Incomptence, Collusion, Watergate, and Impeachment

I have talked here before about how disastrous the current US administration is and I'm sure I will do so many times more, at least as long as they are still in power. The sheer bumbling incompetence of not only the guy at the top but most of those he has picked to work with (or serve) him should be disturbing to intelligent Americans of every political persuasion, but that same incompetence, along with strong resistance by the Democrats and many ordinary citizens around the country, is helping to hinder the administration in doing a lot of the awful things they have been trying to do. Unfortunately, they have still managed to set the country back in an unbelievably wide range of areas, and they will inevitably do more damage before they can be removed from office. While regrettably it will be impossible to get rid of the entire bunch until 2020 and not until 2018 do the Democrats have even a chance of taking back part of Congress, improving their ability to block some of the worst deeds of this gang of scoundrels, there is some chance that the narcissistic conman at the top of the gang can be removed from office before then. He may decide to resign on his own, as he is clearly not enjoying the job as much as he hoped he would, though given his ego this seems unlikely. Otherwise, at least until 2018, it will be necessary that a sufficient number of Republicans discover their spines and a minimal degree of principles, so that they join the Democrats in impeaching him for one or more of his "high crimes and misdemeanors". Possible impeachable offenses include his blatant self-enrichment and his violations of the emoluments clause, but currently the scandal most likely to result in his removal is the one related to Russian attempts to interfere in last year's election on his behalf, his campaign's attempted collusion with those efforts and the subsequent cover-up. While his defenders try to claim that there was no substantial collusion by the campaign and therefore the whole thing is being overblown, this ignores history. Even if the campaign's contacts with Russia were limited and they did no more than talk about colluding with Russia, and even if Don T. himself was ignorant of the tentative contacts at the time, the subsequent attempts to cover up those contacts and interfere with the investigation alone are enough to impeach him on. To see this, we need only look back at the only time in history a US president has been forced out of office - the Watergate scandal.

The story from the administration has evolved from "None of us had any contacts with Russian officials or agents" to "We did meet with a few Russians, but we didn't talk about the election campaign" to "We wanted to collude with the Russians to win the election, but they didn't give us anything useful." The recently revealed meeting between Don T. Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort on the campaign's side and a Russian lawyer with close Kremlin ties on the other proves that at least some people high up in the campaign were willing to acquire information damaging to Hillary Clinton from the Russians, and that they were made aware that this information was being offered as part of Russia's support for Don T.'s campaign. This alone is arguably damning enough. But let's just suppose that the administration's current story is true (unlikely, given how much they have lied in the past, but at least remotely possible). Let's say that in the meetings that have been uncovered between various Russians and Kushner, Jeff Sessions, Michael Flynn, etc. nothing of real import was discussed, and that in the one meeting where collusion was proposed, the Russians really didn't offer anything of value and so no collusion actually occurred. In other words, let's say that all that really happened was a third-rate, aborted attempted at collusion, and Don. T himself really didn't know about it. Well, the Watergate scandal started with a "third-rate burglary" targeting the Democrats that President Richard Nixon apparently didn't know about at the time. So why was he forced to resign? Because he tried to cover up the involvement of members of his administration in the burglary and egregiously interfered in the investigation into the affair. Sound familiar? If Kushner, Sessions, Flynn and that lot had admitted to their contacts with Russians during the campaign, and if Don T. had not fired the FBI director in order to stop the investigation into Russian interference, then perhaps they could make a case that they were not guilty of anything of substance (again assuming that attempted collusion is no big deal as long as it didn't amount to anything in practice). But instead they have lied and interfered with the investigation. Perjury and obstruction of justice are crimes in and of themselves, regardless of whether there were any crimes committed previously. Nixon became a criminal when he obstructed justice, and the same is true of the current incumbent. Republican arguments that the original investigation was making a mountain out of a molehill (laughable coming from the party that spent years and millions in taxpayer money investigating things like Benghazi and Hillary Clinton's email server) are really irrelevant at this point.

Of course as long as the Republicans control Congress and collectively lack either the principles or the courage to impeach Don T. for his obstruction of justice and other misdeeds, he will be able to stay in office. Even if he is removed, we would most likely be stuck with Mike Pence as president, even though he has also told at least a few lies in regard to the Russian affair and may well be guilty of more than has been revealed. If Pence does manage to come out relatively unscathed from impeachment proceedings against his boss, then he would take over, which many argue might be even worse than what we have now. After all, while hardly a man of brilliance, he is not as totally incompetent, and yet ideologically he is probably even worse than Don T. on many issues. This is a guy who is known for his anti-gay, anti-women actions as governor of Indiana, and who has said blatantly absurd and harmful things such as that smoking doesn't kill. As I noted at the outset, the incompetence of the guy currently in charge has helped prevent him from doing more damage. Pence, simply because he is less incompetent, might do more harm. So does that mean we shouldn't push impeachment for fear of a Pence presidency? I would say no, partly because the process will inevitably drag out, and also because Don. T's erratic behavior and clear unfitness for office is dangerous in ways that Pence's more consistent evil is not. But also it's a matter of principle. If a president is clearly unfit and has committed obviously impeachable offenses, he should be removed, no matter who his prospective successor is. If Pence does become president, Democrats, activists and concerned citizens can continue to block as much of the Republican agenda as they can, just as they did with the Republicans' attempts to gut health care, which Don T. played little role in. And starting with the next election, hopefully Americans can begin to repair some of the damage.