“The Impeachment Process Is Barely Functioning” (nytimes) is by Elizabeth Drew, “a journalist based in Washington who covered Watergate” (i.e., she is not in what the French would call “her first youth”).
When the process of impeachment drove President Richard Nixon from office in 1974, there was widespread celebration that “the system worked.” But the 1974 impeachment process may turn out to have been unique, a model for how it should work that has yet to be replicated — and perhaps never will be.
Today, there’s a president who feels free to completely stonewall an impeachment inquiry. Even Nixon did not deem the entire process illegitimate. Yes, he tried to hold back damning recordings of Oval Office conversations, but when he was overruled by the Supreme Court he turned the tapes over to Congress. He also held back some documents from the House Judiciary Committee — an act that formed the basis of an article of impeachment against him. But he allowed his aides to appear before the Senate Watergate Committee, helping to seal his own doom.
In other words, even impeachments were better in the good old days!
(Alternative formulation of the article: A member of the coastal elite does not understand why a non-member would vote differently than she votes.)
Separately, what about the members of the Senate who are themselves running for President in 2020? Do they vote to remove Trump from office because they think the Republicans, in a country of 330 million, can’t find anyone more appealing to the non-elites whose voting rights they forgot to take away? Or do they vote to keep the hated authoritarian in office, for fear that Nikki Haley shows up to ruin their fun from 2021 through 2029?
(Democrats says that Republicans are misogynist, which is why they wouldn’t vote for the obviously superior Hillary Clinton, but have they ever found a Republican who says “I think I prefer Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders to Nikki Haley”?)
It’s not that the system worked better or worse in the “good old days” – it’s that Trump is completely unprecedented in the history of modern Presidents for all the reasons his supporters love him and his detractors hate him. There’s more to it than that:
I’ll be completely candid. My experience in the past couple of months trying to understand and get a good diagnosis of a cognitive problem I’ve been having has led me to think, looking back over the past several years of Trump’s tweets and other actions, his public statements, his Q&A, and especially some of the other videos I’ve seen of him when he was younger, that something is wrong with him neurologically. He’s not aging well, and it’s not just the stress or his personality. I really believe he’s suffering from a cognitive impairment that is also making him much more defensive and prone to outbursts, and I think it will get worse. I realize that identifying my problem with his shenanigans is risky, but let’s put it this way: I voted for the guy, I tried to defend him for a long time, but he’s not completely compos-mentis, and I think it’s going to get worse. Reagan had Alzheimer’s but luckily it really didn’t manifest itself until well into his second term.
Neurological deficits can start subtle and worsen to the point they become debilitating. Trump is nothing like Nixon, who after he left office continued for decades to work with a sharp mind. The longer I watch Trump, the more I see him sliding. I honestly don’t think he’ll last in office as an effective President for four more years, completely independent of impeachment or any of the other challenges he faces, and I don’t think it’s just his personality or his strategy. He can’t conduct his office with dignity and the intellectual deftness and flexibility he needs.
I had my MRI today and I’m looking forward to seeing the results. It was an interesting experience and I’m hopeful that it will point something valuable out to my doctors. Based on that experience, I’m beginning to think that given the demands of the office, *every* candidate for President who makes it past the opening stages should be required to have a full neuropsychological workup done at least a year before the election. IQ test, MRI, neuropsych. testing, everything – and the results should be made public. If screening comes back showing any significant deficits, they should be disqualified from holding the office.
I’m not a member of the coastal elite, and I would definitely consider voting for Nikki Haley if she decided to run. And yeah, we could definitely find someone in a country of 330 million other than the Senators currently thinking about it who imagine they’re the answer to the problem. I nominate you.
One more thing: I just refreshed my memory reading the Wikipedia entry for Richard Nixon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Nixon
He was a far more capable man than Trump is, in my estimation. Here’s what Elizabeth Drew said about him in 1986:
“In 1986, Nixon addressed a convention of newspaper publishers, impressing his audience with his tour d’horizon of the world.[264] At the time, political pundit Elizabeth Drew wrote, “Even when he was wrong, Nixon still showed that he knew a great deal and had a capacious memory, as well as the capacity to speak with apparent authority, enough to impress people who had little regard for him in earlier times.”
I don’t think Trump is ever going to match that, whether he leaves office via impeachment or the ballot box, or because they have to carry him out. It’s not impeachment that was better in the “good old days” – it’s that were talking about a very different echelon of man.
Very stable genius, 30/30.
Tedious fool. Nixon knew how to vote count and he didn’t have the votes. That was the difference. Trump is at the ass-end of a four year clown parade to impeach him that started on day one of his presidency.
Alex that cognitive problem you are having is called stupidity!
Gentlemen: C’mon, how does it help to throw rocks or call names at other commenters?
(Personally, I haven’t seen evidence that Trump is unprecedented or demented/deranged. But I’m not ready to call anyone “stupid” who disagrees with me!)
Alex: If you can psychoanalyze/diagnose Donald Trump from afar, there is always a job for you at the New York Times! It is gracious of you to nominate me for President. I actually would love to be a major party’s nominee for a few days, only to see which entries from this blog the NYT considered to be the most outrageous/damning.
@Philg: I can’t diagnose him from afar, so naturally, I’m speculating. But the consequences of Trump’s personality and whatever other problems he has will continue to manifest themselves irrespective of whether he’s impeached or anything else that happens. I don’t expect him to wake up tomorrow and take my advice, either. As for rock throwing, I’m a Christian so I’ll turn the other cheek. And I don’t blame them for being coarse, right now it’s a natural response.
I think if the Democrats are unsuccessful in their impeachment charade (that much I agree on) it will go to the voters, and if he is reelected they will to impeach him again, next time with control of both houses of Congress. America is becoming ungovernable, and far from putting “our national nightmare behind us” I think it’s rather just beginning. As far as my estimation of the President possessing any great strategic acumen, being “four moves ahead” for example, that’s ridiculous. I don’t think there’s any there at all, aside from creating continuous chaos and dividing America against itself, and he’s had a lot of help.
The people I wish I could talk to candidly about Trump are: John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, Jim Mattis, Henry Kissinger, and the entire department of Neurology and Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital. People get taken in by what they want to believe all the time. Jim Mattis believed in Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos. I’d like to hear what he thinks about believing fraudsters.
@Philg: And I wouldn’t work for the New York Times if it was the last job available on Earth. I wasn’t being gracious nominating you for President, either. It would be one hell of a rough ride given your tremendous output of publicly-available opinion over the years, much of it partisan. But at least I’d have the confidence we nominated someone who understands evidence, risk, probability, and has the ability to evaluate decisions based on indisputable facts while keeping an open mind and posing difficult questions, not losing their cool and devolving into drivel, etc. You’re also fair-minded and an educator who has taught some of the brightest people in the world, but also who just walk in off the street. How do you evaluate the aptitude of people you teach flying helicopters? Has there ever been anyone you’ve had to tell: “You’ve done your best but I don’t think this is going to work out for you?” Or do the people who want to fly helicopters self-select out the likely failures before they even get to you?
The current clown show is similar to Watergate, but with morons running things. Pelosi has confessed they’ve been planning impeachment for over two years. Long before anything they’re charging him with ever occurred. The irony being, they all hate Trump because he’s casting light on how corrupt the entire system has become. It was supposed to be crooked Hillary and everyone would get fat at the trough. Now this guy comes along and turns back the spigot. Never mind the strong economy, low unemployment and record stock market, he’s got to go. Meanwhile it’s a crapshoot as to whether Barr and Durham will ever bring the true criminals to justice.
P.S. to Alex. Trump’s been four moves ahead the entire time. If he’s having cognitive issues, what does that say for the democrats?
@Diffie Hellman (nice nick, BTW):
Please don’t make me tell you what I think of the Democrats. Trump may be crazy, but at least he’s trying to do the right thing for this country.
Diffie Hellman –
Such a great elliptic curveball! 😉
“Trump may be crazy, but at least he’s trying to do the right thing for this country.” – you might want to stop and think that through, Alex.
I did, and the statement is a perfect encapsulation of what I think about the times we live in. It doesn’t make sense.
I have a serious question for everyone: why does Trump keep Kellyanne Conway employed when her husband is helping to organize and promote a PAC dedicated to getting him out of the White House? If that isn’t emblematic of the insanity of the times we’re living in, I don’t know what is. Why on Earth would he keep her as an advisor in any capacity? Has anything like this ever happened before in the history of the Presidency, where one (presumably trusted) advisor inside the White House is married to someone dedicated to destroying the Administration?
There are lots of things about Trump’s presidency that are tough to fathom, but this is one of the weirdest. I mean, he calls Trump “a cancer on the Presidency and on the Constitution” and his wife is an integral part of the cancer? Can someone explain to me how it makes sense for Trump to keep her around?
Alex again you are very stupid! I can diagnose this from afar and I have no interest in working for the NY Times! To answer your question… of course it has happened before. All one has to do is look at James Carville and Mary Matalin. “Why does Trump keep Kellyanne Conway employed when her husband is helping to organize and promote a PAC dedicated to getting him out of the White House?”…. Maybe she provides great advice or maybe he is sleeping with her or maybe he values her but not her husband. And if our host, Phil, thinks by diagnosing you as “Stupid” from afar I can only respond in one way. I am not a gentleman nor do I identify as male.
@Toucan Sam: Do you have any criticism of Trump or Conway for signing this year’s enormous deficit spending bill? The one he promised he would never sign anything like again? Shouldn’t the President and his advisor at least give lip service to the idea that these kinds of enormous deficit spending bills are exactly what Trump claimed he wouldn’t do as President? Is this good advice? Or is he sleeping with her?
https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/474667-the-federal-governments-nonstop-spending-binge-continues
“Last time there was a budget busting spending bill, the president promised he would “never sign another bill like this again…”
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/17/trump-plans-to-sign-spending-bill-to-avoid-government-shutdown.html
“The president is “poised to sign” the legislation, Kellyanne Conway told reporters. Trump is “very happy” about what he has heard about the plans, she said…Trump’s opposition could have jeopardized the spending package’s passage in the Republican-held Senate..”
@Toucan Sam: I mean, just to the layman, he campaigned on “draining the swamp” and eliminating budget deficits. Now he’s feeding the swamp with deficit spending. Does that count as “thinking four moves ahead?” Or is it because he still believes he’s going to get 5 or 6% growth next year and somehow manage to eliminate the deficit by the end of his eight years in office?