Impeachment vs. Trumpism

The release this week of the formal texts of both the whistleblower complaint against President Donald Trump and one of the White House's own memoranda outlining the July 25 phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy necessitate a Bill of Impeachment against the president of the United States. Those who have or might criticize Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi as being too precipitate in launching an impeachment inquiry are clearly in the wrong. If only the whistleblower's complaint (or the rumor of it) were public there might be some substance to the charge that the Democratic caucus is moving too fast or in biased fashion, but in the combination of the two documents we have both a list of very serious allegations against Donald Trump and evidence that he himself has provided to substantiate these charges. There is no doubt that Congress is bound by its Article I constitutional duties to review the president's fitness for office.

The fact that we must even pause to question whether this last statement is true underscores two of the most salient and potently corrosive aspects of the political movement that may be called "Trumpism." Much of Trumpism is deeply contingent and potentially ephemeral, rooted in the cult of personality around Trump himself or in cultural trends such as racism, both of which may wane naturally over time as conditions change.  But two aspects of Trumpism are firmly systemic, and are being progressively more ingrained into the culture and structure of our politics the longer Trump remains in office. Through his capture of the Republican party machinery and his ability to force elected Republican officials to align themselves with him on a day-by-day basis, he is institutionalizing new norms of political engagement that will be difficult to correct even if and when he should leave office, and which in and of themselves argue for the urgency of an impeachment process. Enumerated, these two principles of Trumpism are:

1) All politics are binary, and are zero sum

This principle flows from the foundation of Trumpism in racism and the cult of personality surrounding Trump himself. Trump's message that Latin@s, blacks, "uppity" women, and Muslims were the perpetrators of "American carnage" was appealing to millions of voters who were struggling economically, fearful of "others," and increasingly aware of demographic change.  His willingness to give full voice to those fears in defiance of current standards of decency and common courtesy made him appear courageous and resolute in the eyes of his followers.

A trend toward polarization in American society was already well underway before Trump took office, but the particular rhetoric ("build that wall!"; "send her back!") and policy pursuits (separation of migrant families, crowding of migrants into concentration camps along the southern border) of Trumpism has created a newly radical politics of bifurcation and animosity. The decision to take a child away from her parents, for example, admits to no gray areas: either one "understands" the righteousness of such an action or is taking a stand alongside an enemy so dangerous that they must be contained even in childhood. A person taking such a stand, even if they are a fellow US citizen, must be dangerously deluded. Anyone who cannot see Donald Trump's wisdom and virtue in pursuing his policy is likewise crippled by bias. There can be no "loyal opposition" under such circumstances. Opposition is necessarily treason.We can see this principle at work in the Republican response to the imminent impeachment of Donald Trump.

By contrast to this article of Trumpist faith, the existence of and the necessity to operate with some degree of deference to the perceptions and expectations of the loyal opposition is foundational to any functional democracy. If one proceeds from the assumption that 1)power will be given to the people; and 2)the people will not always agree; then the maintenance of at least some trust between factions in and out of power is essential. What President Trump has admitted to doing in the case of Ukraine is an impeachable offense because it flies in the face of this basic requirement of democratic governance.  He has shattered any chance for trust between his administration and the political opposition.

Why is this so? Firstly, one must understand that in any democracy suspicion of one's political opponents, especially those that hold power, is entirely natural and expected. Every president in US history, from George Washington on, has been subject to intense scrutiny and (sometimes paranoid) suspicion. It is incumbent upon all presidents to operate in a way that constrains suspicion and fosters trust.

This makes foreign policy an especially sensitive area. Foreign governments and citizens come under none of the obligations of elected officials here in the US, their probity and judgment will never be held directly accountable to the voters of the US. Foreign affairs thus provides all US officials, but especially the president (whose special purview is setting foreign policy) with an opportunity to "end run" the restraints of normal domestic politics. Foreign governments are free to attack US citizens (if given permission and the right incentives) with none of the consequences that might be suffered by an official here in the US (or that they might suffer if they aimed the same attack at one of their own citizens).

Enlisting a foreign government to attack one's own political opponents is thus a total abrogation of the duties of the presidency, as it is a complete abandonment of any pretense that the suspicions of the loyal opposition must be respected. It is analogous to bringing a revolver into a boxing ring. No one who saw their opponent waving a pistol at them could possibly expect that the rules of boxing would be respected. By the same logic, no one who sees what Donald Trump himself has admitted to can doubt that the rules of democracy have been abandoned.

If Donald Trump had used domestic channels to press this case against Biden (spreading the story through the press, referring it to his AG for investigation) he would no doubt have come under criticism, but virtually no one would have contemplated impeachment on that account. Outsourcing the smearing of Joe Biden to the government of the Ukraine (irrespective of the truth of any allegations against Biden) is the politics of autocracy. By displacing the scrutiny of Biden into an arena in which he has massive influence (through his control of aid money to Ukraine) and US voters have none, Trump is exercising the prerogatives of a dictator and abandoning the duties of a president.

In the response of Republican politicians to the charges against Trump we can see just how perilously Trumpism eats away at the basic tenets of democracy. Dismissals of the case for impeachment take two basic various forms. Some arguments focus on the substance of the allegations against Joe Biden, or the asserted equivalency between what Trump did and what Biden and/or other Democrats have done. Other arguments seize upon technicalities, such as whether Trump ever offered his Ukrainian president an explicit quid pro quo. None of these arguments acknowledge the fact that from the standpoint of our constitutional order, what Trump did was acutely wrong in absolute and essential terms. The Democrats having done similar things is a case of many wrongs not creating a right. A search for technical excuses is analogous to arguing that a car thief should be excused because they behaved traffic laws very scrupulously.

In the final analysis, all of the Republican defenses of Trump boil down to an embrace of this central tenet of Trumpism: the president does not have to respect and maintain the trust of the loyal opposition because there is no such animal. The government does not contain two parties that disagree vehemently on many key issues but that are united in the service of a common national interest. Rather, it contains two factions, the one aligned with Trump being right, the other being wrong, only one of which may win. Under those circumstances opposition is necessarily treason, thus the aspect of democratic governance that compels Trump's impeachment is negated, and those calling for impeachment become doubly treasonous.


2)Institutions are to be weaponized, and are disposable.

Our constitutional order rests on the principle that the functioning and survival of governing institutions is an end and a good unto itself. The institutions exist in a state of dynamic tension with the principles that they are intended to serve. The courts, for example, exist to pursue justice. But since the courts are staffed by fallible human beings, giving them unlimited power would subvert justice and ultimately destroy the courts themselves. They must thus be constrained by rules and protocols that limit their power and occasionally even inhibit their efficiency in the cause of justice, but which are essential to sustaining their viability in the long term.

The presidency is designed along the same lines, and Trump's actions regarding Ukraine violated this stricture and breached the basic parameters of his office. His solicitation of Ukraine's assistance in smearing Joe Biden was illegitimate on its face, but his determination to use Rudy Giuliani and Attorney General William Barr to carry out this policy compounded the illegitimacy of his scheme. If Trump had used the State Department and the ambassadorial channel to make these overtures, he would still have been acting like a petty despot, but he would at least have been submitting his actions to official and public scrutiny. His choice to use his Attorney General (a radical subversion of the independence of the Justice Department) and personal lawyer expressed a determination to keep his actions out of the public eye and ensure that his powers could be used in the unimpeded pursuit of his own political interests.

Republicans' refusal to even acknowledge these breaches of constitutional regulation evince the high degree to which they have been corrupted by Trumpism's radical debasement of the value and austerity of our institutions. No institution is worth preserving for its own sake in Trump's world. Everything is about the zero sum contest in which Trump himself is constantly engaged, thus the organs of government are never simply working, they are either "winning" or "losing" on his behalf. Since "winning" is the only acceptable option (the stakes being "winner take all"), any and all means necessary to that end must be employed, even if they entail the subversion or even the destruction of the institution being employed.

This can be seen in the frequency with which Trump is willing to impeach the integrity and the basic governing competence of key institutions: the Federal Reserve, the Attorney General's Office, FBI, the CIA, the Directorate of National Intelligence, etc. Any office that, in the current moment, is working against Trump's perceived interests is condemned as irredeemably corrupt, ineffective, or illegitimate. Republican officials who are determined to remain aligned with the White House are compelled to assent to his views, and throw offices and officials under the bus without regard to any factor but their degree of loyalty to Trump.

This orientation, of course, flows from the same dimensions of Trumpism that negate the legitimacy of any loyal political opposition. Since Trump is "our" champion against an ultimately menacing enemy, the value of any institution at any given moment can only and ever be assessed by reference to the ongoing battle. If "we" lose, the continued existence of the CIA or the Justice Department will not matter in the slightest, thus the rules by which these institutions operate may be bent to any degree, up to and beyond the point that the institutions themselves are destroyed, so long as the final victory is secured.

In the final analysis, the need to impeach Trump flows from the inevitable consequences of Trumpism's influence. The logic of Trumpism can only lead to one of two ends, both of which entail the end of democracy. The first is autocracy and single-party rule. One can only maintain the pretense of a "winner takes all" contest so long before the winner must, finally, take all. Thus constitutional government will eventually be discarded (through mechanisms such as voter suppression and abuse of presidential power) as the GOP is forced to bring the practical operation of government into line with the logic of its ideology. Failing that, even if the Democrats do take the White House once more, unless the hold of Trumpism on the GOP is broken, governance will be impossible. A political field in which the behavior and rhetoric of Donald Trump and those assisting him has been normalized will preclude the pursuit of any policy goals by constitutional means. None of the basic negotiations of democracy can be carried out in a world where total victory is the only legitimate goal and the assumption of good faith on the part of one's opponent is treason. One way or another, as Trumpism thrives the Republic as it was originally designed must fall.

Impeaching Trump is thus not a matter of principle, but an existential imperative. Passing a Bill of Impeachment will almost certainly fail to result in the president's removal from office. Once impeachment is initiated, Trump will be tried in the Senate, and can only be removed by a 2/3 vote of that body. For that threshold to be reached, 20 Republican senators would have to cross party lines. Given the hold that Trump has on the Republican electorate, it is very unlikely that so many senators will exhibit such a high degree of political courage.

But even if an impeachment effort is destined to fail, it is a first indispensable step to countering the toxic influence of Trumpism on our national politics. Trump and his supporters must be held to account institutionally. Let Republican senators vote in defiance of the constitution, and then let them explain to the voters the "logic" behind their actions. If the GOP can be made to pay a political cost for its ideological errors, there is a chance that our national discourse can be steered away from the cliff over which it is poised to tumble.

Even if there is a chance that the GOP will retain congressional control in the wake (or as a result) of an impeachment fight, that does not argue against the wisdom of impeachment. Any election that the Democrats win because, in this moment and under the current conditions, they refrain from impeaching the president, would be a resounding victory for Trumpism. Such an outcome would be a defeat for democracy, and thus ultimately a defeat for all Americans, whatever their party affiliation. If our Republic is to have a chance, someone must fight for the principle that everything is not reducible to politics, that some dimensions of our constitutional order transcend partisan concerns. If no one will defend this proposition then, even if Trump himself is defeated, Trumpism wins.