Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo
House Democrats didn’t try to play legislative hardball to force further testimony in hearings.
The third presidential impeachment in American history will occur today. And the Prospect has been—frankly, not all over it. There’s been sort of a split in progressive media, with some outlets hanging on every word of the impeachment inquiry, and others mostly focusing on other matters.
I’ll be more candid—I didn’t watch very much of the hearings, nor did I read transcripts in the aftermath. I only glanced at the analysis. And while we’ve written about impeachment where we thought we could add something—here’s Brittany Gibson from yesterday on what a Senate impeachment trial might look like—I wasn’t inclined to assign a lot about it either, as you might guess from our archives. And I’d like to try to answer why.
If you asked me what I think about impeachment, I’d tell you I’m for it—the Ukraine story reflects an obvious desire to cajole a foreign government into damaging a political rival, and undermining the election system seems like a high enough crime in my book. But the past few months, I’ve had what I imagine the sensation Greek theatergoers felt when they walked into an amphitheater for another showing of Oedipus Rex. They knew exactly how it would end and were only there to assess the presentation.
So too here. Donald Trump will not be removed from office, as Senate Republicans have made more than clear. Feigned outrage at Senate Republicans for violating the impartiality of a jury by prematurely making up their minds rings hollow, when numerous Senate Democrats, among them the most prominent figures running for president, have also made up their minds. There’s nothing wrong with this— impeachment is as much a political as a legal process—but it adds to the perception that impeachment is more of a performative gesture that House Democrats wanted to dispense with quickly and efficiently before moving to other priorities.
From my view in the amphitheater, the play lacks in character development. A version of an impeachment inquiry exists that might have been useful, in the way that a truth and reconciliation commission would be useful. Trump has used the office of the presidency for personal gain, collecting and handing out the spoils of government like candy to corporate beneficiaries, cronies, family members, and himself. There has not been much of an attempt to conduct an actual investigation into that profiteering, to lay bare the entire scope of executive branch lawlessness and self-enrichment.
Such an exercise might take many weeks or months. It would take time to peel back corruption in Washington and expose it for the nation. It would require battling for information—not just asking the White House nicely for documents, but pulling from outside sources and witnesses, seeking every scrap of data and using all legal means to acquire them. But at the end of the process, the public might learn something about the mob-style figures running their government. That’s how Andrew Mellon became so toxic that he had to quit as Treasury Secretary in 1932 lest he be impeached, when a few short years earlier he was hailed as a patriot for his service to country under three presidents.
In contrast, the circumscribed Ukraine scandal, a tidy synecdoche of abuse of power, taught little. The tale could be told simply enough through a few Foreign Service officials, providing a mere hint of the broader kleptocracy at play. One problem with this simplicity is that it’s hard to captivate the nation once you’ve explained the first time: The rest becomes argument for argument’s sake.
House Democrats didn’t try to play legislative hardball to force further testimony in hearings, because they were on a deadline. The goal was to impeach by Christmas, and the format of the inquiry followed that script. Even the Senate trial appears to be on a short-run TV schedule, consistent with the nation’s attention span.
Not only did this set a new precedent that the executive branch can use maximum obstruction to stop investigations, it also didn’t give the public much sense of the enormity of the allegations against the president. Working to hit a date certain reinforced the perception of a cynical exercise unbefitting of removal from office. No doubt conservatives would savage a broader inquiry as a fishing expedition. But it’s not like House Democrats had no leads to chase down; a new one opens up seemingly every day.
I found myself wandering every time I tried to focus on this inquiry. Like every American, I want to know the truth about our government—the Prospect is currently initiating our own comprehensive inquiry into Trump corruption—but in the political arena of impeachment, it’s vital to at least try to teach the public something, to make an argument that matches the immensity of the moment. This didn’t have to be quite so predictable and shallow.
Just because Republicans have decided on cult-like fealty to the president doesn’t make impeachment unwarranted or unwise. They’ll have to live with their vote, personally and politically. But that pressure would only rise if Democrats had treated impeachment less like an end-of-the-year task to get out of the inbox and more like a search for truth and justice. It’s likely that Democrats will get only one bite at this apple—a second, third and fourth impeachment would wear politically— and therefore they have to make the initial one count, lest Trump learn from the experience that he’s invulnerable.
Compound this limp drama with Democrats’ seeming desire to hand over the kitchen sink to Trump in end-of-the-year dealmaking, and impeachment starts to look more like a cover story, a gesture at solidarity toward resistance while collaborating behind the scenes. Maybe enough of the base is happy with the performance to outweigh mere policy concessions, meaning that impeachment did its job. But that doesn’t give me much to comment on. Everyone is playing a role, from members of Congress to their audience to the petulant president.
I guess I resisted playing my part in the matter. Now that impeachment is upon us, we’ll keep an eye on it. I just wish there were more to see.
