The big current Beltway debate is whether the Democratic Party has gone off the deep end and is destroying the country because a couple of democratic socialists in New York City unseated two incumbents. Apparently, it’s just been too long since party elders and the media establishment had a hand-wringing party over alleged left-wing extremism ruining everything, so this was their invitation to hold one. Democratic strategist James Carville says he’s done with the party over this. Donald Trump is screaming about communists running rampant, and the mainstream media is sighing with relief that they have a storyline to prove they aren’t biased against Trump after all. And so it goes.
Some of us who weren’t born yesterday remember that it was just eight years ago when the same thing happened. Recall that a young upstart by the name of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez unseated New York Rep. Joseph Crowley, a powerful 10-term incumbent and chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. Ocasio-Cortez’s win was seen as a crisis for the ages when she and a group of young “woke” women of color, dubbed “the Squad,” were feared to be taking a wrecking ball to everything we hold dear because they were just too extreme for the regular folks.
This has happened over and over again when a new generation steps up with a different energy and new ideas: the old guard always freaks out. In our present moment, it’s true that the calls for generational change are very loud, and for obvious reasons. The issue of America’s unconditional support for Israel, especially in the wake of Trump’s disastrous war with Iran, is roiling both parties, and it’s having an effect at the ballot box. But despite whatever internecine disagreements they have — and they always have them — Democrats of all stripes are strongly united on one issue above all others: the existential threat to our democracy presented by Trump and the Republican Party.
In fact, the idea that it’s the Democrats who have gone off the deep end because a few more Democratic socialists notched primary wins is laughable, a truth that was perhaps best exemplified by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. When harangued by CNBC’s Joe Kernan to “reject” the winners, Jeffries replied, “Donald Trump is the president right now. Are you kidding me?”
So yes, a new generation is bringing some new ideas to Democratic politics. But at the moment, we have a neo-fascist regime running the government, led by an aging oligarch who is stealing the country blind on behalf of his family and wealthy cronies. We are dealing with an unprecedented crisis, and it’s a much bigger problem than an emerging progressive power center in the Democratic coalition right now. The real and most important question is what these Democrats can do about it.
This week data journalist G. Elliot Morris published a Strength In Numbers/Verasight poll that points to one strategy I think is important. When asked “Are there grounds to impeach Trump?” 53% of respondents said yes. When asked to name specifics, the top responses were “corruption,” “self-enrichment,” “abuse of power” and “defying the courts.” There was more — a lot more, from the Epstein files and the Iran war to incompetence, lying and deportations. But by far, the primary grounds most people chose were corruption and abuse of power, the kinds of behaviors that impeachment was designed for. And there is simply no denying that all of it is true.
The result is that most people are all too aware that impeachment is something of a paper tiger . . . But that doesn’t mean the process is a useless exercise.
One sure sign that our system of government — and social compact — is breaking down is that we have had three impeachments in the last half century, when we only had one in our entire history before that. The result is that most people are all too aware that impeachment is something of a paper tiger. As long as a president has just enough partisan support in the Senate to block a conviction, he is pretty safe. But that doesn’t mean the process is a useless exercise.
Impeachment is still a very big deal with extremely high stakes. You never know if it just might work because party loyalties have been shown to only go so far. Despite this disclaimer — and despite his historic approval ratings — Trump holds tremendous sway over his party, and it’s highly unlikely he would ever be convicted unless he is drooling and incontinent, and even then . . .
But that’s not the point. He is the most corrupt president in history, and that fact, with all its dark details, needs to be aired for the public to see while he is in office. After Trump leaves office, there is little chance that any successive administration would be able to charge him, even though the expansive immunity conferred upon him by the Supreme Court ostensibly only applies to official duties. We know any such charges would be litigated to death, and by the time it finally came to trial, he might very well be dead, and the case would be moot.
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If they take the majority in the House, as many predict, and perhaps the Senate, Democrats have one job over the next two years: to prepare the people for the radical reforms that will be necessary to save the country. No necessary legislation is going to be signed by Donald Trump. No progress on any of the material things that the American people want and need will happen. Those two years must be intensely focused on what must be done after he is gone.
Trump has already shown he will abuse his executive power beyond our wildest imaginations. Just this week, it was reported that the administration plans to cut services for disabled Americans and their families even as Trump spends billions on his vanity legacy projects, which includes his makeover of Washington, D.C., the costs of which have skyrocketed. Congressional Democrats will not be able to legislate that away, and they should not promise to do so. But they can deliver clarity about the state America is in, and expose the administration and Republicans who are complicit.
Standard old hearings with the usual tired back and forth between partisans are not going to work. The public is inured to that spectacle by now. But impeachment remains a valuable tool for exposing what’s gone wrong — and morally indicting the Republican Party as a whole for failing to take the steps necessary to stop it. If Democrats want to truly exploit this strategy, they could even begin by starting impeachment proceedings against some members of Trump’s Cabinet, such as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel. There is ample evidence to support bringing charges.
Barring any seismic shift in the Republican political landscape, Donald Trump won’t be removed from office. But if Democrats do what they must with the two years they will have before the 2028 presidential election, they can ready the country for the changes that must be made if they regain power. Such an endeavor will be controversial and difficult, maybe even one of the most difficult political undertakings since Reconstruction. But it has to be done, and the Democratic Party, fractious though it is, remains the best means of accomplishing it.
Let’s hope they are up for the task. They have to be.
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