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Disgraceful could become unforgivable

Any president is entitled to the staff he wants in the White House. Getting rid of Lieutenant Colonel Vindman and Ambassador Sondland lies well within President Trump’s prerogatives. The President has to have confidence in his staff and in his ambassadors, who are his personal representatives.

But marching Vindman out of the National Security Council (NSC) unceremoniously, and firing his twin brother at the same time, is not the normal procedure. The President is sending a message: absolute loyalty Trumps expertise and legal obligations, including the obligation to testify in Congress when subpoenaed. Ambassador to the EU Sondland can’t be described as having any expertise other than direct knowledge of the President’s wrongdoing in Ukraine, but he too testified when subpoenaed over the President’s objection.

What Trump is doing is trying to remake the US government in his own image. This requires that he dismantle the merit-based professional staffing not only at the NSC but also at US embassies, the Justice Department, the FBI, and other institutions that might dissent from his use of government institutions for his personal political and financial benefit. He has already reined in the Secret Service, which is enjoying $650 per night rooms at his resorts, and the General Services Administration, which has turned a blind eye to his exploitation of the lease on his government-owned Washington DC hotel.

The Republican Senators who acquitted Trump last week of two impeachment charges know perfectly well what he is doing. Were a Democratic President to try one-tenth of Trump’s shenanigans, they would be screaming bloody murder. So far only two Republicans have opted for dissent: Representative Amash of Michigan has left the GOP to become an independent and Senator Romney of Utah voted to convict Trump of abusing power in his effort to extract personal political benefit from Ukraine. They deserve a lot of credit.

The Democrats should welcome their futile but dignified moves with open arms. That won’t be possible if Bernie Sanders is their nominee for the presidency, as his commitment to socialism will make him unwelcoming and also scare them off. But pretty much any of the other potential candidates should be preparing to make common cause against Trump with the likes of Amash and Romney, especially if more appear on the horizon before November. I don’t see any bar to tacking towards the middle for Buttigieg, Warren, Biden, or the lesser lights. Doing so would give the Democratic nominee a real leg up in several contested states.

Sanders has the advantage of enormous enthusiasm among young people, many of whom say they won’t vote for anyone else in the Democratic race. He didn’t however turn out a flood of supporters in Iowa, where a tie with Buttigieg was a much bigger achievement for the former mayor of South Bend than for the Senator from Vermont. Sanders is likely however to do much better in New Hampshire next week.

After that, the key is Super Tuesday, March 3, when 14 states and Democrats Abroad hold their primaries. Sanders is looking good in California, with Biden and Warren fading there. It alone names 415 pledged delegates to the Democratic Convention, out of 1990 needed to win on the first ballot. Former New York City Mayor Bloomberg will be competing on Super Tuesday, which may split moderate votes further. There are too many Democratic candidates in that space. Sanders is enjoying the kind of primary campaign that gave Trump the Republican nomination in 2016: the moderates on the right were fragmented then as they are now on the left.

I don’t say Sanders can’t win, but I admit it is hard to picture how suburban college-educated women and black churchgoers, two vital constituencies for the Democrats, will turn out for a self-declared socialist. Four more years of Trump’s efforts to dismantle government institutions and turn them to his personal purposes would be disastrous for the United States and the world. Disgraceful would then be unforgivable.