Picking a Fight
"Fighting the fights we can win" isn't fighting.
Is there anyone in the House of Representatives — or in the Senate — who does not believe that Donald Trump has committed impeachable offenses? Let us count the ways:
Cashing in his office to sell memecoins
Accepting a luxury airplane from a foreign power
Stonewalling the courts
Claiming authority that does not exist, to do things in plain contravention of the law (for example: deporting American citizens; deporting anyone without due process)
Claiming that due process would take too much time
Insisting that the United States is “under attack”
And the list goes on. This very incomplete list is from only the last week or two; we have approximately 193 weeks remaining in this administration — assuming, that is, that they leave. They haven’t suspended elections — yet. They just haven’t got to that; what we’re seeing is the run up, the groundwork.
So: back to that House of Representatives, where the Democratic leadership this week quashed an effort by Michigan congressman Shri Thanedar to move articles of impeachment for a vote. Why stir up trouble? Why poke the bear, when we can’t possibly win?
Why indeed. Sometimes it’s not about winning: it’s about showing yourselves, your party, and your countrymen that you actually stand for something. In this case, “I stand for the rule of law” isn’t a bad thing to go down fighting for. Instead, Democrats continue to lick their wounds and try to get along — believing, apparently, that compromise will still be possible if, sir, we don’t annoy you too much, sir. (Corey Booker voting to confirm the felon Charles Kushner as the United States’ ambassador to France? Senator, these are serious positions and should be filled with serious people. If the administration can’t find any, so be it. Let THAT be what you stand for.)
Stand for something. It isn’t enough to say, we want health care for all, jobs for all, education for all. These are not principles, they are shiny unobtainable objects. (Unobtainable, because you can’t sustain sufficient majorities to obtain them.) What are the core principles that Democrats stand for? Here are a few suggestions:
The principle that no man — NO MAN — is above the law of the land
When a man is allowed to crown himself king, he places himself above everything and everyone
When courts participate in the destruction of bedrock principles, they destroy their own legitimacy
The principle of accountability: people who break the law, ignore the law, flout the law, twist the law, should be brought to heel before the law
The principle of checks and balances: three coequal branches of government means they are CO-EQUAL and accountable to each other
The Executive can’t simply impound funds or redirect them
The Senate doesn’t simply rubber-stamp unqualified appointments
The principle of due process
Standing for these things — fighting for these things — is hard. It’s not going to win elections. It’s probably not going to be persuasive. That’s not the point. These are things worth fighting for. You can’t choose to fight only when victory is assured. You have to show why the fight — even what appears, for the moment, to be a losing battle — is worth prosecuting.
The last election presented a binary choice: not between two candidates, but between two ideas. Democracy loses when voters can’t discern what really matters and get caught in the noise of horse races and irrelevancies like the price of eggs. Principles matter; rhetoric matters. One candidate stood for improving all lives; one stood for improving only his own. To many people that distinction was clear; to too many others it was not clear enough.
Democracy is on the ropes. Will you throw in the towel, or will you fight back harder than ever?