Max Pixel
America Donald Trump Election Donald Politician
The best analysis I’ve seen so far of the news media’s efforts to grapple with the chaos unleashed on Washington by Donald Trump was Saturday Night Live’s cold open, spoofing Trump’s NBC interview with Lester Holt. Holt (Micahel Che) listens, agog, as Trump admits to obstructing justice by firing his FBI director because he didn’t like the FBI’s Russia investigation.
“Is that it? Did I get him?” Che says to an off-camera producer. “No? Nothing matters? . . . ”
Apparently not.
Once again, on Monday, Trump sent reporters and his own administration officials scrambling after the Washington Post broke the story that the President had leaked highly sensitive intelligence information to Russian officials.
Once again, Trump loyalists went out in public and issued denials, and once again Trump undercut them by tweeting that he had the “absolute right” to share information on ISIS with Russia.
Nothing matters.
Reaction among progressives and journalists fell into two camps. There were those who jumped all over the story, calling Trump’s actions treasonous, evidence of sheer incompetence, and part of a growing case for impeachment. In other words, this stuff should matter.
Then there were the progressives who were inclined to shrug it off. National security blogger Marcy Wheeler of the EmptyWheel blog pointed out that the insiders who spread the intelligence leak story were themselves jeopardizing national security—if in fact the details they mention are dangerous to the ally whose information Trump leaked.
This take is part of a larger theme: that the Washington establishment is going nuts over Trump, but the real policy implications of his Russia connections are not known and, even, possibly benign.
One theme is that the Washington establishment is going nuts over Trump, but the real policy implications of his Russia connections are not known and, even, possibly benign.
Over at TomDispatch, David Vine puts Trump’s embrace of autocrats in the context of a larger U.S. history of embracing autocrats and militaristic regimes.
This is a familiar theme in the left press: Democratic administrations do bad things, too.
Anyone who listens to KPFA in Berkeley or other progressive stations around the country has had an earful of phone callers who point out that U.S. citizens who get upset about the prospect of Russia meddling in U.S. elections should consider the United States' history in Chile.
Fair enough.
But does that mean nothing matters?
My favorite take on the Russian meddling story was Chilean writer Ariel Dorfman’s oped in the New York Times, Dorfman, who lived through the U.S.-sponsored coup in Chile, noted dryly: “Dirty tricks against a democracy? I’d trust CIA expertise on that.”
But he did not go on to say it didn’t matter. On the contrary. Dorfman writes: “The seriousness of this violation of the people’s will must not be flippantly underestimated or disparaged.”
Democracy matters. Truth matters. And the attacks on democratic norms and institutions by this President, while they are coming at an exhausting pace that fosters cynicism and a feeling of helplessness, deserve a robust response.
Democracy matters. Truth matters. And the attacks on democratic norms and institutions by this President, while they are coming at an exhausting pace that fosters cynicism and a feeling of helplessness, deserve a robust response.
That’s why the calls for impeachment are building at town hall meetings in Congressional districts. In Washington, Democrats and Republicans alike are wary of impeachment after the Monica Lewinsky fiasco.
It is politically impossible to get impeachment through the House without a sea-change 2018 election.
But there has to be more than comedy and incredulity in response to Donald Trump. We need to do something. Which is why it’s good to see Progressive Caucus leader Mark Pocan, Democrat of Wisconsin, talking about the issue with our friend John Nichols over at The Nation.
Nichols wrote the book on impeachment. He will have more to say in the next issue of The Progressive.