The game changed yesterday with the Mannafort-Cohen bombshells. I’d like to explore an angle in the dynamic that I feel is too often ignored. Americans believe in following the rules. And that’s why yesterday’s 2 convictions have changed the game.
Americans believe in following the rules? Huh? Since when?
OK, let’s get into it. Why do so many Americans respond to the neo-Nativist agenda against immigrants? Racism. Of course. But there’s a (bogus) issue that isn’t considered enough.
For many, many Americans, the “illegal” issue powerfully drives their resentment. Oh, I know. The deeper issue is racist ethnocentrism. The illegal thing merely rationalizes submerged inter-cultural anxieties they aren’t even aware of. But the fact that underground racism is a far larger, more seminal dynamic should not blind us to the significance of a very important gateway issue for many people. Lots of people who will honestly (and mistakenly) swear that they aren’t racists simply cannot get beyond the “illegal” thing to begin examining their own racist animus.
I raise this issue not to discuss the immigration issue as such. I raise it because it broaches the “follow the rules” theme which seems to me a key to understanding the ideological dynamic that elected Trump and which will, I believe, eject him from office.
Eject him from office, eh? But Trump’s followers will never abandon him, Congress will never impeach him and he’ll never resign.
Personally, I reject these incessantly repeated assumptions. Of course, the key is the first premise: the conviction that the GOP base will never desert Trump. And I don’t think that 1st premise is true.
I know it’s hard to resist the notion that GOP tribalism has produced a monolithic bloc of fanatics whose loyalty to the party has no limits. But I don’t believe it. I think Hillary was spot on when she distinguished between the Deplorables and more mainstream Republicans and independents who are pretty deeply entrenched, but are in fact capable of thinking beyond pure partisanship. Media outlets are full these days of Republicans and conservatives railing against Trump and agonizing for a reformed GOP.
Now, “reasonable” Republicans (I know) are far from the majority in the Party. But they are crucial to GOP elections. Team Red needs its radicalized base, indeed, but this national minority ALSO needs its mainstream and independents to maintain its precarious foothold in power.
OK, but where is the evidence that these would-be moderates are reachable? The whole party STILL seems to back Trump to an astonishing—and depressing—degree.
I agree. But let’s look a bit more closely. What, after all, is the basis of the GOP’s appeal over the last half-century? Yes, racism. And money. But those of us who lived through the anti-war movement, Watergate, and the chaotic aftermath know that a big factor was an anguished sense of disrupted normalcy. Law and order. Refusing the draft. Demonstrations on the streets. Sex outside the rules of monogamy. Chaos. All precipitating fear … and political vitriol.
Of course, racism is to a large degree driven by abhorrence of those “others” who don’t follow the “rules” of “our” dominant culture. This is far too complex to go into here, but consider Trump’s rhetorical emphasis on immigrants who are illegal and who broke the rules. This is the gateway into bigoted activism for people who would not willingly endorse outright racism. Many in Trump’s coalition would balk at saying, “we don’t want brown people.” But they are willing to sign on to an agenda persecuting ILLEGAL brown people: “illegal aliens” and immigrants who commit crimes, both targeted relentlessly by Trump. The distinction, of course, is practically meaningless and profoundly hypocritical. But the appeal is visceral, intertwining a racist agenda with a paranoid rationalization. In the same way, “law and order” ideology has long justified racist discrimination with a defense of an allegedly threatened body of social rules.
Similarly, let’s consider the rule-oriented justification of vote suppression, an agenda which includes not only race, but class, age, gender, and ideology as well. Again, the agenda is ALWAYS justified by the fear of broken rules. Way back in ’04, I was shocked in a conversation with an intelligent, compassionate guy I knew who turned out to be a Rushite. I mentioned the fact that the GOP was openly committed to EXCLUDING voters and limiting the electorate. This mild-mannered guy said, “I think people are concerned about the threat of voter fraud.” At that point I began to see that a manufactured ideology industriously untethering the electorate from reality could do pretty much anything with ordinary people by selling them a myth of the threat of rule-breaking.
At this point, I need to acknowledge the obvious. This concern for rules is virtually always hypocritical. The party of personal responsibility spends all its time liberating its members from responsibility for virtually anything. Today’s American right wing is drunk with a libertarian belief that, as individuals, rules simply don’t apply. Today’s wingers resentfully assert their rights to waste fossil fuels, smoke in public, pollute, even shoot people who bother them. Rules don’t count for US, but they offer unlimited justification for holding THEM responsible. I am NOT claiming that Americans by and large OBEY rules. They don’t. What I am saying is that they think rules matter. Especially for THOSE OTHERS.
Which leads me to the role of the rules myth in our current political climate. And the way that yesterday’s convictions changed the game for Trump.
We have all been appalled and frustrated by Trump’s apparent imperviousness to the consequences of his idiocy, venality, nastiness, and all the rest. What is the number: 80% of Republicans still support him? And the GOP Congress hasn’t budged from implacable support. That MUST mean that the GOP has embraced partisan anarchy. No rules can ever apply, right?
But wait. Consider the fact that, while public support for Mueller’s investigation has oscillated, a pretty firm consensus has remained in opposition to the notion of Trump interfering with the investigation. And with the exception of a few Tea Party morons like Nunes, the GOP Congress has never moved significantly toward support for Trump’s desire to squelch the investigation. They are happy to prevaricate and undermine Mueller’s efforts, but there has never been support for firing Sessions, Rosenstein, or Mueller himself. This is a pretty remarkable fact that we need to also remember. And we need to consider WHY. Why are such committed partisans not happy to support a would-be tyrant in crushing the rule of law altogether?
Well, because, despite everything, the rule of law matters to Americans. Oh, it’s a mess and Americans know it. But they STILL care that it is there. The myth of a nation capable of holding its elected leaders responsible to due process continues to resonate, 2.5 centuries after the Declaration of Independence claimed the right to do so. Trump has been frustrated by his failure to convince Congress and the courts to agree to simply dismantle the rules that limit his powers. And, yes, I am well aware of the brutal irony of the fact that he leads a movement actively working to remove the constraints on pollution, exploitation of labor, police brutality, and “stand your ground” murder. They’re OK with the murder of black and brown people and the destruction of the planet, but they balk at the idea of a President declaring himself above the law.
OK, so how does all of this bear on Trump’s presidency? Well, again, there are 2 sides to the coin.
First, keep in mind that people don’t like impeachment. It bothers their sense of following the rules. Lose an election and call for impeachment? That’s sour grapes, the cheat-impulse of a sore loser. Resentment over Richard Nixon’s investigation and forced resignation drove right wing reactions for decades and motivated Bill Clinton’s impeachment: hey, it’s our turn for retaliation. And THEN the nation’s distaste for impeachment led to his acquittal and late 2nd term popularity.
Today (at least, before yesterday) no real consensus had developed supporting impeachment of Donald Trump. Why not? Well, apart from the Deplorables, I think it comes down to Americans’ deep-structural internalization of the rules of politics: elections choose office holders for specified terms in the election cycle. Want change? Win the next election. Those are the rules of American governance. And impeachment threatens to disrupt those rules. Americans don’t like disruptions of the election cycle.
On the other hand, there actually are rules for impeachment. And Americans will consider impeachment with sufficient reason. Obviously, intensely partisan Americans are quicker to support impeachment of THEIR guy and strongly resistant to the notion of impeaching OURS. Ultimately, the issue of impeachment is ALWAYS political. From a legal standpoint, Trump is dead meat. Politically, they haven’t laid a glove on him … yet.
And once again, we need to make that time-worn but perpetually crucial distinction between the factions in our political dynamic. As usual, the key players are the independents in the mainstream. The rabid GOP base will never turn on Trump and the highly motivated Democratic base is itching for it. Both parties understand that they have to consider the swingy middle, including reachable Republicans who can put otherwise unavailable districts into play. We all know this. But thinking about this group, we must remember the rules theme.
Until now, the swingy middle has done 2 things: A) defended Mueller’s investigation from interference and B) resisted the idea of impeachment. My argument is that BOTH orientations derive from the myth of America as a society based on the rule of law.
Now, if I am correct, the assumptions that the current political dynamic is static and thus that Trump will forever remain untouchable collapses. Here’s what will change the dynamic and move the swingy middle to start to support a regime change: it has to become unambiguously clear that Trump broke the rules. And the only way that can happen is through convictions produced through the rule of law.
Trump has been selling the Witch Hunt meme for, what, over a year? We know how that works with the Deplorables. But they are not the key. How has it worked with the swingy middle?
It has worked because the process has been long and the results have not yet directly touched Trump. Americans are unbelievably short term in their orientations. When Trump Co. complains about an relentless investigation with no end in sight and no smoking guns, that sounds about right to low information voters who are sick and tired of furor that never seems to lead anywhere. Of course, the fact is that Mueller’s team has done incredible work at lightning speed, but the time frame of a large scale investigation like this is way out of touch with Americans 15 minute attention span. Mueller has gotten numerous plea-bargains and scored a staggering amount of incriminating information. But we know that because the press tells us. And people don’t trust the press. We have not yet seen …
- Convictions in open court of Trump insiders defended by counsel
- Direct evidence linking Trump personally to crimes
- Any sort of report from Mueller’s team
As long as these findings remained elusive and the investigation was allowed to continue, Trump could keep selling the Witch Hunt meme. Impatient, distracted voters could take refuge from the furor in reasonable doubt. The political pressure to move toward an end game could be limited by relentless discrediting propaganda.
And this is what changed yesterday. Manafort was CONVICTED despite a highly competent defense and a goofball judge. And supported by voluminous corroborating evidence from the prosecution, Cohen testified in open court that Trump directed illegal campaign cover-ups. We still don’t have a report from Mueller. But due process of law has produced judgments of illegality that cannot be wished away by the Witch Hunt meme.
Americans care about the rules of the political game. Those rules now have a direct grip on Trump’s presidency. For many Americans in the swingy middle, the Witch Hunt refuge has become unsustainable. I believe that this will affect the polls, the mid-terms, and the political dynamic. I believe that the Blue Wave gained a few points yesterday, and those few points, if true, would make the difference between a wavelet and a tidal wave.
Of course, I and most of us have been wrong before. 2016 was a helluva shock. But it is crucial to always keep in mind the fact that Trump’s rabid base is NOT the entire GOP, itself a minority in the electorate. The swingy American middle will be reachable with unambiguous legal facts as long as they are the product of rule-based due process.
We often complain about Democratic Party messaging. And they have been slow off the mark this year, as usual. But I LOVE the Culture of Corruption theme. For all their one-eyed hypocrisy, Americans can be moved to defend the rule of law. And the timing is perfect. Let’s make these criminals pay in November!