President Trump says and does so many things which are parts of much bigger issues, that it’s nearly impossible to keep up.
- He has us discussing whether he’s going to fire one guy or the other, who does or doesn’t deserve to go;
- Whether Trump will make war or peace and what country deserves our friendship or enmity;
- Whether we will honor or dishonor treaties that he claims other countries violate, though no one else shares that view;
- Whether he has a policy about infrastructure based on his saying things should be built or does not have a policy based on the empty line in his budget;
- Whether he has conspired with an enemy of the United States, and whether the Special Counsel’s investigation should be shut down because he tells us that he did nothing that should be investigated, and whether it matters that he didn’t give Hillary that privilege.
It makes the head spin.
We’re heading in just a few years to an economy in which most of us won’t have steady jobs, pensions or unions to support us. Instead it’s everyone for himself all the time in the gig economy. Republicans insist that government and regulation are almost always bad. Who’s left to have our interests at heart? Reminds me of pastor Martin Niemöller on being sent to the concentration camps by the Nazis, “Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.” Is Trump for or against the workers when he says nothing about union rights and supports no change in working conditions other than tariffs for a couple of industries. And is Trump for or against a livable environment when he takes every possible action to degrade the earth, air and water?
We have been at war since 2003 but what do we have to show for it but body bags and amputees. Will Trump send more troops to die in the Middle East, or is he just bluffing to make people back down? But attempted bluffing will be ignored by people across the globe who have all lost confidence in what he tells us because we need only wait a short while for him to say the opposite.
Trump wants the Special Prosecutor, Robert Mueller, to stop investigating whether Trump or his campaign collaborated with the Russians in order to win the White House, or wants to fire Mueller and hire someone else who will close the investigation? Does it matter whether criminal defense lawyers may want their accused clients to have a right to choose their prosecutors and put a time limit on investigations, especially for such difficult prosecutions as those of organized crime, corporate finagling and international financial transactions. Can they cite the president for that right?
It’s enough to make one’s head spin. But there’s a way to simplify it. Forget all the separate issues until we have a president that actually cares about them and focus on impeachment. Every one of those issues bears on impeachment, either because they relate to obstruction of justice, selling America out, self-dealing in foreign affairs or rewarding his favorite autocrats and wealthy friends at the expense of the people he swore to protect. His high crimes and misdemeanors easily exceed what Clinton was impeached over, threaten more damage to the republic than the misbehavior for which Andrew Johnson was impeached, and for which Richard Nixon resigned before the House could vote on articles of impeachment. Bring all these issues back to the fundamental question of impeachment. Dirty Donald, lock him up.
Steve Gottlieb is Jay and Ruth Caplan Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Albany Law School. A widely recognized constitutional scholar, he has served on the New York Civil Liberties Union board, the New York Advisory Committee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission and was a US Peace Corps Volunteer in Iran. His latest book is Unfit for Democracy: The Roberts Court and The Breakdown of American Politics.
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