil War, didn’t worry about finding a criminal charge against him.

The House Judiciary Committee adopted three articles of impeachment against Nixon in 1974, two of them essentially political – abuse of power and contempt of Congress.  But, the June 23, 1972, “smoking gun” tape in which Nixon and his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, plotted how to use the CIA as a cover for stopping the FBI investigation into the Watergate break-in, would have resulted in a conviction on the third article, obstruction of justice, had Nixon not resigned.

The impeachment articles against Clinton that passed the House in 1998 involved criminal charges -- perjury and obstruction of justice related to lying about his affair with Monica Lewinsky.  Because the charges against Clinton concerned sex, the Senate was never going to convict.

It’s Politics   So, the impeachment record shows it’s as much about politics as about criminal wrongdoing.  Impeaching Trump would constitute a political act as much as a legal one, with wide ranging consequences, making considering the politics of impeachment necessary.  Republicans control both chambers, so Congress wouldn’t likely impeach Trump until GOP members believe it in their political interest to do so or think they can’t afford to resist.  Assembling evidence against Trump and his associates remains important, but we must at least partly view that evidence through a political lens.

 For Republicans to desert Trump, must Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller develop an airtight criminal case against him?  Nixon’s political support didn’t collapse until his criminal culpability became clear. Since Trump’s sins, and those of his colleagues, involve national security and foreign policy matters, what will it take for enough of the public to support impeachment that Republicans get on board or get out of the way? The public saw the Johnson and Clinton impeachments as mostly political.  Americans didn’t think Congress should impeach Johnson over a personnel matter and they didn’t want to run Clinton out of office over sex. Nixon’s overt criminality, however, sufficed and he resigned in the face of the inevitable. What will the public require for getting rid of Trump?

Afterwards   Then there’s the fallout from impeachment.  What happens if enough shoes drop this summer that Congress does impeach Trump, making Mike Pence President by early 2018?  We see two possible scenarios.  Republicans could, of course, suffer a similar fate as in the aftermath of Watergate and Nixon’s resignation.  Democrats cleaned up in the 1974 mid-terms, picking up 49 seats in the House and four in the Senate. Jimmy Carter arguably won the White House in 1976 because of Watergate and Gerald Ford’s pardon of Nixon.

But, for those who oppose the Republican agenda, there’s also a nightmare scenario.  Suppose Pence puts the GOP back on track by doing things like picking a woman, say former South Carolina Governor and current UN Ambassador Nikki Haley or Iowa Senator and hog farmer Joni Ernst, as the new Vice President?  Suppose Pence cajoles his majorities into passing a big tax cut, makes Democrats a deal on infrastructure spending they can’t refuse, and cobbles together a health care deal that mollifies the firebrands in the House and blunts moderate Senate opposition to repeal of the Affordable Care Act?  Such a political resurrection might hold Republican losses in the House in 2018 to the norm for the party holding the White House and make Pence a formidable incumbent in 2020.

When thinking about impeachment, a chilling phrase for this scenario comes to mind: Be careful what you wish for.                      

       

        

Unimaginably Immoral: Trump Fires FBI Director James Comey

President Trump’s May 15 firing of FBI Director James Comey unleashed a string of events the nation may feel for years.  By the end of that week, the Justice Department, under mounting public and political pressure, named a special prosecutor to pursue the investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia in interfering in the 2016 presidential election. Published reports soon indicated investigators were targeting a “person of interest” working on the White House staff.  Those reports described the unnamed individual as “close” to the President. It’s now apparent that person is Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.  Cable news stories, editorial pieces, and blogs suggested Trump’s personal actions constituted obstruction of justice.  A few Congressional Democrats, and more than a few people around the country, openly began using the “I” word and Trump in the same sentence.

Facts aren’t in yet   We know some of the facts of Trump’s conduct, but not everything.  We know he has offered public statements that, on their face, seem like an effort to shut down or impede the FBI’s Russia investigation. He told NBC’s Lester Holt he fired Comey because of that investigation, despite the pretext of dissatisfaction with Comey’s handling of the Hillary Clinton e-mail matter. Published reports indicated Trump asked Comey to stop investigating his fired national security advisor, General Michael Flynn.  Comey supposedly wrote a memo shortly after that conversation, contemporaneously memorializing the President’s effort to get him to drop that investigation.  The Comey memo hasn’t been released and Comey hasn’t testified about that meeting. Reportedly, he’s agreed to appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee in early June. Until everything comes out, we can’t know the exact facts. What we do know has the odious smell of obstruction of justice

We can’t say if the special prosecutor will conclude Trump’s actions constitute obstruction of justice. As Henry, the one of us who’s served as a judicial officer charged with applying the law of obstruction of justice, points out, federal obstruction statues are complex and subject to differing interpretations. As legally trained individuals, we recognize the importance of basing conclusions on complete factual development of the record and a full understanding of applicable law.

Woodson, however, has seen enough.  He says, “The President encouraged Flynn to plead the Fifth, though Flynn remains under investigation for operating as a foreign agent while serving as National Security Advisor and for colluding with the Russians in interfering in our national election. Trump fired the FBI director for not conducting the Russia/Trump investigation in a manner that suited hm.  He asked the heads of the National Intelligence and National Security agencies to declare that they found no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia when they made no such finding. If those actions don’t constitute “High Crimes and Misdemeanors,” I don’t know what does.

“I think few legal scholars would conclude Trump’s actions don’t amount to obstruction of justice. Ultimately, an elected Congress must determine the political question of what constitutes “High Crimes and Misdemeanors.”  I align myself with Justice Potter Stewart’s sentiments when he explained his determination of pornography. I know “High Crimes and Misdemeanors” when I see them.”                   

No crime needed   Despite Rob and Henry’s unwillingness to now say that Trump has committed an impeachable offense, they have no difficulty expressing their moral, political, and patriotic outrage about what’s happened so far.  We titled this piece as we did because we could find no better phrase than Woodson’s characterization of the President’s behavior. “Unimaginably immoral” sums up our feelings about the potential irreparable harm Trump’s acts continue to do to our country’s political and social institutions. We all agree that if Congress and the courts – the co-equal branches of our government – don’t move systematically against him, removing him from office if the facts and law ultimately justify doing so – it may take years for those institutions to recover.

The political calculus concerning impeachment remains much the same as we suggested in our earlier comments on that subject.  With all due respect to Woodson’s belief that it will happen this year, a sober analysis of the politics still makes that a long shot. Special counsel Robert Mueller faces a potentially long and complex investigation. Criminal charges against Trump’s associates, if Mueller brings them, may take years to prosecute.  While Mueller builds cases against individuals, Republicans retain the levers of power in the House where impeachment must originate. They haven’t abandoned Trump and any honest assessment of the mood of Congress still must give him the advantage. Even revelations that Trump shared with the Russians sensitive American intelligence, probably given to the United States by Israel, didn’t pry Republicans from Trump’s side.

Trump’s conduct, especially this sharing of classified intelligence with a hostile foreign power, saddens and sickens us because we grew up in an America that considered such behavior treason.  We find watching the party of Lincoln hem and haw about Trump’s actions especially troubling, since Republicans so often found it convenient to run campaigns challenging Democrats as unpatriotic. The idea an American President could act in such a way long seemed unfathomable to us, but if holding power means everything, we suppose Republican acquiescence to his behavior follows. Trump’s conduct, if unpunished, suggests we’ve become a nation of men, not laws.

Not over until it’s over   We must admit, however, to borrow another overused sports cliché, the fat lady hasn’t sung yet. Neither Mueller’s investigation nor the probes by Congress have come to fruition. Indeed, Mueller just picked up the baton. He enjoys a reputation for determination, independence, and fairness.  Time remains for good Republicans to step forward and become heroes by putting country ahead of party.                        

            

A Matter of Faith: Three Approaches to Religion

We haven’t spent much time writing about it yet, but as will become evident as this blog continues and in our memoir, all three of us take matters of religion and faith quite seriously.  Though we grew up in traditional, all-black, Protestant (Baptist and Methodist) churches, each of us has taken a spiritual journey that puts us in a different place from where we began all those years ago. With this piece, we start periodic exploration of our journeys in an effort to convey the faith experiences that have taken us to the spiritual spots in which we now reside.

Who we worship with represents one issue we think many may find interesting, given where we started. The issue isn’t insignificant. One of us views the ethnic and racial composition of a congregation as a defining factor in the substance of his faith.  Another of us finds himself torn between an ideal and the practical when it comes to the need for and function of congregations composed of certain kinds of people.  Finally, one of us puts his focus on the theology of his places of worship, sacrificing undoubtedly desirable demographic characteristics for theological purity. None of these approaches is necessarily “right” or “wrong.”  They are just “different” and explain an important component of our religious and spiritual existence.

Woodson’s Mosaic Woodson attends and participates actively in a multi-ethic, multi-cultural, socio-economically diverse church.  Mosaic of Little Rock operates from a decidedly Christian perspective and its members, by and large, strongly profess a belief in redemption and salvation through Jesus Christ as personal lord and savior.  They present varying denominational histories and, most important, arrive at the church from a potpourri of racial and ethnic backgrounds, widely varying economic and social strata, and lacking the homogeneity typically associated with churches in the United States.  If 11 a.m. Sunday remains, as Martin Luther King once said, the most segregated hour in America, Mosaic’s members opted out of that circumstance some time ago.  

Mosaic’s big tent character, for Woodson, includes a substantive theological component.  He says, “Worshiping in a multi-ethnic church demonstrates our commitment as co-laborers with God in bringing the Peace of heaven to earth.” He adds, “If the Kingdom of Heaven is not segregated, then why should the local church on earth be? Failure to overcome racial division within the church makes us less credible witnesses to the faith.” He roots in scripture his view that worshiping in a diverse church means something real spiritually. He cites John 17:21-22, quoting Jesus speaking to God: “That all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. [22] And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them: that they may be one, even as we are one.”   An adherent of the multi-ethnic church sees joining together different kinds of people in worship as a way of bringing people together spiritually, economically, and politically and, therefore, to bring God to all people.

That Old Time Religion Mosaic, and fast growing churches like it (many Christian denominations stagnate or shrink now), may represent a new ideal that connects different cultures. Henry, however, still sees a need for “a place that offers rest for the weary.” Despite his hope and wish that congregations “care not at all about skin colors or the diverse cultures within,” a need remains for churches that primarily serve the spiritual and practical needs of particular ethnic populations. Given what he calls “cultural reality,” he acknowledges settling for a place called “the black church,” despite his desire for a different world. In other words, the practicalities of race and racism demand the continuing existence of places that primarily serve the needs of a historically disenfranchised group. These churches, for example, help preserve a history too often overlooked.

Henry prefers “to express my love in a place where diversity reigns and understanding abounds.”  But, he knows, the realities of America, even in 2017, do not always make that possible. Ministries that focus on the black community remain essential to the spiritual needs of many black people.  Community service that black churches render represents a significant part of the continuing need for such places.  So, Henry attends Alfred Street Baptist Church in Alexandria, Virginia, an iconic black church that traces its history to 1803. According to Henry, it serves a need and that’s just a fact.

Purity   Rob, for the majority of his adult life, has attended Unitarian Universalist Churches.  He’s been a member at Northwoods UU in The Woodlands, Texas since 1991. In the last few years, as his interest in and affinity for progressive Christianity deepened and expanded, he has sometimes attended United Church of Christ (UCC) churches.  These UU and UCC churches are overwhelmingly white, raising the issue of how much it matters what one’s fellow travelers should look like. Theology, not demographics, determines his answer.  That theology makes God as an all-encompassing concept with no all-powerful deity ruling the world and envisions Jesus not as savior but as a human, historical figure who walked the earth for an all-too-brief period teaching timeless lessons that remain models for living.        

Having attended Mosaic with Woodson, Rob finds that church’s diversity amazing, almost seductive.  Mosaic “looks like America,” to quote a former President. He admires the ministerial outreach and commitment to social justice at Alfred Street that Henry reports.  But, he knows, he could never attend either on a regular basis because the theology doesn’t match. The theology at his UU and UCC churches defines church for him. Nothing about the color of the people in the pews changes that.

So, there are three ways of looking at this. How do you look at it?        

             

            

                

     

One of Life's Inevitable's: Cheating in College Football

Constants exist in life. Some things seem inevitable -- death and taxes, Wyoming voting Republican, the New England Patriots making the Super Bowl, and, until this year, the Connecticut women’s basketball team going undefeated. In the years we’ve been following sports, we’ve seen one more -- cheating in college football. The NCAA recently passed recruiting changes designed to streamline the process and reduce incentives to bend rules.  We doubt these so-called reforms will change much because none of them – an early signing period, adjustments in the calendar regarding visits and contact with recruits, limits on hiring relatives and people close to prospects – address either major recruiting abuses or the culture of impatience that fuels rampant cheating.

The Major Problem   There always has been cheating in college football.  We think there always will be cheating in college football.  If you can’t un-ring a bell or take politics out of politics, you can’t get cheating out of this sport.  That doesn’t mean fans, media, and administrators shouldn’t think about the problem.

One part of the equation involves coaches who funnel under-the-table payments to players.  We see nothing wrong with banning coaches, for as much as three years, proven to have engaged in this conduct, so long as the NCAA retains discretion to mitigate penalties under certain circumstances.  Another part of the problem involves the presence on college rosters of players whose character makes them unfit to represent institutions of higher education.      

Anyone who keeps up with the sport knows about the horror stories like the sexual abuse scandal at Baylor. What people who don’t follow the sport might not know is how close to the line many programs operate by taking risks on players who, before they enroll, showed a propensity for bad acts that predict future problems like  sexual misconduct, academic fraud, and drug and alcohol abuse.  Many coaches, especially in their early years at a school when they’re trying to establish a winning culture, know the risks associated with particular players, but recruit and sign them anyway because they see no alternative.  If they don’t take them they likely will never win enough to get or keep a college head coaching job.

Hot Seats   While athletic directors and presidents claim they want things done the “right way,” college football’s dirty little not-so-secret maxim is that doing things the “right way” works only so long as the team wins 8-10 games a year and regularly gets a bowl invitation.  Drop below that and no matter how good the team’s academic record, no matter how many good citizens the program turns out, the coach will find himself on the proverbial hot seat.

Take, for example, Arkansas coach Brent Bielema.  We all follow Arkansas for one reason or another – each of us grew up in the state, one of us went to school there for a short time, two of us have daughters who earned degrees from Arkansas.  Bielema arrived in Fayetteville in 2013 off a 68-24 record and three Big 10 championships at Wisconsin. He followed two major Arkansas coaching disasters – Bobby Petrino’s implosion in a sex scandal and the ill-fated John L. Smith interim experiment that resulted in a 4-8 record for a 2012 team some predicted would win the South Eastern Conference championship.

Bielema faced a major overhaul project at Arkansas.  Aside from the team’s on-the-field shortcomings, Razorback players performed dreadfully in academics and more than a few couldn’t stay out of legal trouble.  The published indicators show marked academic progress among Arkansas players and the number getting into legal difficulties has dropped to almost nothing.  Arkansas appears to now have a team in which the university and its fans can take pride. This progress, however, may come with an expensive price tag for Bielema.

No one other than Athletic Director Jeff Long and a few other top UA officials know if Bielema really is on the hot seat as the 2017 season approaches.  But, read websites and fan message boards and you can feel unrest building.  Last season ended badly for Arkansas. The Razorbacks finished a pedestrian 7-6, suffering a crushing loss to a bad Missouri team in the regular season finale and an embarrassing bowl defeat at the hands of Virginia Tech, despite a 24 point half time lead.  The bottom line: all Bielema’s progress in cleaning up the program won’t mean much if he doesn’t win more games. Fans and media acknowledge that Arkansas plays in the toughest division of any conference in America – the SEC West – but nobody cuts Bielema slack for that.  It won’t save his job if the Hogs don’t get better soon.

Limits   Many college football fan bases dismiss or ignore the limits under which the program they support operates.  Arkansas, for example, sits in a geographic area that makes it unlikely (not impossible, but unlikely) the Razorbacks can compete, year in and year out, for SEC and national championships without cutting corners on players.  Arkansas’s small population base makes recruiting against Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and the like exceedingly difficult.  Arkansas can develop and nurture enough high character players to field an outstanding team every three or four years.  But, without player personnel compromises, the Arkansas fan base shouldn’t count on winning ten, 11, or 12 games every year.  That hasn’t happened since Arkansas joined the SEC in the early 90s and nothing makes us think it’s about to start.

So, what’s reasonable under such circumstances?  What’s wrong with supporting a program that every year produces a bevy of graduates headed for careers as businessmen, professionals, corporate executives, teachers, coaches, community leaders, and government officials? What’s wrong with cheering for players who stay out of trouble, even if they win “only” seven or eight games a year?  Nothing we can see, especially when the program must live with built-in limitations that likely make doing better contingent on cutting corners and compromising its integrity.  Like we said, nothing we can see.                  

 

                              

Racial Stereotyping: Still a Problem After All These Years

From time to time, the issue of racial stereotyping arises for us, either in the form of a thought provoking article or book or real world experience.  The now widely-debunked idea of a “post racial” society notwithstanding, judging people on the basis of stigmas and stereotypes remains with us and demands continuing attention.

Different Forms   
Racial stereotyping, like other kinds of racial animus, operates both underground and in plain sight.  Some come out and express their view that members of racial minorities, generally people of color are, by definition, inferior.  Others hide their views behind ostensibly race neutral language and attitudes.  Either way, perpetrators of stereotypes harbor the idea of what one of us calls “presumed incompetence.”  This concept rests on the difficult-to-rebut presumption that the work product of a person of color won’t measure up to the standards of the majority culture.  We wrote about this last year in discussing the difficulty black coaches and sports executives have in getting high level jobs in colleges and professional franchises and the tendency of those colleges and franchises not to hire minority candidates if that organization hired one who failed.

In higher education, minority students face a similar challenge.  A prominent black federal judge, for example, recently reported black law students attending elite law schools still experience hostility from white professors who believe them fundamentally unqualified for admission to those schools, despite fifty years of successful black graduates of such schools.  We suffered large and small indignities as students at such schools in the 1970s and 80s.  Despite our hope that such behavior would have ended by now, the problem apparently still exists. It seems the more some things change, the more some things stay the same.

It is worth asking why this continues. Conservatives often claim preferential minority admission policies promote stereotyping. If elite graduate and professional schools eliminated racial preferences, goes the argument, no one would have a reason to stereotype since everyone would get admitted solely on merit --- translated, grades and test scores.  This argument ignores one of the dirty little secrets about higher education admissions – the tenuous connection between traditional admission criteria (numbers) and success in a particular field of endeavor. One study of graduates of a prominent state law school found “no significant relationship” between LSAT scores or undergraduate grades and achievements after law school graduation.

This study confirms what one of us intuitively thought while working as a law school admissions officer.  A small group of applicants looked like sure winners, people who would do well at whatever endeavor they tried.  Another small group seemed headed for disappointment, at least in terms of practicing law and other things people do with law degrees. It just wasn’t possible to tell from the paper record about the vast majority. Which category a given applicant fell into did not depend on test scores and grades. Applicants with good, bad, and indifferent admission numbers fell into each of the three categories. Some studies show admission numbers can predict grades in school, but that is an entirely different matter than actual life achievement.

Some people, of course, see no need to dress up their stereotyping with arguments like the suggestion that it results from racial preferences in things like professional school admission. These individuals just presume minority group incompetence and assign the most derogatory characteristics to group members.  We’ve lived for over fifty years in a society in which overt racial discrimination has been illegal. Three generations have come of age since the civil rights era of the 1960s. We’ve had a black man occupy the White House.  As he pointed out in one speech, black people now own sports franchises, dominate the television production world, run major cities as mayors, and serve as CEOs of corporations.  If all that doesn’t change things, maybe nothing will, but victims of stereotyping still must cope with it.

What To Do?   
Since stereotyping remains with us, what response does it merit?  We’ve employed two not necessarily mutually exclusive approaches. One involves working to change the systems that allow stereotyping to flourish, while the other more resembles one of the fundamental principles of golf – play the course as you find it. Henry points out that by practicing civil rights law, advocating for minority rights in various contexts, and supporting organizations that fight prejudice and discrimination, he sought to affect change and demonstrate that blacks and other historically out groups are not presumptively incompetent. He organized his law school life, law practice, and professional career around those principles. Similarly, Woodson obtained major political appointments, became active in civic and professional organizations, and generally sought to place himself in positions where he could exert influence on the broader community.  He designed his activities to change institutions and make them more receptive to minority group participation. 

Rob, however, never believed he could achieve significant societal change and focused on scaling the roadblocks stereotyping placed in his path, in other words, playing the course as he found it.  His focus remained on surmounting the obstacles presented by stereotyping by working each and every day to be a better broadcaster, a more efficient administrator, and to write better briefs as a lawyer. This approach, as we note, is not mutually exclusive with a change-centered focus, but it does offer a different emphasis.                        

As we’ve said, stereotyping has survived revolutions during our lifetime. Objective disproof of presumed incompetence has not eliminated stereotyping. The way individuals in historically out groups deal with it varies by personal choice and attitude. Since it’s not going away, anyone who may confront it will need to pick one of our approaches or decide on others. Ideas?

   

                    

                        

      

The Impeachement of Trump: History and Two Views

The United States constitution provides for impeachment and conviction, resulting in removal from office, of a President for “High Crimes and Misdemeanors.”  The three of us agree the issue of impeaching President Donald Trump will arise. Enough of Trump’s actions present questions of illegality and/or impropriety that the matter will come up.  We don’t agree on when and how it might happen. Woodson says impeachment will occur within the first year of his presidency. Henry and Rob are not sure it will happen.

Recent History  
The two recent impeachment cases involving Richard Nixon in 1974 and Bill Clinton in 1998 raise questions related to what might bring about Trump’s impeachment and when. Nixon faced a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress, but he could have avoided conviction if enough Senate Republicans had stayed with him, since conviction requires a two-thirds vote. Republican control of both the House and Senate, at least until the 2018 elections, represents a major obstacle to impeaching Trump. The effort to remove Clinton never had much chance because, though passage of a resolution by the House was not in doubt, hardly anyone believed the Senate would convict.  Similarly, Trump can survive as long as 34 Republican senators stick with him.

One View   
Having acknowledged the history and the potential difficulty of removing Trump from office, Woodson still believes it will happen within the next year.  He says, “Donald Trump’s behavior is more egregious than the behavior of either Nixon or Clinton. Donald Trump is a Kleptocrat.  We are less than 60 days into his presidency and already his choice for National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn, has resigned under a cloud of treasonous suspicion for working as a foreign agent while serving in the Trump administration.  I think Trump knew. I think it will be proven that the Trump campaign staff was in collusion with the Russians in the 2016 Presidential election. I think Trump knew. Trump has been involved with the construction of a hotel in a foreign country that was partly financed by the Iranian Revolutionary Army, when Iran was declared a terrorist state.  I think Trump knew." 

"Trump has done dirty business with members of the Russian oligarchy, in one instance selling a property to one oligarch for 100 million dollars that Trump had just purchased for 40 million dollars.  No property appreciates in value that fast.  His daughter, Ivanka, and son- in- law Jared Kushner, continue to do business with foreign countries while sitting in on foreign policy meetings with Trump.  I think Trump is certain to be found guilty of running afoul of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, both prior to and during his presidency.  Trump’s denigration of democratic institutions – the federal judiciary, federal judges, investigative agencies, and a free press – has already injured the foundation of this democracy and major western democracies around the world."

“It is just a matter of time before the few statesmen that we have left in Congress – Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Lindsey Graham, and John McCain – will decide that the future of democracy as we know it is at risk and decide to do something about it.  They will have to wait a little while longer, for public opinion to turn, before they can act. But, act they will. Trump’s assault on the ACA and health care, to the detriment of his base, will certainly hasten the deterioration of his popularity with his base.  As of this writing, his disapproval rating is at 54% and climbing.  Sure, Republicans will have to abandon their hopes of passing much of the legislation that they have waited years to pass.  But it will become increasingly clear to them that the choice is between a short term goal of getting a Republican agenda passed and preserving democracy. I am betting that the choice will be to preserve democracy.”

Different Views   
Henry and Rob don’t see it that way, despite how much they’d like to see Woodson’s prediction of a year one impeachment come true.  Rob, for example, holds out some hope Democrats can win back the House in 2018, giving them the levers of power in the lower chamber. If that happened, an impeachment resolution theoretically could get out of committee in 2019.  With a Democratic majority, it might pass. If Trump’s bad acts are serious enough, his support in the Senate could collapse, as Nixon’s did, with Republican senators scurrying to save their own skins instead of going down with a sinking ship.  They would have to calculate that doing otherwise would assure their own political destruction.  Rob can at least see this scenario after 2018, if a lot of things come together.

Henry sits back with some amusement, and angst, at this and concludes that while Trump will do something (or already has and we don’t know about it yet) meriting impeachment, the odds are just too long. The congressional math doesn’t add up and probably won’t before most of America concludes that finding the right candidate to run against Trump in 2020 represents a better use of time, energy, and resources than trying to impeach him.  Henry also thinks too many people “put two and two together and get five,” meaning Trump’s disinformation campaign has succeeded well enough that he can hold onto sufficient public support to stay in office until the electorate kicks him out the old fashioned way.

Your turn.

  

             

The Trump Voters: A Pox on Their Houses?

One of us heard a National Public Radio report of a situation that raised the question of how to look at Trump voters who may suffer because of his polices. We found we couldn’t speak collectively because we see the answer to the question differently.

One doctor lost   
The NPR story involved a hospital in an unnamed rural Georgia county which, well before Trump’s travel ban, hired a doctor from one of the affected, predominately Muslim countries.  Because of the travel ban, the doctor couldn’t get to the United States. With the intervention of the courts, the matter likely got straightened out and no long term harm resulted, but in the situation we found an ethical issue.

The doctor hired might have been the only one available to that rural community for a while. That has political implications because a not insignificant number of the people the doctor would serve likely voted for Trump. After all, he won many rural Georgia counties by 2-1 or better.

Rob, in particular, hasn’t been shy about expressing his disdain for Trump or about casting aspersions on the motives of his voters, believing many voted for him out of mean-spirited hostility toward America’s changing demographics and fear of immigrants, Muslims, and people of color generally. He wants Trump out, and has dared hope some who voted for him experience hardships as a result of his policies and, therefore, turn against him. This reap-what-you-sowed outlook may seem cruel, even unpatriotic, but people opposed to Trump think and say it. That came to mind with the report about the Georgia community that might lose its doctor as a result of this President’s harsh immigration policies.

Woodson and Henry hold similar disdain for Trump and harbor suspicions about the motives of some Trump supporters, particularly self-described Tea Party adherents. Woodson, in particular, believes Trump won partly because the prospect of a Hillary Clinton presidency so failed to appeal to voters concerned about the threat posed to their jobs by trade agreements and technology. Polls show a number of Trump voters, especially in the decisive states in the upper Midwest, twice supported Barak Obama.  These voters may not have seen a choice between Clinton and Trump in the same stark terms we did, so wishing a pox on their houses seems unfair.        

Ethics, morality, spirituality   At a basic level, is there ever a justification for wishing ill on fellow humans because of political differences? Henry, in particular, finds no justification for that.  Scripture (1 Peter 3:8) reminds us that compassion requires “Not returning evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary blessing, knowing that you were called to this, that you may inherit a blessing.”  

Rob acknowledges the righteousness of that view, but still sees ways in which ethics and morality demand a different response.  If Trump’s policies will ultimately do the nation maximum harm, doesn’t that justify whatever would get rid of them, and him, quickest? Might not more people suffer from continuing Trump’s policies into a second term? If so, the sooner Americans realize their mistake, however they come to that understanding, the sooner the country rids itself of him.

Woodson disdains this view because it operates from an ethically questionable ends-justifies-the-means philosophy and Henry largely shares his concern.  Republicans, they remind us, employed this approach in their unsuccessful effort to assure Barack Obama’s failure as President. Putting party over principle hurt the country and, whatever its political benefit, amounted to a failure of leadership.                           

Senators in Turmoil    Senate Democrats face this dilemma every day in deciding how to vote on confirmation of Trump’s appointees, many of them unqualified advocates of dastardly policies opposed to every value those senators were elected to advance.  A few Trump nominees merit the office they would hold and could do the country good.  But some in the Democratic base want their senators to oppose every Trump nominee on general principle and threaten retaliation against those who don’t take that approach.

So what’s right? Adhere to your political desires and wish ill on Trump supporters, despite ethical, moral, and spiritual qualms or take the high road, knowing that failing to oppose Trump’s policies may result in their continuation to the detriment of even more people?  Vote for the good nominee knowing that person may do well and make it more likely Trump remains in office? Oppose them all on general principle, no matter the individual merits? Woodson and Henry believe Democrats should strongly oppose Trump when they think he’s wrong, but support him when they think he’s right, viewing each nominee and situation individually. They see that as leadership.

Rob ends up conflicted about this. For him, both positions come with high costs and neither satisfies.  The moral high ground runs the risk of making Trump’s path easier. Regressing to pettiness arguably compromises basic values, but perhaps makes an early Trump exit more likely. He thinks Trump may have changed the rules, making dealing with him as a normal political leader with whom one disagrees not possible. In other words, isn’t Trump an outlier requiring an extraordinary response?

Woodson and Henry are not conflicted. They see moral leadership as good politics and point to the moral authority of leaders like King, Gandhi, and Mandela.  The power of their moral authority ultimately led to victory in the struggles they led. They point to King’s often quoted observation that the “moral arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice.”

This isn’t an easy issue.  We don’t see it the same way. What do you see?