scandal

This is a battle for the soul of America

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July 9, JDN 2457944

At the time of writing, I just got back from a protest march against President Trump in Santa Ana (the featured photo is one I took at the march). I had intended to go to the much larger sister protest in Los Angeles, but the logistics were too daunting. On the upside, presumably the marginal impact of my attendance was higher at the smaller event.

Protest marches are not a common pastime of mine; I am much more of an ivory-tower policy wonk than a boots-on-the-ground political activist. The way that other people seem to be allergic to statistics, I am allergic to a lack of statistics when broad claims are made with minimal evidence. Even when I basically agree with everything being said, I still feel vaguely uncomfortable marching and chanting in unison (and constantly reminded of that scene from Life of Brian). But I made an exception for this one, because Trump represents a threat to the soul of American democracy.

We have had bad leaders many times before—even awful leaders, even leaders whose bad decisions resulted in the needless deaths of thousands. But not since the end of the Civil War have we had leaders who so directly threatened the core institutions of America itself.

We must keep reminding ourselves: This is not normal. This is not normal! Donald Trump’s casual corruption, overwhelming narcissism, authoritarianism, greed, and utter incompetence (not to mention his taste in decor) make him more like Idi Amin or Hugo Chavez than like George H.W. Bush or Ronald Reagan. (Even the comparison with Vladimir Putin would be too flattering to Trump; Putin at least is competent.) He has personally publicly insulted over 300 people, places, and things—and counting.

Trump lies almost constantly, surrounds himself with family members and sycophants, refuses to listen to intelligence briefings, and personally demeans and even threatens journalists who criticize him. Every day it seems like there is a new scandal, more outrageous than the last; and after so long, this almost seems like a strategy. Every day he finds some new way to offend and undermine the basic norms of our society, and eventually he hopes to wear us down until we give up fighting.

It is certainly an exaggeration, and perhaps a dangerous one, to say that Donald Trump is the next Adolf Hitler. But there are important historical parallels between the rise of Trump and the rise of many other populist authoritarian demagogues. He casually violates democratic norms of civility, honesty, and transparency, and incentivizes the rest of us to do the same—a temptation we must resist. Political scientists and economists are now issuing public warnings that our democratic institutions are not as strong as we may think (though, to be fair, others argue that they are indeed strong enough).

It was an agonizingly close Presidential election. Even the tiniest differences could have flipped enough states to change the outcome. If we’d had a better voting system, it would not have happened; a simple plurality vote would have elected Hillary Clinton, and as I argued in a previous post, range voting would probably have chosen Bernie Sanders. Therefore, we must not take this result as a complete indictment of American society or a complete failure of American democracy. But let it shake us out of our complacency; democracy is only as strong as the will of its citizens to defend it.

No, this isn’t like Watergate. It’s worse.

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May 21, JDN 2457895

Make no mistake: This a historic moment. This may be the greatest corruption scandal in the history of the United States. Donald Trump has fired the director of the FBI in order to block an investigation—and he said so himself.

It has become cliche to compare scandals to Watergate—to the point where we even stick the suffix “-gate” on things to indicate scandals. “Gamergate”, “Climategate”, and so on. So any comparison to Watergate is bound to draw some raised eyebrows.

But just as it’s not Godwin’s Law when you’re really talking about fascism and genocide, it’s not the “-gate” cliche when we are talking about a corruption scandal that goes all the way up to the President of the United States. And The Atlantic is right: this isn’t Watergate; it’s worse.

First of all, let’s talk about the crime of which Trump is accused. Nixon was accused of orchestrating burglary and fraud. These are not minor offenses, to be sure. But they are ordinary criminal offenses, felonies at worst. Trump is accused of fundamental Constitutional violations (particularly the First Amendment and the Emoluments Clause), and above all, Trump is accused of treason. This is the highest crime recognized by the Constitution of the United States. It is the only crime with a specifically listed Constitutional punishment—and that punishment is execution.

Donald Trump is being investigated not for stealing something or concealing information, but for colluding with foreign powers in the attempt to undermine American democracy. Is he guilty? I don’t know; that’s why we’re investigating. But let me say this: If he isn’t guilty of something, it’s quite baffling that he would fight so hard to stop the investigation.

Speaking of which: Trump’s intervention to stop Comey is much more direct, and much more sudden, than anything Nixon did to stop the Watergate investigations. Nixon of course tried to stonewall the investigations, but he did so subtly, cautiously, always trying to at least appear like he valued due process and rule of law. Trump made no such efforts, openly threatening Comey personally on Twitter and publicly declaring on national television that he had fired him to block the investigation.

But perhaps what makes the Trump-Comey affair most terrifying is how the supposedly “mainstream” Republican Party has reacted. The Republicans of Nixon had some honor left in them; several resigned rather than follow Nixon’s illegal orders, and dozens of Republicans in Congress supported the investigations and called for Nixon’s impeachment. Apparently that honor is gone now, as GOP leaders like Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham have expressed support for the President’s corrupt and illegal actions citing no principle other than party loyalty. If we needed any more proof that the Republican Party of the United States is no longer a mainstream political party, this is it. They don’t believe in democracy or rule of law anymore. They believe in winning at any cost, loyalty at any price. They have become a radical far-right organization—indeed, if they continue down this road of supporting the President in undermining the freedom of the press and consolidating his own power, I think it is fair to call them literally neo-fascist.

We are about to see whether American institutions can withstand such an onslaught, whether liberty and justice can prevail against corruption and tyranny. So far, there have been reasons to be optimistic: In particular, the judicial branch has proudly and bravely held the line, blocking Trump’s travel ban (multiple times), resisting his order to undermine sanctuary cities, and standing up to direct criticisms and even threats from the President himself. Our system of checks and balances is being challenged, but so far it is holding up against that challenge. We will find out soon enough whether the American system truly is robust enough to survive.