Trump on trial: Democrats are losing the argument with the American people
I am not, I suspect, the only one to be underwhelmed by the impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump in the US Senate.
It’s not that I don’t think the President is guilty of abuse of power and covering it up. I do. It’s obvious. Trump is a disgrace to his office, and semi-literate into the bargain, which is not a good look for the Leader of the Free World. Moreover, the central charge, that he withheld vital military aid from Ukraine while pressuring the country’s leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, in order to dig dirt on the son of one of his principal political rivals, is plainly unlawful.
In any sensibly organised democracy, Trump would have fallen by the wayside long before being adopted as the Republican Party’s nominee for the presidency. He is self-absorbed to the point of narcissism. A notoriously free-wheeling property developer and failed casino operator, he has declared himself bankrupt four times, leaving a trail of unpaid workers and creditors in his wake.
Trump continues to insist that he will build a wall on the southern border with Mexico (for which Mexico will pay) and he supports the separation of the children of illegal immigrants and their incarceration in cages. He thinks that there are “very fine” people in the ranks of the Ku Klux Klan.
In foreign policy, the President abandoned the Kurds in Syria. He risked war with Iran by ordering the assassination of Iran’s top general, Qasem Soleimani, without consulting either Congress or his allies and against the advice of the Pentagon. He calls his generals dopes. He says he wouldn’t go to war with them – a sentiment that is warmly reciprocated. He hires and fires on a whim, getting rid of aides the moment they question any of his opinions.
On top of this, Trump tweets non-stop, displaying little grasp of spelling or grammar. In the Oval Office, there is regularly nothing on his desk other than a telephone. He only eats burgers and fries. He cheats at golf.
He also denies climate change. Just yesterday he signed an order freeing farmers and businesses from the statutory obligation not to poison lakes and rivers. On the key issue of health cover, he says he will bring down Obamacare, but has come up with nothing to replace it. This week he admitted that Medicare – free health provision for the elderly – might have to go if the Administration’s books are to be balanced.
And yet and yet …
The American economy is thriving. Unemployment has fallen to record lows, and wages are on the rise. The rich are richer, the poor are less poor. African American workers have never had it so good.
These things matter. The “folks” on the Alabama omnibus, and millions more in the South and Mid-West, know that their leader is deeply flawed – possibly even criminal – and they don’t care. It is liberals on the East and West coasts who care, and they are not, thus far, in the majority – though that could change come November.
Which brings us back to the impeachment process. It was revealed on Thursday that around 11 million viewers had watched the televised first day of the trial, in which House Democrats, led by Congressman Adam Schiff, head of the select committee on intelligence, laid out their case against the President.
Eleven million sounds a lot. But there are reckoned to be 330 million Americans, which means that 319 million of them had better things to do than look on as the Democrats’ “impeachment managers” droned on like automatons, listing off evidence, most of it convincing, none of it surprising.
The Democrats have proved that Trump looks like a duck, walks like a duck and sounds like a duck. The problem is that Republicans, who make up 53 of the 100 jurors in the case, have nothing against ducks, and nor do millions of ordinary Americans. No wonder Senators on both sides of the aisle have been nodding off, taking time out for extended “bathroom breaks” or just reading the latest bestsellers by James Patterson or John Graham.
If there is any fascination to be found in what is going on in the chamber beneath the sombre gaze of Chief Justice John Roberts, it is likely to be found in the Democrats’ demand that witnesses be called, and in the task now facing the Republicans’ lawyers of rebutting everything over the coming three days allotted to the President’s defence. It is one thing to press charges backed by thousands of pages of evidence. Simply repeating, “No,” “Nonsense,” “A foul calumny” and “Blatantly untrue,” has to be wearing, even at the rates charged by top US attorneys.
I could be wrong. Maybe fifteen or so Republican senators, conscious of their oath of impartiality and out of respect for what John Roberts reminded them this week was “the world’s greatest deliberative body,” will vote to admit witnesses, including former National Security Adviser John Bolton, to give live testimony before rendering their verdict. And perhaps those same fifteen will conclude in the end that Donald John Trump is indeed unfit for the office he holds.
What a turn-up that would be. Just don’t bet the farm on it.