Day: January 18, 2021
Here is what I really said
Veljko Nestorović of Kosovo Online asked:
Q: Is it possible to get your answer to the question before the elections
in Kosovo, why at the moment there is no party (like URA in Montenegro
with Dritan Abazovic) civic options where Albanians and Serbs and
everyone else are represented, but all parties ethnically exclusive?
Is it necessary for Kosovo to “get a civic party” in order for democracy
in Kosovo to take an upward path?
I answered:
A: I would certainly like to see a civic option of the sort you
suggest, but it is difficult in a society where people are largely
segregated and ethnic identity overemphasized. The establishments in
both Pristina and Belgrade would see such an alternative as a threat.
But that is no reason for it not to happen!
Note: I did not comment on Abazovic at all. I commented on a civic alternative in Kosovo, which I would welcome. In retrospect, I should have added “I will not comment on Abazovic,” but it seems clear to me that was the case. The press that suggests I expressed approval of Abazovic is certainly distorting what I said and meant. I said nothing about him.
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No need to reconcile with Trumpism, only defeat it
This is the best I’ve seen on the chronology of 1/6 events:
But this from The New Yorker is the best I’ve seen conveying the motives and impunity of the participants (sorry it won’t embed). The religiously motivated and overwhelmingly white male rioters felt entitled. Some of them came prepared to capture or kill members of Congress. There is no doubt what they would have done had they gotten hold of Nancy Pelosi. There is also no doubt who inspired their attack on The Capitol: President Trump and Senators Cruz and Hawley.
Less clear is how much coordination there was before the attack. Certainly the White House communicated with the demonstration organizers about his appearance at the Ellipse. The question is what the President understood about their intentions thereafter. Several members of Congress have reported on tours of The Capitol, which is closed to visitors during the Covid-19 epidemic, conducted the day before the riot. Those will have been organized by members of Congress or their staffs. There are also indications that some rioters knew the layout of the offices, though they appear not to have known about escape routes.
I would want much more clarity on these issues and others before any trial in the Senate. That and likely interference with President-elect Biden’s legislative agenda argue for a pause on delivering the impeachment to the upper house. Delay also has the virtue of leaving Trump in suspense, thereby preventing him from rousing his followers for another attack on The Capitol or another outrage for fear of generating a guilty verdict, reached with Republican support. There should be a trial, but there is no need for alacrity.
In the meanwhile, we are all anticipating Trump’s pardons for his family, his associates, and maybe himself, as well as anyone else who pays the right fixers and makes the right promises. But there is no requirement that pardons be publicized. So we may not learn about them before the Inauguration. There is not even a requirement that a pardon be written, though a verbal one with no supporting documentation wouldn’t likely stand up in court. Trump could however give signed notes to each person pardoned to produce only when they are indicted, months or even years later. A self-pardon is a manifest absurdity. You can’t “grant” yourself something. Doing so would be the epitome of corruption: abuse of public office for private gain.
Some are urging that Biden pardon Trump, claiming that reconciliation and bipartisanship would then be easier. I don’t buy that argument at all. Reconciliation is only possible with accountability. Bipartisanship is going to work with people who voted to certify the election results, not those who refused to do so. Biden should do nothing to reduce the growing split in the Republican Party, which has the potential to purge it of Trumpism, or at least to generate a new, truly conservative party that might cooperate with more moderate Democrats on issues like Covid-19, the economy, police brutality, and climate change.
The extremists who refused to certify votes knew full well that there was no widespread or systematic fraud in the election, evidence for which would have shown up by now. What they and the rioters were saying is that the votes of black and brown people in Democratic cities should not be counted. They filed dozens of law suits with that as the explicit objective. They were defending white privilege and power. Trumpism is, at its heart, racism. There is no need to reconcile with it, only defeat it.
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Stevenson’s army, January 18, late edition
I’ve now found data reinforcing my longstanding belief that Newt Gingrich, more than any other person, is responsible for the rise of toxic partisanship. [There are other factors, of course, but Gingrich was at the leading edge.]
Princeton Prof Julian Zelizer ably described how Gingrich used the theme of corruption to destroy public trust in Congress and vault the GOP into control of the House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years. The Georgia congressman openly said, “We have to destroy the House in order to save it.” He certainly achieved the destruction, but we have never seen the salvation.
Last week Kevin Drum posted a chart based on Pew surveys showing the decline in trust of government among Republicans and Democrats. [I can’t seem to be able to copy and paste the chart, so please look.] It shows a sharp drop in the early 1990s, in both parties, offset by a post-9/11 resurgence of trust, followed by the declines linked to the forever wars and the Democratic distrust of Bush and then GOP distrust of Obama.
It didn’t have to be this way. Politics cold have been about policy rather than personality. But Gingrich and his acolytes weaponized peccadilloes [the House bank, postage allowances] and found that it worked politically. How ironic that Donald Trump convinced his supporters that he had “drained the swamp” when he appointed lobbyists in charge of agencies they had lobbied for private clients.
Gingrich is also responsible for hyperpartisanship in another way: many of his Young Turks later became Senators, bringing their House majoritarianism and take-no-prisoners style into the upper chamber.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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Stevenson’s army, January 18
AP says FBI is vetting National Guard troops in DC to prevent insider threat.
Several cabinet nominees have Senate hearings Tuesday, Hill has as story on the Austin hearing before SASC.
Politico has a long story on the inside fights that undermined Operation Warp Speed.
Maggie Haberman & colleague analyze the role of words in the Trump presidency.
CRS has new report with historical data on congressional careers.
—
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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Build a world in which Trump will not thrive
Donald Trump could hardly have done a worse job as president. He inherited a growing economy, a healthy population, and a country that had begun to heal race relations under a two-term black president. He is leaving office with the economy going into the second dip of a deep recession, after having failed to respond effectively to Covid-19. He has praised violent white supremacists, alienated all but small contingents of minorities, and inspired a seditious insurrection targeting The Capitol and the constitutionally mandated counting of electoral votes. He was only impeached twice. He gave cause for many more indictments.
Trump still has substantial support in the Republican Party, a significant portion of which supported his effort to overturn election results and even the January 6 rioting. Only 10 Republicans joined the Democrats in voting for his second impeachment. If we are to believe one of the Republicans, there was serious discussion among them of the validity of state legislatures availing themselves of the opportunity to change the popular vote outcomes and choose a state’s electors, regardless of claims of fraud. That possibility is left open by current laws and the constitution, but it is hard to imagine a more anti-democratic notion.
The Republican Party now finds itself weakened, split, and tied to a defeated president who won’t even extend the standard courtesies of a concession speech and attendance at his successor’s inauguration. Not that he would be welcomed, as President-elect Biden has made clear. Even the most moderate, mild-mannered, and bipartisan leaning politicians has his limits. Trump will instead no doubt try to steal the limelight with some stunt between now and noon on January 20. Pardons for his family, friends, rioters, himself? An attack on Iran? An appearance at a demonstration the day of Biden’s inauguration? Who knows: in this he is clever and malicious. He’ll find something.
Suspension of his Twitter account will handicap Trump a bit. I confess to mixed feelings about that. He unquestionably used it to incite violence, so Twitter should long ago have blocked him. The history of the last four years might have been far more salubrious had it done so. But limits on free speech have a way of expanding to people who are far less culpable. Belarusian President Lukashenko no doubt feels his democracy-advocating opponents should have their social media access cut off. How about Iran’s Supreme Leader, its President, and its Foreign Minister? I don’t like their regime and think they are guilty of massive human rights abuses, but are we going to cut off all foreign leaders who commit them?
Those issues are for another day. Today we can bask in the notion that Trump will soon be out of office, his Congressional supporters are in disarray, companies are cutting off contributions to those who voted against certifying the electoral results, and Trump’s base is sorely disappointed if not yet disillusioned. We can also relish the rise to power of a calm, empathetic, capable President Biden, who is busy appointing a diverse administration of serious people and developing plans for meeting the health and economic crises that besiege us.
Nothing is guaranteed. Trump will retreat and regroup, along with the bankrupt National Rifle Association, his hypocritical evangelical supporters, his sons and daughter-in-law, the soon to be disbarred Rudy Giuliani, and those Republicans more interested in regaining power than in standing for conservatives principles, which were largely anathema to Trump.
But on Martin Luther King Day, we can be thankful for all those–black, white, male and female, and everything in between–who voted for the kind of America that King wanted: “a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” If we build that kind of world, the likes of Trump will not thrive.
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