ndn.org
Democrats Must Make The Case Against Trump Now
The President is a desperate man. He is the most unpopular first term President in the modern era. He lost the 2018 election badly, and is more unpopular today than he was last fall. He trails VP Biden by double digits
in the polling averages, and is way behind even in MI, PA, and WI. The
economy is slowing down, the deficit is exploding, and his economic
plan did not deliver what he promised. His experiment with protectionism is failing.
His management of the border is an historic fiasco. His ideological
fellow travelers – Bibi, Italy’s Salvini, Boris Johnson – have suffered
dramatic setbacks in recent weeks.
Desperate men do dangerous things. And that brings us to the Ukraine affair – the President has done a series of dangerous and reckless things to weaken his most threatening domestic opponent. He has broken a series of laws – election laws, bribery, extortion, who knows what else. He is already breaking laws, again, by trying to cover it up. And the inevitable disinformation campaign, one which would make Putin proud, has begun. He is doing everything he can to make Moscow Rules the norm in US politics.
The details matter here. Trump put pressure on a small nation at war with Russia to do his illicit bidding, or face what – a US-backed Russian invasion of the rest of Ukraine? Team Trump has been on the wrong side of the Ukraine issue for the past 3 years – it would not be a leap for the President to align the US with Russia’s interests here, as he has in just about every other part of the world in recent months. The threat the President and his team, including the Vice President, delivered, from a geopolitical perspective, was an extraordinary one.
That the President has once again sought illicit foreign help against the leading Democratic candidate and then attempted to illegally cover it up of course confirms our worst fears about what happened in 2016 and afterwards. TrumpRussia was no hoax – it was how he won a very close election. And if it worked then, and in his mind he got away with it, why not do it again?
The Ukraine affair is changing the political calculus on Trump for Democrats. As Adam Schiff says in this interview from over the weekend, we have a remedy for removing a terrible President – elections. But what we are now faced with is something far more menacing than a bad President. Our President is a serial criminal, committing crimes in real time in front of all of us; and that he was willing to use the national security apparatus for his own partisan political advantage makes him not just a bad President but a dangerous one. Imagine if he gets away with this one – what else could he do in his remaining 16 months in office? And that is why Democrats can’t wait until next year’s election – Trump has made it clear he will put his interests above ours, making him incapable any longer of being trusted to act in the national interest of the United States and its people.
So what now? I think what comes next is less about impeachment than about Democrats coming to understand that, in a year in which Trump is on the ballot, there is no safe place to go where they can talk about “kitchen table” issues and duck making the case against Trump. Just as 2018 wasn't 2016, 2020 is no longer 2018 any more. Impeachment in my mind is a tactic, not an end in itself. The strategy here is to use the Congress to make the case against the President, to expose his lawlessness, corruption, contempt for democracy, fealty to Russia – all that. The case against him is a powerful one, but we need to make it. Impeachment and potential removal will come only if we lean in and make the case, recognizing along the way that at some point reticence and restraint becomes cowardice.
Finally, we have to stop being scared of the Trump propaganda machine. There is a bit of the Wizard of Oz here. The case for the ACA was always strong, and when Democrats leaned into it in 2017 it turned into a potent issue critical to the big gains of 2018. Trump has attacked immigrants, and America is more pro-immigrant today than it has been in decades. The President attacked the global trade system and trade is more popular than it’s been in decades. His track record of winning arguments on the big issues just isn’t strong.
Talking to the American people about Trump’s denigration of his office is our obligation now. And if done with integrity and love of country, a proud patriotism not partisanship, Democrats can bring the American people along; but more importantly, it is what must be done now. Our President has become desperate, and dangerous to the national interest. It is time to act.
Related Materials
Protecting America - NDN's Statement After Gilroy, El Paso, And Dayton - Simon Rosenberg - Responsible leaders of both parties need to act with great moral clarity now and spend this fall confronting three grave threats to our homeland – deadly right wing terrorism, gun violence and foreign manipulation of our elections and discourse.
Tariffs, Trump, And Tyrants - Simon Rosenberg - More Mad King than President, Trump's refusal to honor the laws, rules, and norms which make democracies work is the greatest High Crime of all. His ill-considered, whimsical tariffs are just the latest example, and should be forcefully challenged by Congress.
Desperate men do dangerous things. And that brings us to the Ukraine affair – the President has done a series of dangerous and reckless things to weaken his most threatening domestic opponent. He has broken a series of laws – election laws, bribery, extortion, who knows what else. He is already breaking laws, again, by trying to cover it up. And the inevitable disinformation campaign, one which would make Putin proud, has begun. He is doing everything he can to make Moscow Rules the norm in US politics.
The details matter here. Trump put pressure on a small nation at war with Russia to do his illicit bidding, or face what – a US-backed Russian invasion of the rest of Ukraine? Team Trump has been on the wrong side of the Ukraine issue for the past 3 years – it would not be a leap for the President to align the US with Russia’s interests here, as he has in just about every other part of the world in recent months. The threat the President and his team, including the Vice President, delivered, from a geopolitical perspective, was an extraordinary one.
That the President has once again sought illicit foreign help against the leading Democratic candidate and then attempted to illegally cover it up of course confirms our worst fears about what happened in 2016 and afterwards. TrumpRussia was no hoax – it was how he won a very close election. And if it worked then, and in his mind he got away with it, why not do it again?
The Ukraine affair is changing the political calculus on Trump for Democrats. As Adam Schiff says in this interview from over the weekend, we have a remedy for removing a terrible President – elections. But what we are now faced with is something far more menacing than a bad President. Our President is a serial criminal, committing crimes in real time in front of all of us; and that he was willing to use the national security apparatus for his own partisan political advantage makes him not just a bad President but a dangerous one. Imagine if he gets away with this one – what else could he do in his remaining 16 months in office? And that is why Democrats can’t wait until next year’s election – Trump has made it clear he will put his interests above ours, making him incapable any longer of being trusted to act in the national interest of the United States and its people.
So what now? I think what comes next is less about impeachment than about Democrats coming to understand that, in a year in which Trump is on the ballot, there is no safe place to go where they can talk about “kitchen table” issues and duck making the case against Trump. Just as 2018 wasn't 2016, 2020 is no longer 2018 any more. Impeachment in my mind is a tactic, not an end in itself. The strategy here is to use the Congress to make the case against the President, to expose his lawlessness, corruption, contempt for democracy, fealty to Russia – all that. The case against him is a powerful one, but we need to make it. Impeachment and potential removal will come only if we lean in and make the case, recognizing along the way that at some point reticence and restraint becomes cowardice.
Finally, we have to stop being scared of the Trump propaganda machine. There is a bit of the Wizard of Oz here. The case for the ACA was always strong, and when Democrats leaned into it in 2017 it turned into a potent issue critical to the big gains of 2018. Trump has attacked immigrants, and America is more pro-immigrant today than it has been in decades. The President attacked the global trade system and trade is more popular than it’s been in decades. His track record of winning arguments on the big issues just isn’t strong.
Talking to the American people about Trump’s denigration of his office is our obligation now. And if done with integrity and love of country, a proud patriotism not partisanship, Democrats can bring the American people along; but more importantly, it is what must be done now. Our President has become desperate, and dangerous to the national interest. It is time to act.
Related Materials
Protecting America - NDN's Statement After Gilroy, El Paso, And Dayton - Simon Rosenberg - Responsible leaders of both parties need to act with great moral clarity now and spend this fall confronting three grave threats to our homeland – deadly right wing terrorism, gun violence and foreign manipulation of our elections and discourse.
Tariffs, Trump, And Tyrants - Simon Rosenberg - More Mad King than President, Trump's refusal to honor the laws, rules, and norms which make democracies work is the greatest High Crime of all. His ill-considered, whimsical tariffs are just the latest example, and should be forcefully challenged by Congress.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.