The Impeachment Thing - Round 2

Gordon Sondland testified before the committee today, and he seemed like a decent sort, not terribly savvy but certainly eager and well-enough meaning to be considered credible. He offered his honest-ish opinion of what was going on during the summer when the White House ordered withholding of some $400 million in military aid to Ukraine while, supposedly, the new president Volodymyr Zelensky was vetted for... well, that's the question, isn't it?

He said the White House -- ie: Trump -- had an ask that needed to be satisfied before the funding would be released: Zelensky needed to clearly and publicly state that he was ordering the opening of investigations into Ukrainian interference in the 2016 US presidential election and the corruption of gas company Burisma with a focus on the Bidens, père et fil.

That was the deal, the whole deal, according to Sondland. And even though Trump never used the exact terms with Sondland, he did with Zelensky in the infamous July 25 phone call with Zelensky. Case closed.

Sonland basically confirmed the allegations being investigated by the committee. Therefore, there is nothing much more to say, is there? Trump did what he's accused of and "everyone" in the loop at the time knew it. The argument from the Rs is basically "So what? This sort of thing goes on all  the time, BidenClintonClintonObama. Nyah nyah."

And they might get away with it.

The way Trump conducts the business of government is outrageous, but quite a few people inside the government (and not just Rs) are fine with it. He gets them a lot of what they want, and a lot of what they want is a change in the way government and foreign policy operate. There's a lot of resistance from inside the government bureaucracy. Bureaucracy does not like change and doesn't adapt well to new things or people who don't "fit" the standard models.

Bureaucracy considers itself permanent and indispensable, but there is a faction within government and without that believes the bureaucracy is intrinsically wrong and out of control and should be destroyed and/or rebuilt.

Trump has taken upon himself the task of fixing things the way he wants and he's now facing impeachment for it.

I predict right now that neither the bureaucracy nor the White House will win this one. Trump will be impeached for what amounts to the least of his crimes, but he won't be  removed (nor will he be reelected barring the unforeseen) and the government bureaucracy will be overhauled to serve the president much more than the institution or constitution.

There's no going back from where we are. That's the problem. A grossly authoritarian president has been put in office and has been allowedto get away with pretty much whatever he wants, and there is very little that can be done about it now. He's instituted strong-man, indeed gangster rule at the top, and a lot of those who might otherwise object are fine with it. He's packed the courts with right-wing ideologues who share is proto-fascist beliefs, and from them the institutionalisation of the Trumpist authoritarianism will flow for at least a generation to come. There's no going back, and the republic is effectively kaput. This is it. We've reached the long-anticipated end-point of the US experiment in self-government.

The Impeachment Thing

[Note: Buddhism, in some cases especially Zen, doesn't preclude one's interest and involvement in the material world. It does, however, affect one's sense of the importance of this or that aspect of it. 🕉]

The current impeachment inquiry is the third in my lifetime. There have only been four attempts at impeachment of a president in the history of  the United States. None have been successful [Nixon resigned before the impeachment resolution went to the floor of the house]. The betting is that this one won't be, either, but of course you never know.

The charges likely to be included in any House resolution to impeach Trump are being laid out day-by-day, pretty much as follows:

1. Abuse of power -- impeachable, not criminal
2. Bribery -- of Zelensky/Ukraine; impeachable, criminal
3. Intimidation of witnesses -- impeachable, may be criminal
4. Suborning perjury -- impeachable, criminal
5. Defying Congressional subpoenas -- impeachable, may be criminal
6. Probably violations of emoluments clauses -- this might be a throwaway
7. Misprision of felony -- impeachable, criminal

And so on. The charge-list could get quite long indeed. But there is no likelihood, whatever Trump does, that a Republican-controlled Senate would vote to convict and remove him from office. At least not now. 

It's possible that not even a Democratic controlled Senate would do so.

Here's the problem as I see it:

Trump has been allowed to get away with just about anything he wants to do during his tenure in office -- just like he's largely been allowed to do whatever he wants throughout his life. He's a terrible person and a rotten president, but.... he gets away with it, just like he always has.

As president, he's changing the presidency and the nature of the federal government. He's making the presidency over into a highly authoritarian position (it's always had such elements) in command of not just the government, but of the nation as a whole. In other words, the point is to make the president a ruler rather than a servant of the people. Opposition to be crushed rather than co-opted or negotiated with. 

In this remodeling of the presidency by Trump, the president is to have full and personal control of the federal government independent of any advisors, systems, precedent, Congress, or the courts. S/he will personally direct and control every aspect of the federal government (something no individual human being can do, but that's beside the point). The president becomes a de-facto emperor. Something that again is inherent in the position, but which until recently has been suppressed in action.

These are among many aspects of systemic changes we're seeing in real time under Trump's presidency, and they will become precedent for future presidents. Trump may be a bad emperor -- oh yes -- but what he's being allowed to do can lead (in time, if we're very, very good) to a Good Emperor. But Emperor it will be, good, bad or indifferent.

I came to this conclusion while watching part of the Yovanovich testimony yesterday. What it boiled down to was a question of whether the president has the power and authority to emplace anyone he wants in an ambassadorship (yes), and whether it is appropriate for a president to engage in the smearing of an ambassador in the process of having her removed (could be.)

In this case, the ambassador is the avatar of any federal officer, the smear is the symbolic means of removal/replacement that could affect anyone in federal service. We've seen examples in the past (Shirley Sherrod comes to mind, but there have been many others, especially since the 2000 election.)

But now it seems the smear-and-removal will be codified. 

These are big changes to what the presidency is, not so much what it could be, and I predict they will be permanent. Trump can go or stay, it really doesn't matter. The governing system is what is being overhauled-- mostly without the knowledge or consent of the governed -- and there will be no going back. Impeachment may just fade entirely from the conception of checks and balances. After all, the consistent argument during the Trump reign is that ONLY impeachment can be used to control the actions of the president, and if impeachment fails to remove him (likely), there's no remedy under the constitution or law. That's it, he gets away with it.

Ambassador Yovanovich was quite eloquent in defending norm, process, propriety, etc., but I don't see a future in which those things are considered necessities for governing. Indeed, just the opposite may become normalized. The reasons are simple enough. We're entering into a rough transition period in which the consequences of climate change and decades of neoliberalism become one continuous crisis. There's really no escape at this point. Past norms and processes will have to be jettisoned in order to deal with the inevitable crises, or the permanent crisis. No way around it. Trump is crude and awful, but he's doing what the ruling class believes is necessary to cope with the transition and beyond. That's why he's been protected and allowed to get away with so much harm.

Better it should happen now. So that we can become accustomed to it. It's only going to get worse for most of us.

Trump won't be in the Big Chair forever. And whoever comes after him -- whenever that happens -- will almost immediately be considered a "savior".  Because he or she won't be as terrible a person nor as incompetent and chaotic a ruler. 

But Ruler/Emperor the follow-on president will be. And most of the hoo-hah during the Trump years will seem silly in retrospect. We have serious business to attend to.

So, that's my theory of what's really going on... 

🕉

Election? There was an election?

Hmm.

I've been avoiding the topic of the recently concluded mid-term elections, in part because the outcome was pretty much foregone, and if it hadn't gone the way it was predicted, I don't doubt it would be made to. American elections have become farcical (old timers will say they've always been that way), and the results are almost always what the consultants and pollsters agree in advance they ought to be "for this cycle."

The Rs will take control of both houses of Congress in January, and apparently they picked up or held on to any number of Statehouses and governorships. There is a real question why.

Earlier, I speculated that the Dems were throwing this election just as they have so many of them in the recent past, and as things devolved over the last weeks of the campaign, it seemed pretty clear that was what was going on this time too. Dems can win when they want to, but they didn't seem to want to, and I read yesterday that the DSCC has pulled its ad buys on behalf of Mary Landrieu in Louisiana who faces a run off with her Republican rival. I guess they've written her off, too.

Oh well!

On the other hand, a Republican controlled congress seems to suit Mr. Obama just fine, at least as far as I could tell from his presser the other day. He was looking forward to "getting things done." Well, why not. Anyone who's been observing him over the years understands that his politics basically align with the Reagan Wing (now considered the "moderate wing") of the Republican Party, they are not traditional Democratic Party politics at all. He's a defender of Oligarchy, despite all their whining and complaining about how mean he is to them, and he's a glad hander for everyone else.

Internationally, he's nearly in lockstep with all the rest of the warmongers and imperialists.

Oh.

It's not just a matter of Dems choosing to lose particular elections. Rs are able to pick up a lot of seats in part because they are perceived as activists and doers, even when they aren't actually doing anything. It's because they can clearly and incessantly articulate a political point of view and a determination to follow through, something Dems seem incapable of. They will always try to yield to opposition. Rs never appear to, although they do. It's a contrast of style, but also a contrast of substance. When Dems are in control, they cannot and do not follow through on the public's expectations. Instead, they continue to find ways to yield to their opponents, their ostensible opponents, until it's obvious to observers that Dems are serving the same interests Rs are, only with a somewhat kinder/gentler face. They're on the same side, and it's not the side of the People.

Oh.

So. I've said I expect Obama and Biden to be impeached next year and quite possibly be replaced by a different speaker of the House (not the orange crying man) and Paul Ryan. No one else seems to be predicting this, and it may not happen, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least.

As far as the public and policy is concerned, there would be little or no difference; it wouldn't actually matter. Our government is captured by the legendary malefactors, and we the rabble have no role in it.

An impeachment, if it happens, will be essentially entertainment for the masses.

So it goes.