-by Chip ProserThe 3 Senate Democrats-- Doug Jones (AL), Joe Manchin (WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (AZ)-- who seemed up-in-the-air about the impeachment vote, all voted "guilty," as did Republican Mitt Romney (UT). Why didn't more Republicans do what they knew was right? Just going by what they've said publicly-- certainly Susan Collins (ME), Lamar Alexander (TN), Ben Sasse (NE), Rob Portman (OH) and Lisa (AK)-- we know they knew full well what Trump is. I assume way more than 20 of the Republicans know. Was it just cowardice?Pramila Jayapal isn't a senator yet, but she's the well-respected congresswoman from Seattle, the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and a member of the House Judiciary Committee. "Instead of showing courage," she told her constituents yesterday, "all but one Republican senator today exemplified cowardice. In putting party and politics over country and Constitution, Republicans drove a stake in the heart of our democracy. The case for convicting and removing President Trump was overwhelming and irrefutable: President Trump endangered the sanctity of our elections by inviting foreign interference in our most sacred democratic institution. He betrayed our national security, violated the sacred trust of the American people, and threatened the very future of our democracy. At every turn, the President and his Administration obstructed the House-- refusing to turn over even a single document or provide even a single witness. In spite of this unprecedented obstruction, the House did its job and Donald Trump will forever be an impeached president. Since the House impeached President Trump, more and more damning information about the President’s abuse of power has come to light. Instead of pursuing the full truth, Senate Republicans eagerly enlisted themselves to be President Trump’s co-conspirators-- covering up the President’s misconduct without even caring to find out the extent of his misconduct. It is a disgrace that Mitch McConnell refused to give the American people what they deserve and what the Constitution demands: a fair trial with witnesses and impartial justice. President Trump will be held accountable one way or another-- whether through the courts or the ballot box-- and the American people and history will not forget the Republicans’ cowardice."Sherrod Brown of Ohio, on the other hand, is a senator. He penned an OpEd for the NY Times yesterday, In Private, Republicans Admit They Acquitted Trump Out Of Fear. He said that in the Senate "fear does the business." He asked his readers to "Think back to the fall of 2002, just a few weeks before that year’s crucial midterm elections, when the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq was up for a vote. A year after the 9/11 attacks, hundreds of members of the House and the Senate were about to face the voters of a country still traumatized by terrorism. Senator Patty Murray, a thoughtful Democrat from Washington State, still remembers 'the fear that dominated the Senate leading up to the Iraq war. You could feel it then,' she told me, 'and you can feel that fear now'-- chiefly among Senate Republicans."
For those of us who, from the start, questioned the wisdom of the Iraq war, our sense of isolation surely wasn’t much different from the loneliness felt in the 1950s by Senator Herbert Lehman of New York, who confronted Joe McCarthy’s demagogy only to be abandoned by so many of his colleagues. Nor was it so different from what Senator George McGovern must have felt when he announced his early opposition to the Vietnam War and was then labeled a traitor by many inside and outside of Congress.History has indeed taught us that when it comes to the instincts that drive us, fear has no rival. As the lead House impeachment manager, Representative Adam Schiff, has noted, Robert Kennedy spoke of how “moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle.”Playing on that fear, the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, sought a quick impeachment trial for President Trump with as little attention to it as possible. Reporters, who usually roam the Capitol freely, have been cordoned off like cattle in select areas. Mr. McConnell ordered limited camera views in the Senate chamber so only presenters-- not absent senators-- could be spotted.And barely a peep from Republican lawmakers. One journalist remarked to me, “How in the world can these senators walk around here upright when they have no backbone?”Fear has a way of bending us.Late in the evening on day four of the trial I saw it, just 10 feet across the aisle from my seat at Desk 88, when Mr. Schiff told the Senate: “CBS News reported last night that a Trump confidant said that Republican senators were warned, ‘Vote against the president and your head will be on a pike.’” The response from Republicans was immediate and furious. Several groaned and protested and muttered, “Not true.” But pike or no pike, Mr. Schiff had clearly struck a nerve. (In the words of Lizzo: truth hurts.)Of course, the Republican senators who have covered for Mr. Trump love what he delivers for them. But Vice President Mike Pence would give them the same judges, the same tax cuts, the same attacks on workers’ rights and the environment. So that’s not really the reason for their united chorus of “not guilty.”For the stay-in-office-at-all-cost representatives and senators, fear is the motivator. They are afraid that Mr. Trump might give them a nickname like “Low Energy Jeb” and “Lyin’ Ted,” or that he might tweet about their disloyalty. Or — worst of all-- that he might come to their state to campaign against them in the Republican primary. They worry:“Will the hosts on Fox attack me?”“Will the mouthpieces on talk radio go after me?”“Will the Twitter trolls turn their followers against me?”My colleagues know they all just might. There’s an old Russian proverb: The tallest blade of grass is the first cut by the scythe. In private, many of my colleagues agree that the president is reckless and unfit. They admit his lies. And they acknowledge what he did was wrong. They know this president has done things Richard Nixon never did. And they know that more damning evidence is likely to come out.So watching the mental contortions they perform to justify their votes is painful to behold: They claim that calling witnesses would have meant a never-ending trial. They tell us they’ve made up their minds, so why would we need new evidence? They say to convict this president now would lead to the impeachment of every future president-- as if every president will try to sell our national security to the highest bidder.I have asked some of them, “If the Senate votes to acquit, what will you do to keep this president from getting worse?” Their responses have been shrugs and sheepish looks.They stop short of explicitly saying that they are afraid. We all want to think that we always stand up for right and fight against wrong. But history does not look kindly on politicians who cannot fathom a fate worse than losing an upcoming election. They might claim fealty to their cause-- those tax cuts-- but often it’s a simple attachment to power that keeps them captured.As Senator Murray said on the Senate floor in 2002, “We can act out of fear” or “we can stick to our principles.” Unfortunately, in this Senate, fear has had its way. In November, the American people will have theirs.
I've been talking with former Columbus mayor Teresa Tomlinson for about a year and a few weeks ago we sat down for a relaxing dinner. She's running for a Georgia U.S. Senate seat that's currently held by a total 100% Trump enabler, David Perdue. Her campaign motto is all about gumption but as we were getting to know each other she wrote a guest post for this blog, Crippling Political Fear. Back in July, she wrote that "It’s fear that cripples the Democratic Party. Fear of our policies, fear of who we are, and fear of the Republicans. Yes, fear is what has politically cost us in the last many election cycles. One cannot lead if one is afraid. The thing about leadership is that people want their leaders to be brave. They care less about what you think on the issues than whether you have the moxie to fight for them and the strength of conviction to tell them what you really think."She was admiring The Squad because they are "fearless about their beliefs. They refuse to be bullied, and that is dangerous to the Republican playbook of shaming scared Democrats into milk toast, mealy-mouthed, baby-splitting positions that are equivocal and stand for nothing. American voters revile those who won’t tell the people what they think. Even if you don’t support the policies-- or certainly some of the statements-- of The Squad, you can’t deny that you appreciate that they unabashedly tell the world what they think."
A classic example of this crippling Democratic political plague of fear is 2014 Democratic Senate candidate Alison Grimes, who refused to say whether she voted for the leader of her party, the two-term first black president, Barack Obama. And, the legion of Democratic candidates that year who refused to say they supported the Affordable Care Act (ACA), because the polling showed it was unpopular. Did we think any voter believed that a Democrat running for federal office didn’t fundamentally support the notion of providing healthcare coverage for millions of previously uninsured constituents? Our citizens could have used a little leadership from Democratic candidates during that cycle. Our president would have benefitted from the leadership of those Democratic candidates because fear begets disrespect and that disrespect spilled throughout the party and weakened Obama as its leader. Maybe if we had all spoken out and pushed back against the Republican political propaganda machine, we would not have allowed the bell-curve to slide so far right.The nation has had its share of politically lukewarm Democratic candidates-- structured by the national party for perceived winnability not leadership. Even if they had a tagline of-- “Fighting for you”-- no one believed it. How could they if they didn’t fight for the ACA or weren’t willing to admit America has a gun violence problem?...When Democratic leaders believe that beginning impeachment proceedings is about polls or election results, they, too, are giving in to fear: they are afraid that following the Constitutional checks and balances and leading will cost them their job, so they mitigate and delay. Unfortunately, their job is to lead by upholding the Constitution, not to get re-elected.Impeachment is not about undoing the last election or impacting the next. It certainly is not about the polls as the Founding Framers made perfectly clear in Federalist Paper, No. 66. It is about stopping a president who would abuse and misuse the power of the presidency so that not another day passes-- not another circumstance presents itself-- where a president, unfit for duty because of the commission of High Crimes or Misdemeanors (defined as misdeeds) can inflict his/her poor judgment on the office, the country, or the people. Oh, if only impeachment proceedings had been instituted sooner, the damage that might have been averted.Instead, Democrats are afraid of what the Republicans will say about it-- what the bullies will do to us on the way home. So, we cut through the alley to avoid the fight and controversy. We detour our duty of leadership and good government. Commencing impeachment proceedings is about employing the constitutional duty that our elected leaders were sworn to do-- not about mitigating to the finish line and hoping no one notices that we wouldn’t use the tools entrusted to us to keep the American system on the rails. All Democrats, and many Independents and Republicans, understand that Donald Trump has committed High Crimes or Misdemeanors, so if this conduct doesn’t warrant the commencement of impeachment proceedings, then what would? We must seriously consider the example of tolerance for harmful conduct at the highest levels of our government we are creating.The key to winning is that you don’t aim to win, you aim to lead. If you lead, the winning takes care of itself-- or at least you move the needle so profoundly you set up the next winner, as did Stacey Abrams in Georgia with her heroic non-loss in Georgia. She was who she was and voters responded to that.That’s not fear, that’s winning.
Retired Admiral Mike Franken, one of the candidates running for the U.S. Senate seat occupied by Trump enabler Joni Ernst (R-IA) told us today that "In my previous line of work, if you make a mistake in judgment, the shortcoming is documented. I'm joining my friend Senator Joe Manchin in calling for a vote on censuring Donald Trump for conduct unbefitting the office of the President of the United States. Let's see if Joni Ernst remembers telling Jake Tapper about the president's mistake in using his office's influence to investigate Joe Biden in Ukraine and whether she remembers her military training to document and censure poor or misguided performance. This is an opportunity to separate those who understand the importance of leadership in crisis from those who fall for political expediency."OK, so now let's close out the night and, in some respects, the week, with some commentary from the inimitable Samantha Bee. She was really rockin' this week:
