Impeachment Today: The Day After Donald Trump the Real Work Begins
Trump is a symptom. Write it 1000 times, make it your mantra, and don’t vote for any candidate for any office who won’t agree with the premise.
The California Latino Legislative Caucus issued a video today marking the 25th anniversary of the passage of Proposition 187. For those of you unfamiliar with the history of the era, it was a statewide ballot measure championed by former Governor Pete Wilson using Latino immigrants as a scapegoat for the economic problems facing the state.
Pete Wilson and Donald Trump are from different universes, yet what they sought to achieve as politicians was/is the same. I say this because it’s too easy to conflate the current president’s sociopathic narcissism with the actual harm his administration is doing to our nation.
The Latino Caucus video is packaged as a ‘thank you’ to the former Governor. Thanks to his racism, a whole generation of children of immigrants stepped up to the plate. Much of what makes California a progressive beacon is thanks to their dedication to justice; justice that went beyond righting one wrong and was inclusive of the broader issues facing us.
https://youtu.be/OuJIuaUbWms
Like any group, there are good and bad people in this generation of activists, some with altruistic and others with self serving motives. Perfection isn’t my point here. Determination, grit, and the awareness of the need for each individual to work hard in their own way for a collective good are qualities needed for all of us who believe in democracy to build a brighter future.
We used to call this quality citizenship, back before the libertarian tax rebellion eliminated civic classes in high schools.
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My bet is that the day after Trump will be in January 2021. I’ll skip the various apocalyptic endings making the rounds because dwelling on something unknowable only serves to distract us from the tasks ahead.
Regardless of when (or if) Trump’s impeachment/resignation ends, the keys to the future will be found in the 2020 elections. And the cure for what ails us goes way beyond who gets elected to serve (remember that word, as opposed to ‘rules’?) in the Oval Office.
Trump is a symptom. Write it 1000 times, make it your mantra, and don’t vote for any candidate for any office who won’t agree with the premise. And, yes, even if you get to vote for dogcatcher, make sure they know this truth.
I’m talking school boards, city councils, county supervisors, congress critters and the rest. WE have work to do. And band aids won’t do.
Ultimately, because of the way Western society has evolved, everything comes down to money.
https://twitter.com/Public_Citizen/status/1190284829910294528?s=20
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Let’s jump back up the political ladder to 2020 presidential candidates.
The United States has a systemic problem requiring systemic answers. Any candidate unable to articulate a vision going beyond “undoing Trumpism,” isn’t worthy of my support.
Elect a fixer upper and chances are we’ll end up with Obama redux, i.,e., one or two terms of well-intentioned half measures accompanied by an orchestrated opposition campaign of lies, fear, and loathing.
I’m sure the 44th president of the United States did what he thought was feasible, given the political circumstances. And I think the world of the Obamas as human beings.
I just don’t think he aimed high enough. (And I think a strategic error was made by not elevating the needed mass mobilizations thru Organizing for America.)
Having said that big changes are needed, let me add this caveat: there is no magic in politics. Progress comes in steps, compromises will be made, and the process is hard work. Building a better society requires many hands.
This means YOU have to stay involved, and I don’t mean spewing snark on Twitter. Or sitting in your man cave pouting. Should you find one project distasteful, there is always another cause needing help.
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Senator Elizabeth Warren responded this morning to demands by nobody voting in 2020 (i.e., worry warts) that she tell the world how she’d pay for universal no cost healthcare.
Already the chattering class is hyping a TWENTY POINT FIVE TRILLION DOLLAR TAX HIKE. But what’s buried way down in the print media stories is the ELEVEN BILLION DOLLARS that middle class families would gain by not paying insurance premiums and co pays.
CNN based much of their coverage on how Warren’s plan was somehow a rebuke to Sen. Bernie Sanders proposed legislation. That’s bullshit. She’s thrown an idea on the table. It won’t be enacted by decree.
The Sanders bill outlines a four-year transition from the current system to Medicare for All. Warren does not explain in her Friday post what in that piece of the current legislation she believes might require fixing or adjusting. But she has during the campaign expressed concern over the existing framework. Her decision now leaves open the possibility she could eventually propose a slower move.
In her post, Warren also hit back at Democratic critics of Medicare for All, challenging "every candidate who opposes my long-term goal of Medicare for All (to) put forward their own plan to cover everyone, without costing the country anything more in health care spending, and while putting $11 trillion back in the pockets of the American people by eliminating premiums and virtually eliminating out-of-pocket costs."
But even with the unveiling of this new plan -- a far more comprehensive and detailed financing proposal than Sanders has ever put forward -- Warren is unlikely to please the skeptics and political opponents who had been pressuring her for answers. And the prospect of her scrapping the Sanders' bill's transition plan could also stoke unease on the left.
The reality is that nobody’s plan for anything ever comes through the lawmaking process as advertised. And I give her team credit for at least trying to do the math, rather than relying on some news story for data.
Read Ady Barkan’s analysis on Warren’s plan if you’re wanting details.
*** When history bites you in the ass...
(A thread written by historian Yoni Appelbaum, ideas editor for The Atlantic Magazine on Twitter.)
I want to share one strongly argued case for impeachment, from a leading constitutional scholar, that I stumbled across the other day.
"[The president’s] defenders describe the unthinkable disaster of impeachment. But it should not be unthinkable. The framers of the Constitution did not see impeachment as a doomsday scenario; they thought it necessary to remove bad men from the offices they were subverting."
“The president’s defenders, experts at changing the subject, prefer to debate whether [he] committed a felony …. [but] ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’ are not limited to actions that are crimes under federal law."
“It becomes clear that the White House has never before been occupied by such a reckless and narcissistic adventurer. Sociopath is not too strong a word."
“We are regularly lectured about a constitutional crisis if the House goes forward with hearings and ultimately votes a bill of impeachment for trial in the Senate. Consider the alternative. Perhaps American presidents, by and large, have not been a distinguished lot…"
“….But if we ratify [his] behavior in office, we may expect not just lack lack of distinction in the future but aggressively dishonest, even criminal, conduct. The real calamity will not be that we removed a president from office but that we did not."
The fire-breathing radical in question? Former U.S. Solicitor General and Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork, in a glowing review of Ann Coulter’s “High Crimes and Misdemeanors,” published in The Wall Street Journal in 1998.
(Follow @YAppelbaum on Twitter.)
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https://twitter.com/SeanMcElwee/status/1190309251358633984?s=20
**Coverage of the impeachment saga will continue through the weekend if there are new developments to report. And I assume there will be.**
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