Acquitted, not exonerated

You’ll be hearing a lot next week about how the Senate is exonerating President Trump of false charges brought by the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives. Nothing could be further than the truth. Senator Lamar Alexander had the temerity to speak the truth:

There is no need for more evidence to prove that the president asked Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter; he said this on television on October 3, 2019, and during his July 25, 2019, telephone call with the president of Ukraine. There is no need for more evidence to conclude that the president withheld United States aid, at least in part, to pressure Ukraine to investigate the Bidens; the House managers have proved this with what they call a ‘mountain of overwhelming evidence.’ …It was inappropriate for the president to ask a foreign leader to investigate his political opponent and to withhold United States aid to encourage that investigation. When elected officials inappropriately interfere with such investigations, it undermines the principle of equal justice under the law….

The question then is not whether the president did it, but whether the United States Senate or the American people should decide what to do about what he did. I believe that the Constitution provides that the people should make that decision in the presidential election that begins in Iowa on Monday.

It was Alexander’s judgment (contained in the areas I’ve marked with…) that what Trump did, including in refusing all requests for documents and testimony, did not rise to the level required for removal from office.

If Alexander and other Republican Senators believe that the President is guilty as charged , they should have no problem with a motion of censure against the President, denouncing his undermining of the principle of equality before the law and warning him off from further efforts to enlist foreign help in the 2020 election.

Failing that, it seems to me the Democrats need a way of expressing their displeasure at the State of the Union address Tuesday. They might “take a knee,” for example, but then a lot of them might not be able to get up. Other possibilities come to mind: wearing black armbands in mourning for American democracy, turning their backs as the President enters the room, walking out as soon as he claims exoneration, or boycotting the event altogether. I rather like the idea of a boycott or walkout, but either would leave Speaker Pelosi alone with her adversaries, as she formally invited the impeached President to address the Congress and will preside over the event.

No doubt impeachment alone is a stain on Donald Trump’s presidency and ample warning for any normal politician against seeking or accepting foreign assistance in the next election. But Trump is a man who feels no shame, so that hardly matters. What matters, as Senator Alexander suggests, is how Americans vote in November. I am already convinced he will lose the popular vote, likely by a margin wider than the 2.8 million or so votes he lost it last time. New York and California, which voted against him in 2016 by wide margins, will tilt even more heavily to the Democrats, if only because the Trump tax cut actually raised taxes on many voters in states with high state income taxes.

Trump can however still win in the Electoral College, which gives a voter in a less populous state like Wyoming several times the weight in choosing the president than a voter in New York or California. This powersharing arrangement with less populous states was a necessary distortion of “one-person, one-vote” in forming the Union in the 18th century. It is now a grossly unfair anachronism that is difficult to fix, as it requires either a constitutional amendment or approval by more states of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Neither is going to happen before November.

Americans supported impeachment by a narrow margin. Now the Democrats have to make lemonade from the lemons of their defeat in the Senate. Defeating Trump in the election will require either winning back Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan (which Hillary Clinton lost by less than a total of 80,000 votes), or beating him Florida and Texas, where the 2016 results were close and demographic trends favor the Democrats but not yet by enough to make victory there likely.

Trump’s trade wars have brought little benefit and much harm to the US, the economy is slowing, the Administration’s main foreign policy initiatives (with North Korea, Venezuela, Iran, and Israel/Palestine) are failing, its immigration and voter suppression policies are racist, America’s allies are hedging, and a candidate who promised withdrawal from the Middle East as President is sending more troops there. Failure to hold Trump accountable in November would be an inexcusable error. He should not be acquitted again.