Trump is goading the House of Representatives Democratic Party leadership to institute impeachment hearings against him. Trump is behaving as if to say, in language racist Trump would understand, "Yes, Brer Fox, don't fling me into the brier patch." Trump thinks it will be like Iran-Contra and Ollie North's bullshit testimony that, in the pre-Internet age, was able to convince many Americans he was a patriot. Trump dreams of getting higher poll numbers as happened with Bill Clinton with the Republicans' crusade, er, impeachment proceedings against Clinton.* I think, however, if people testify to the hundreds of contacts Trump and his camp had with Russians during the 2015-2016 campaign, as people come forward with how Trump has behaved as a business person and how, since the early 1990s, Trump has had to rely on Russian money and Deutsche Bank (the fact courts have now ordered Deutsche Bank and Capital One to turn over its Trump related documents to Congress is a big story lost amidst the jockeying of the past week), this will drive the portion of the electorate, in the Rust Belt particularly, who voted for Obama in 2008 and Trump in 2016, and the other undecideds to vote against Trump in 2020. I also see House of Representative's impeachment proceedings as also investigating, under the heading of a cover-up, the money support Russians have given to Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell, among others. This impeachment proceeding will be more like Nixon's as FB friend Joe Conason writes in his latest article at The National Memo. But it will also take on a larger target of how the Republican leadership has cynically allied itself with Russian oligarchs and are enabling Trump's untrustworthy conduct, particularly with McConnell and Congressional Republicans not being interested in protecting American electoral integrity from Russian hackers for the 2020 election.
The late, non-lamented Wisconsin Junior Senator, Joe McCarthy, loved to talk about the Democrats' "Twenty Years of Treason," which should have been a giveaway that the Red Scare was first and foremost a political operation designed to demonize first New Deal internationalists and then New Deal liberals (see also Page 333 of the Buckley/Bozell book defending McCarthy, where the authors admit a primary purpose for the Red Scare is to strike out against "liberals."). The charge of treason was and remains a canard in almost every way, but it is a charge too many older Baby Boomers and too many in our parents' generations continue to believe hook, line and sinker. However, here we have Trump and his twenty-five years of "treason" in the form of what will be shown are rather slippery relationships with Russians and corrupt banks (Deutsche Bank), which relationships Trump brought with him to his White House campaign and presidency. See Craig Unger's book and Seth Abramson's book on Trump's long march with the Russians.
It is therefore good to begin impeachment hearings, even if the hearings turn into a sideshow--for we, as a people, can chew gum and walk down the street at the same time. It is about time Democratic Party leaders understood what election day is about--and that is running parallel campaigns. One campaign will be the impeachment campaign. Another campaign will be the ideas and policies campaign that progressive candidates like Sanders and Warren bring, and Yang is also bringing. A third campaign has got to be registering as many young people as possible. What we find from polling data is Americans under 40 represent a potentially majority constituency for a more hopeful and communal America; and are demanding helpful government policies for America. In short, our children understand the New Deal legacy better than most of us Baby Boomers and certainly my parents' generation, who came of age in the aftermath of WWII and the depths of the Cold War propaganda and Red Scares. And now, a fourth campaign has been added, courtesy of the theocratic Christian fundamentalist branch of the Republican Party: Women across our land are getting more mobilized as it dawns on even those women who claim to themselves they are not a "feminist," that there is, in the words of Stephen Stills' song "For What It's Worth": There's something happening here...But unlike Stills' anthem song from 1967, What it is is, actually, exactly clear. The anti-abortion legislation being passed in state after state is designed to criminalize women's sex lives, i.e. sexual autonomy, and dangerously and cruelly undermine women's ability to maintain their health.
My advice to people is choose the parallel campaign that best fits your personality and best fits your sensibility. So, as we roll through the rest of 2019 and into 2020, do not castigate the other parallel campaigns as a "diversion" for what is "really" important. Each of these parallel campaigns is important. Rachel Maddow has her place as much as a person who registers voters, for example.
My advice to people is choose the parallel campaign that best fits your personality and best fits your sensibility. So, as we roll through the rest of 2019 and into 2020, do not castigate the other parallel campaigns as a "diversion" for what is "really" important. Each of these parallel campaigns is important. Rachel Maddow has her place as much as a person who registers voters, for example.
Therefore, I say loudly and clearly: Bring on the impeachment proceedings. Trump, you want it? You got it, buster.
* The impeachment against Clinton in 1998 failed in the senate, as we should recall. However, it so tarnished Clinton's reputation, notwithstanding a strong economy, that Al Gore, running for president in 2000, refused to use Clinton in any sustained way to help his campaign. Had Clinton not been impeached, Gore would have called upon Clinton without fear that he was condoning Clinton's sexually defined moral failings. The Republican leaders knew the longer game and that is how they got their campaigning-as-a-moderate candidate GW Bush just over the top in the Electoral College in the 2000 election. And for those who want to blame Nader, I say look within. Gore won Florida if he and his lawyers had decided to push to count overvotes (where a person pushes in the chad and then writes in Gore's name to show total intent to vote for Gore). Had they done that, the count showed Gore actually won in Florida, hence, he would have been president. And really, Baby Boomers. You had the chance to vote for goddamned Ralph Nader and you blew it. Your children would have understood what to do then, and my advice to Democratic Party leader poobahs is, If you think you can get away with nominating Biden, you may find more than a few still idealistic youth turning away from the Democratic Party for good. This remains your election to blow. And Baby Boomers of the white persuasion, you have been warned--as I warned us back in 2016 about what 2035 or 2036 will look like.
