To Peach or Not to Peach?

by Kate

In 1974 I was a freshman in high school. My friends and I would frequently rush home from school to watch the Watergate hearings on television. It was our first close-up introduction to the institutions of our government and it was fascinating. We were engaged by the drama and the revelations – shredded documents! 17 minutes of blank tape! We especially enjoyed the speeches of Congressional luminaries like Sam Rayburn, Daniel Inoye, and especially Barbara Jordan (D-TX), the first African American woman elected to Congress from a southern state and unbeknownst to us at that time, one of the first lesbians to hold national office. (Nancy Earl, a white school psychologist, was her domestic partner for approximately 30 years.)

Jordan, also a “freshman,” having taken office in 1973, made a national name for herself with a stirring speech demanding the impeachment of Richard Nixon. A civil rights attorney, Jordan stated, “My faith in the Constitution is whole; it is complete; it is total. And I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction, of the Constitution.”

Many years, many wars, much shredded proof of presidential and other governmental crimes later, it is hard to muster that kind of faith in the sanctity of our constitution. Increasingly we are aware of the ways in which it was flawed from the beginning. As cynicism has increasingly become the defining affect of our age, many leftists have looked down with condescending self-righteousness on anyone who suggests that the u.s. constitution has ever done anything but put a gloss on white supremacy and imperialism.

Except that it has.

In its day, the constitution has established the right of Chinese immigrant and African American kids to go to public schools, of criminal defendants to representation, of women (or “pregnant people”) to abortions and of workers to organize. It’s even been used to protect rivers and the various creatures who live near them from toxic waste, under the Commerce Clause in Article I. A highly imperfect tool, the constitution is still one of the best defenses we have against unbridled fascism.

That’s why donald kkk trump, whose goal is unbridled fascism, is determined to relegate the constitution to the dustbin of history, so that korporate korruption and greed can reign unfettered. The defining ethos of the trump era is disdain for any institutions that regulate the power of the rich and white supremacists. His team wastes no energy crafting actual legal theories to defend their illegal actions, because their goal is to prove that they are not subject to any laws. The only law they need to worry about is the one that says if enough of the right people support you, and enough of the wrong people step aside, by choice or by force, you win.

That’s also why impeachment is important, even for – or maybe especially for – those who hold no illusions about the moral purity of the men who wrote the constitution.

Emoluments, collusion and other words we don’t understand

trump was no sooner sworn into office than people on my facebook feed began clamoring for impeachment. It struck me then as a fantasy – the next incarnation of the myth of the Hamilton electors (the theory that electors from states that swung from obama to trump might balk and vote for “the candidate who won the popular vote”). The arguments for impeachment in those earliest days centered on “emoluments,” and there’s a reason that no one knows what that word means. It actually means, a “salary, fee or profit from employment or office,” and the so-called Emoluments Clause refers to “The Title of Nobility Clause,” in Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution: “No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States: and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.”

So basically, Russia can’t make trump a czar unless congress agrees. But that’s okay – ask Van Jones how becoming a czar works out.

Allegations of trump’s violation of the clause have to do with some real estate deals in Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Russia, having foreign dignitaries stay at his empty new hotel in Washington, DC and play golf at Mar-a-Lago, and introducing Ivanka to leaders of foreign countries where she wants to sell stuff.

No one cares. No one voted for trump because they thought he was honest. He stood on the debate stage and bragged that cheating on his taxes and getting away with it makes him smart.

The idea of “collusion” with Russia, a suggestion that trump is some kind of Manchurian candidate of vladimir putin, seemed perhaps more likely to catch on with his supporters. The accusation was that trump had made a deal with putin to lift sanctions on Russian oil and financial interests in exchange for dirt on hillary clinton and the democrats, and maybe even for hacking emails and election equipment. It wasn’t that far-fetched since he had, in July 2016, called on Russia to “find the 30,000 emails that are missing.”

Collusion was going to be nearly impossible to prove, because, as New Yorker columnist Masha Gessen observed, it required proof that trump made a promise and intended to keep it, which “would be highly uncharacteristic for Donald Trump.”

That notwithstanding, I thought it was possible that older, Cold War voters might be concerned about the possibility of a Russian spy in office, but they proved to understand modern history better than the Left does. trump’s base apparently realizes that Russia is no longer Communist and putin is not a working-class hero but a nationalist oligarch much like trump, and gave a big shrug to the “Russiagate” clamor of the liberal media.

The trump base is no doubt clued in partly by putin’s extreme anti-gay and anti-woman agenda, locking up Pussy Riot, outlawing gay pride marches, while that doesn’t give pause to parts of the Left, which has continued to rail against “a new McCarthyism” and “red-baiting.”.

“In one sense, today’s witch-hunt is not the same as that of the 1940s and 1950s, in that there is no Soviet Union or socialist camp as it existed. But in recent years, Russia has recovered from its disastrous decline after the collapse of the Soviet Union,” says an article in Liberation News. “Russia under Putin has taken back control of much its resources and has rebuilt the military….Russia’s alliance with Syria has been a key factor in thwarting regime change by U.S. imperialism and its alliance of reactionary governments, including France, Britain, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan.”

Admittedly, when you seem to be on the same side as the fbi director, that’s cause for pause. But we aren’t, and we don’t have to be. Nixon’s threat to fire attorney general Eliot Richardson (who resigned instead) set the stage for his impeachment; Richardson was no friend to the Left, but that didn’t stop people from thinking he should be impeached.

Left skepticism of Russiagate was further fueled by the focus on Wikileaks and Julian Assange, whose misogyny some leftists dismiss as either manufactured (despite it being out there in film form for all to see – just search for “hornet’s nest of radical feminism”) or irrelevant. A subpoena issued for Assange supporter Randy Credico, a frequent guest of Dennis Bernstein on KPFA’s Flashpoints. But no, Russiagate is not a plot by the Pacifica radio national board to get Dennis off the air.

But now instead of Russia it’s Ukraine trump is making improper deals with, and the Communist left does not like Ukraine since 2004’s Orange Revolution (hmmm, is there a connection between the Orange Revolution and the Orange President?). Foreign Policy called the victory of the opposition in Ukraine, “a major new landmark in the postcommunist history of eastern Europe, a seismic shift Westward in the geopolitics of the region.” So perhaps the Left will be less hostile to the idea of a trump ouster.

What are high crimes and misdemeanors?

Impeachment is a process by which a legislature officially charges a public official with crimes. It exists in many countries. Recently, presidents Park Geun-Hye of South Korea and Dilma Rousseff of Brazil were impeached and removed from office. In the u.s. impeachment begins in the House of Representatives and if a majority votes to impeach, a trial is held in the Senate. Two presidents, nixon and andrew johnson, as well as a number of federal judges have been impeached. Currently, the house has launched an investigation to determine whether there are grounds for impeaching trump.

The constitutional clause specifying the grounds for impeachment is, according to constitutional scholars, “intentionally vague.” “Initially, the Framers considered defining impeachable offenses as just ‘treason or bribery’ (rather than the ultimate definition of ‘treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors’). They tacked on the additional phrase because George Mason worried that ‘treason or bribery’ was insufficient for removing a president who began to display dictatorial tendencies,” writes Slate’s Molly Olmstead.

In fact, Olmstead concludes, even “high crimes and misdemeanors,” may not be necessary. Some suggest, she says, that “offenses against public sensibilities” might be sufficient grounds for impeachment, citing the example of Chief Justice William Scroggs, who was impeached in England in 1688 “for, among other things, browbeating witnesses and public drunkenness.”

On the Scroggs Scale, trump surely scores a 10.

Eleven articles of impeachment were introduced against andrew johnson in 1868. The first nine had to do with firing Edwin Stanton as Secretary of War and installing as his replacement someone named Lorenzo Thomas, without “advice and consent” of the Senate as required. The tenth charged an “attempt to bring into disgrace, ridicule, hatred, contempt and reproach, the Congress of the United States, and the several branches thereof, to impair and destroy the regard and respect of all the good people of the United States for the Congress and the legislative power thereof” and the final one charges that he denied the authority of Congress to make legislation – this referring to his defiance of the Radical Republican-led Congress in implementing Reconstruction and establishing equality for African American citizens.

trump and his administration have made clear their contempt for Congress in overtly refusing to comply with subpoenas, in unprecedented long-term use of interim appointees in critical positions, thus denying the Senate’s authority to “advise and consent” to cabinet appointments, in saying to high school civics classes that the constitution says “I can do whatever I want,” and in taking money explicitly authorized for other purposes to build his border wall. House Oversight Committee chair Elijah Cummings was the subpoena-er-in-chief, signing subpoenas up until the hour of his death, according to committee member Ayanna Presley. Speculation about poisoning has been vigorous on Facebook, summoning the ghost of hillary clinton’s former law partner, Vince Foster.

M Is For MPeach (or M***F***)

When democrats reclaimed the House in 2016, newly elected congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, one of the first two Muslim women elected to Congress and a former member of Democratic Socialists of America, famously told supporters, “We’re going to impeach the m***f***.”

While admiring her fighting spirit, I felt like calling for impeachment was both a waste of time and a political mistake. It seemed like an effort to sidestep the real problem, namely, that tens of millions of u.s. citizens, especially but not entirely white (28% of Latinos, 26% of Asians, 8% of African Americans (13% of African American men)) voted for an openly racist pro-authoritarian with no relevant qualifications for or serious interest in the job.

Impeachment, I thought, would look like an end run around democracy, like a judge setting aside a jury’s verdict. Impeachment seemed likely to boost trump’s popularity, and for no reason since there is no way that 23 republikkkan senators would vote to oust him. Bill Clinton fairly narrowly survived impeachment in 1996 (the Senate vote was 50 for impeachment on obstruction of justice and 45 for perjury – two-thirds or 67 would have been required to convict) and emerged with much stronger approval ratings from the public. Most analysts consider the impeachment a big factor in republikkkans’ loss of the Senate in 2000; House speaker newt gingrich, the first republikkkan to hold that office in 40 years, was forced to resign from congress after revelations of an affair with a young staff member (for anyone who doesn’t remember, clinton’s crime was having an affair with an intern).

I don’t need any lectures about how both parties are the parties of imperialism. In two years, I want to be protesting Bernie or Elizabeth or even Joe.

Some also made the point that it would leave us with president pence, who could be more dangerous because he actually knows how government works, has been a highly destructive governor of Indiana, and is more ideologically driven. On the other side of that argument is that pence has none of trump’s charisma and marketing genius. The thrall that both media and members of the public are in to trump might be broken if he were removed from office, although of course he would continue his daily twitter storm and likely join the Fox News hate machine.

In recent months, public opinion has started to swing, as trump’s behavior gets more erratic, his punitive detention policies for immigrants are exposed (even as I write, there have been a rash of suicides in detention centers and rumors are circulating of a planned mass suicide at the private prison in Otero, New Mexico), and at least hundreds are being killed in Syria while he rambles about letting the “kids in the lot” fight it out. According to the latest Pew poll, 57% of the public now favor impeachment, although a smaller percentage (but still a majority) want him removed from office.

I think it’s a credible theory that he wants to be impeached, because he obviously does not like the job, and that’s why he’s doing things he knows will piss off his staunchest supporters among republikkkans. There’s also a fair amount of evidence that he’s just bananas and says whatever the hell pops into his mind at any moment. Regardless, he hates being president but he loves campaigning. The deeper we get into campaign season, the better his mood will be, the more he will start to connect with voters and the more popular he’ll be. Most people in the u.s. have short attention spans and even shorter memories and will forget how he’s screwed them over and only remember how good his snark makes them feel. Impeachment is a narrative he doesn’t control and may throw him off balance and keep him from hitting a stride.

Presidents can’t do much good by themselves, but they can do plenty of harm, and this one has done more harm faster than most. The more criminal conduct this administration gets away with, the more overtly they flout both laws and any pretense of being one country for all its people.

IMPEACH THE M*****F!