The Day After Mueller: Let’s Walk and Chew Gum at the Same Time

Exactly nobody’s mind was changed with the release of the Special Counsel’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. Donald Trump was right in predicting he could shoot somebody in the middle of New York’s Fifth avenue and not lose voters.

Those living in the Fox News bubble saw nothing in the report except a president fighting to keep his job as the corrupt forces of the establishment sought to bring him down. I heard an amazing interview on NPR with Trump campaign spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany where she rattled off a series of lies trying to make the case this was really all about Hillary Clinton.

Another measure of Mueller’s investigation can be found in the exchanges between America’s Most Famous Conway’s. (h/t Politico)

Presidential counselor Kellyanne told Fox News:

“This has been a political proctology exam, and [Trump's] emerging with a clean bill of health.”

Husband and Republican dissident George wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post, saying;

Trump is a cancer on the presidency. Congress should remove him.”

Don’t get me wrong here, I’m not saying the Mueller report isn’t important. It documents a series of actions that future historians (assuming there are academics in the future) will find astonishing.

Over the course of almost 450 pages, Robert Mueller describes 11 instances in which the president or his campaign engaged in potential obstruction of justice – and that’s just in the redacted version.

Beyond Russiagate, let us not forget the numerous other investigations that special counsel handed off to law enforcement authorities around the nation. The pattern of bad behavior very clearly extends to virtually everything and everybody connected to the President’s business dealings.  

I am saying there is no reason to believe the information in this report will change the trajectory of this administration. You cannot shame the shameless.

Nor will it trigger some sort of massive and righteous uprising of people angry about the fundamental disrespect shown to the the rule of law, the separation of powers, and Democracy itself.

https://twitter.com/McFaul/status/1118888518829260800

Short answer, Mr McFaul: No.

So, two thoughts: Keep up the investigations, and oppose the implementation of the Trumpista agenda. We really can walk and chew gum at the same time.

Democrats in the House need to continue to seek the truth. Impeachment should be on the table, with the (tacit) understanding it’s not going to happen unless some new data emerges powerful enough to break the spell of Trumpism.  High profile hearings starting with Robert Mueller and ending with witnesses like Don Jr., Kushner etc. have the effect of controlling the narrative for as long as possible.  (Failure to do so concedes the “truth” to the GOP’s 2020 effort)

https://twitter.com/jbouie/status/1118998925615222785

While the editorial board of the San Diego Union-Tribune and others think we ought to just let this go until the 2020 elections, it’s clear to me that an all-out approach is needed. Release of the Mueller report will not stop GOP voter suppression operations and social media influence campaigns using almost-falsehoods.

https://twitter.com/NiemanReports/status/1119290840172650501

In the first ten weeks of 2019, President Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign has already spent $4.5 million on Facebook and Google ads in the first two and a half months of 2019. If you seen any of those ads, you know they’re pushing the fear and loathing buttons, particularly with older audiences.

Outside the Beltway, Democrats, activists, and allies need to be relentless in opposing the actions of the Trump administration.  ‘Kitchen table’ issues like immigration, economic inequality, health care, and climate change need to stay part of the daily conversation we have with the American people.

According to insiders with the Elizabeth Warren presidential campaign, of the 275 questions she's taken from voters at town halls, three have been about Russia, Mueller, or impeachment

Local electoral and non-electoral campaigns on issues like homelessness and climate change are effective ways of keeping people engaged.

***

While we were all focused on the back and forth of Mueller-mania yesterday, the administration issued new ACA regulations reducing federal premium subsidies by an estimated $980 million next year through a change in how the subsidies adjust as premiums increase for subsidized enrollees. Seventy thousand people will be forced off their insurance plans.

In what should be a blow to one of the administration’s top priorities, the U.S. International Trade Commission completed an analysis of the “New NAFTA” (USMCA), saying it would have a minimal increase in the gross domestic product and employment. The President’s “truly groundbreaking achievement” actually represents at best a minor update to NAFTA, with only limited benefits to U.S. workers.

We got a glimpse of the worst kept secret in border enforcement yesterday, with publication of a New York Times story on armed vigilantes detaining migrant families at gunpoint along the US Mexico border in New Mexico.

“Members of the group, which calls itself the United Constitutional Patriots, filmed several of their actions in recent days, including the detention this week of a group of about 200 migrants who had recently crossed the border near Sunland Park, N.M., with the intention of seeking asylum. They uploaded videos to social media of exhausted looking migrant families, blinking in the darkness in the glare of what appeared to be the militia’s spotlights.”

Connections and cooperation between right wing militia-types and border enforcement personnel are widespread and ongoing.

Finally, a few words about nihilism. One of the most distressing flavors of reaction to the Mueller investigation and report is the left wing version of “Russiagate” doesn’t matter because everybody does it. The more extreme versions of this truth-speak went so far as to claim the DNC wasn’t really hacked.   

Wrapping itself in conspiratorial rhetoric and repeating words like neo-liberal frequently, this line of thinking holds the current political process to be irredeemably corrupt. To them I say the same thing I say to opponents of the Green New Deal or Universal Healthcare coverage: show me your plan.

https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/status/1119051572489674752

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Lead image credit: A snip from the front page of the New York Times