Regular readers of this blog will recognize the name “Esther
Terry.” In 1992, Esther invited me to
join the W. E. B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies at the University
of Massachusetts, and was Chair of the department during the entirety of my wonderful
sixteen years there. Esther grew up in
rural North Carolina in the town of Wise, near the Virginia border, and after
an undergraduate degree at Bennett College in Greensboro [where she
participated in the famous Woolworth Lunch Counter sit-in] and an M. A. at UNC
Chapel Hill, she came north to Amherst, did a doctorate in English, and went on
to be a founding member of the Afro-Am Department. Despite this sophisticated educational
career, Esther retains some of the linguistic tropes of her youth. Faced with a departmental mess, she would
say, “Well, we shall just have to make chicken salad out of this chicken shit.” In this post, I propose to make chicken salad
out of the pile of chicken shit we have just been handed by Robert Mueller and
William Barr.
We are all going to have to survive the choruses of
self-congratulation from Trump and his supporters. If I were a religious man, I would say that a
little humility is good for the soul, but since I am a non-believer, I will
just call it what it is: chicken shit.
However, I do honestly see the makings of a quite edible
chicken salad here. Let me explain. If the report had been as devastating to
Trump as we all hoped and expected, Congress would have had no choice but to
move toward impeachment. It is still
possible that the full report, when it is released, as it inevitably must be,
will make a chargeable case for obstruction of justice. But it will not matter. The headline is “NO COLLUSION” and that is
all that anyone will read or hear.
Impeachment would have been a political disaster, I have
always believed. It would pass in the
House, fail in the Senate, and leave Trump, at some point next fall,
triumphant. What is infinitely more
important, it would leave his supporters maximally enraged and energized, and bring
every last one of them to the polls in 2020.
By an odd quirk of American political life, Trump’s victory now will
calm his followers and lower their voting percentages. Contrariwise, his triumph and the current humiliation
of all the rest of us will keep alive the extraordinary energy now manifesting
itself on the left. Deprived of the
quick fix of impeachment, we will be driven by our anger to vote in
record numbers.
Trump will not be able to run on today’s victory because it
has happened too soon. There are nineteen
months until the election, and “No Collusion” will be old news by June.
Now, would anyone care for a nice cold glass of Riesling
with your scoop of chicken salad?
My view all along is nicely summarized on Facebook by not me, but Corey Robin: "I find myself in a peculiar position with regard to the Mueller report (assuming we have a good enough sense at this point of what's in it).
ReplyDeleteOn the one hand, I was always part of the Russiagate skeptic circle. I didn't doubt that Russia had attempted to influence the election, but I didn't think that attempt had much if any consequence; those who did, I thought, were grasping at straws. Nor did I think there was a strong case for the claim that Trump actively colluded with that effort and had thus put himself and the United States in hock to Putin. The evidence of all the active anti-Russian measures on the part of the US since Trump was elected was simply too great to lend any of those arguments credence. I also never believed, whatever the outcome of the report, that it would be the downfall of Trump or lead to his impeachment. I always took Nancy Pelosi at her word when she said, long before the midterms, that there would be no impeachment.
And like the other Russiagate skeptics, I found the constant breathless commentary, where each revelation was going to lead to the final downfall, grating in the extreme. And since I thought the attacks on the skeptics was vastly unfair, I can certainly understand why they're now crowing; had I been as out in front as they, I would be crowing, too.
But the bottom line is that I don't feel disappointed or surprised by the outcome of the report—again, assuming (big assumption) we have a decent enough sense at this point of what is in the report—because I had fairly low expectations of it going in. If anything I feel relief that it's over.
I always insisted that the investigation should proceed (and thought the fear that it was going to be shut down prematurely to be vastly overblown) and that it was good that it was happening because there was clearly enough evidence of impropriety and illegality for it to go forward. I thought it was good to get to the bottom of things, and the evidence of corruption that it has turned up seems like, maybe, a useful roadmap going forward for thinking about political power and oligarchy. But I always thought the vision of Trump humiliated by Mueller and then impeachment were, like the idea of Putin's puppet or a stolen election, completely fanciful.
On the other hand, unlike many in the Russiagate skeptic circle, I don't think the Mueller report really changes much of anything in terms of the political situation we're in. I don't think Trump is going to get some big boost from this, as a lot of lefties seem to think. The fact is, the Democrats, on the ground, have been—very wisely, I might add—focusing on the economy, voting rights, racism and anti-immigrant nativism. They have not been pushing Russia as an electoral question. This has always been a media and social media obsession; for once in their lives, most Democrats, on the ground, have made the rational political calculation.
So where does that leave us? Pretty much where we've always been. If you hoped Mueller and Russia would be the downfall of Trump and are now crestfallen, I'd say you really have no reason to feel upset. What will bring Trump down will be what was always going to bring down Trump: his failure to deliver enough to the party's voters, the growing incoherence and unsettlement on the right about what its basic project is all about, and the rising organization of the left.
So it's back to our regularly scheduled programming. Hopefully, with less distraction and fewer fantasies of happy endings."
Also Masha Gessen in The New Yorker: "Mueller, according to Attorney General William P. Barr, has now concluded that the President did not collude with Russia. The dream of the sudden, magic resolution to the Trump tragedy has not materialized. The report has not made the case that he is an illegitimate President. The political opposition and the media, acting as representatives of the public, should have been building the case that he is an unfit President in a way that did not rely so heavily on the outcome of the Mueller investigation, which has always been pitched as the single answer to all our prayers."
ReplyDelete"If the report had been as devastating to Trump as we all hoped and expected, Congress would have had no choice but to move toward impeachment. It is still possible that the full report, when it is released, as it inevitably must be, will make a chargeable case for obstruction of justice. But it will not matter. The headline is “NO COLLUSION” and that is all that anyone will read or hear.
ReplyDeleteImpeachment would have been a political disaster, I have always believed."
Why did you hope for a report that would lead down a path you always believed would be a political disaster?
(I ask as someone firmly on Jerry and Chris's side on all this--at least on the main point, namely that Russia-gate has been an unhinged sideshow by the liberal establishment from beginning to end. I have no views on Jerry's speculations as to what Mueller might've been up to.)
Reason is and ought only to be the slave of the passions?
ReplyDeleteReason has been the slave of the passions?
Reason?
Does anyone else find it more than a little strange that there is so much pontification on the implications of a report no one has yet read? And while I understand Dr. Wolff's observation that an impeachment would likely be a political disaster, the Trump administration is not just a political disaster, but an economic, environmental, reproductive health, foreign policy, etc. disaster of unprecedented proportions. I must admit that I have never felt comfortable judging the relative magnitudes of possible disasters versus an existing one.
ReplyDeleteTo put the current crisis in perspective, Comey was fired because he would not agree to politicize the FBI and end an investigation at the president's request. Jeff Sessions did not bow to Trumps' authoritarian impulses, on this matter at least. After Sessions was fired, and by all measures he otherwise aggressively pursued Tump's policy preferences, we got Wm. Barr. Barr had stated his support for the "Theory of the Unitary Executive" (concocted ex nihilo in the fetid environment of the Federalist Society) nearly a year ago (6/8/18) in a letter to the Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein.
Barr expressed his view then that Trump, or any president, can not be indicted for obstruction and he put that view into effect last weekend announcing there are no grounds for an obstruction charge. This theory now is primed to fundamentally alter the Constitutional balance between the branches of government. Why? We have an Attorney General who believes that neither the congress, nor the courts, nor an "inferior officer" like Mueller can review the action of a president even if the presidential action obstructs justice because, wait for it, the president, by definition, can not obstruct justice. When acting as president and exercising presidential powers granted by the constitution, the courts and congress have no recourse. This theory is likely to be litigated as Trump challenges congressional subpoenas. At least two members of the the Court - Gorsuch and Kavanaugh - appear to support the theory. Trump finally got the A.G. he needed and wanted.
As for democracy "dying in the darkness," it may die in the Supreme Court in the glaring sunlight of the day. The Post will be there to cover it, but I am sure they will miss the point.
Christopher, to answer your question, I agree with you. We do not know what the report contains. Much of the media commentary on the matter strikes me as reckless.
ReplyDeleteChristopher,
ReplyDeleteAs others have pointed out, what is most baffling about Barr’s exoneration of T***p is that he ought to have deferred to Congress, seeing as how under his own theory of executive power only Congress can sanction the president in this regard (by removing him from office or censuring him).
I have to say I’m surprised by the reaction of the liberal media to these development. I fully expected them to roll up their tents and go home, yet what we’ve seen instead is a great deal of push-back. That seems to me to be a good thing.
Also, it’s not even clear that Mueller invited Barr’s judgement on the matter.
ReplyDeletePeople! Please! Come on! Stop looking for big foot and celestial tea pots. We actually do 'know' some things in the report.
ReplyDeleteFor instance: does not recommend further indictments.
For instance: Mueller was operating with the broadest definition of collusion possible.
For instance: He found NO EVIDENCE of collusion for Trump.
It's true we don't know where every period is located, or if he left a lip stick kiss at the bottom for his liberal fans (liberals being fans of former FBI heads is worse than 1984). But the media for a near three years has been squawking at every inkling of datum that can be spun into a Glenn Beck style conspiracy theory to connect Russia to Trump, in some style that suggests we are living in a David Baldacci novel! (pee tapes anyone!? PEE TAPES - REGISTER THAT FOR A SECOND - fucking pee tapes!)
At least Professor Wolff has been honest enough, candid enough, and clear eyed enough to realize it's time to move on and focus on grass roots election matters. But to you die hard conspiracy theorists, you may actually be better utilizing your time to investigate UFO sightings.
Chris, are you addressing someone here? I have not seen anyone on this blog engaging in the sort of conspiracy theorizing you describe.
ReplyDeleteYes, the people that are holding onto the idea that the full disclosure of the Mueller report will help us further investigate what really happened with Trump and Russia. [Not just something people on this blog are advocating for, but also across the media]
ReplyDeleteThanks for your sharing.
ReplyDelete