Isabel Marshall
impeach trump card gif
Yes, we all detest Trump and would be relieved to see the last of that orange-yellow comb-over in White House! Therefore: impeachment—olé!
But what are the motivations of all of those calling for impeachment? The reasons stressed most often in the media are Trump’s attempts to buy Ukrainian assistance for his 2020 re-election campaign in digging up dirt on his challenger Joe Biden. The sum named in this attempt at bribery or blackmail is “nearly $400 million.”
Of course, such backroom dealings are undeniably dastardly and crooked, but are they so unusual? In December 2015 Joe Biden did his own threatening of the Ukrainian government, including setting a time limit of six hours for it to fire its undesirable chief prosecutor, who was then investigating a giant, crooked natural gas firm called Burisma. Turns out, Joe’s son, Hunter Biden had joined the board of Burisma in May 2014.
James Risen, who uncovered the unfolding awkwardness for Joe Biden in a 2015 article for The New York Times, now describes the rightwing media as turning his story “upside down,” in order to twist it into an attack piece on Biden. “[Joe] Biden did threaten to withhold $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees unless Shokin was ousted,” Risen wrote. “But that was because Shokin had blocked serious anti-corruption investigations, not because he was investigating Burisma.”
Regardless of how “well-intentioned”—as Risen wrote—Joe’s demands really were, they appeared “politically awkward and hypocritical” to anyone besides the Vice President and his son. Hunter, with zilch knowledge of Ukraine, was reportedly pulling down about $50,000 per month from that foreign energy company while keeping his embarrassing (and cocaine-troubled) presence out of the U.S. political scene. Nosy investigations were definitely not welcome!
The media is overloaded with gratitude for a courageous whistleblower (rarely accorded to less favored whistleblowers: like Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, Jeffrey Sterling, Julian Assange) but has spent less ink on Biden’s earlier ultimatum to Kiev. Of course Joe need not fear impeachment, but he’s still the main contender for the 2020 presidential ticket.
If any journalists were to dig even deeper, say to December 13, 2013, they might learn that Hillary Clinton’s undersecretary of state, Victoria Nuland, after three visits to Ukraine in five weeks, divulged that the U.S. was spending $5 billion to encourage businessmen and officials who wanted Ukraine to break away from any relationship with Russia and open it up for its “democratic” friends (via EU and then NATO). It succeeded. It was Nuland, during the bloody Maidan Square uprising, who said (on a bugged telephone talk with U.S. ambassador Pyatt), “I think Yats is the guy…” In the blink of an eye (and those billions) “Yats” (Arseniy Yatseniuk) was indeed the guy, prime minister of a now U.S.-friendly, Russia-hostile Ukraine. (Distance to Moscow 534 miles; about the same distance as Cincinnati to Washington, D.C.)
In other words, the whole bloody Ukrainian mess blew up with support from the well-financed involvement of a Democratic presidential administration, which included Joe Biden. Donald Trump is only a late-comer.
Of course, such entries fill the annals of both parties. Didn’t Ronald Reagan beat Jimmy Carter in 1980 due largely to the latter’s inability to win freedom for U.S. hostages in Tehran? Twenty minutes after Reagan concluded his inaugural address, Iran released the hostages, after which the new Reagan Administration supplied Iran with weapons via Israel and unblocked Iranian monetary assets in the United States. That was called the “October Surprise.” What will be 2020’s “October Surprise?”
Why could the efforts to impeach Trump not center on his brutal actions against basically all working people while rewarding the super wealthy?
Why could the efforts to impeach Trump not center on his brutal actions against Mexicans and refugees, against Muslims, African Americans, against basically all working people while rewarding the super wealthy? Or his environmental disaster policies that, thanks to the world‘s schoolchildren, are sometimes chastised but are rarely central for his loudest critics. Or his moves toward the repression of all opposition?
What about his non-Ukrainian foreign policy? There seems to be far less discussion of United States’ weapons support for Saudi Arabia, the suffering in Yemen, Trump’s long buddy-friendship with Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu (as long as he’s on top), and his hostility toward the Palestinians. Or what about Trump’s economic strangling of Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran?
Some of those attacking Trump, including many leading Democrats, seem more worried or angered by his occasional and awkward forays in non-confrontational directions with North Korea and Afghanistan—efforts which were perhaps slowed or stopped by fearful figures like National Security Adviser John Bolton (until recently) and the still menacing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Clearly, the ingredients of an anti-Trump stew are mixed. Some spoonfuls apparently contain a “Save Biden as candidate” flavor. But the impeachment proceedings and the presidential campaigns should be forced to skim off the less important scandals. Instead their efforts should focus on the resources to cook up genuine health care, to end the immense incarceration tragedy, enact free college tuition, end racist police violence and armed militia dangers, win abortion rights, build the labor movement, and alter stagnant or worsening labor conditions and housing situations for millions of working Americans.
Those issues—not the minor shenanigans by Trump, Giuliani, or other corrupt sinners—offer the best, and maybe the only, way to beat Trumpism.