As the Washington Post headline reminds us, the lack of shame confers political advantage. Donald Trump is shameless. Republicans’ defense of Trump – of his assault on truth, the rule of law, and institutional safeguards that preserve our democracy – is not possible without shedding all sense of shame.
In 2015 Jack Shafer of Politico, analyzing Trump’s “ability to wipe yesterday’s slate clean but suffer little political damage,” observed, “You can’t shame a shameless man.” In 2017, Jack Goldsmith of the Atlantic wrote, “A corollary to Trump’s shamelessness is that he often doesn’t seek to hide or even spin his norm-breaking.” The Republican Party circa 2019, the party of Trump, is all-in with the shameless trashing of democratic norms.
After delivery of a searing report by Robert Mueller (a man with a sterling career of public service, from Marine Corps officer in Vietnam to Director of the FBI, whose integrity was accepted by both Republicans and Democrats in Washington) concluded, “The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion,” and “established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome,” Republicans (once the party of ‘law and order’ and of staunch opposition to U.S. adversaries abroad) are now undaunted by the spectacle of a lawless president elected with the help of Russia.
William Barr, the consensus view had it, was a well-regarded, old-school institutionalist returning to the Justice Department as he neared retirement. Certainly, he would be concerned with his reputation and place in history. He would step up to embrace the role of Attorney General of the United States at a time – with a president, hostile to the rule of law, who had attacked the FBI, the intelligence agencies, Justice Department, and even the courts – when the nation needed a reassuring presence. Didn’t happen. Barr chose another course.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, ignoring a heretofore unimaginable number of contacts between Russian agents and Trump campaign operatives, and ten prima facie episodes of obstruction of justice by the President, declares, “Case closed. Case closed.” (McConnell, of course, may be the political archetype of the shameless partisan.)
Chairman Lindsay Graham of the Senate Judiciary Committee, once a Trump critic and a loud, proud defender of national security, is on the same page as McConnell. “The Mueller Report is over for me. Done.”
While Graham and McConnell feign an interest in repelling foreign interference in American elections, the President’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, doesn’t bother. He publicly announced – never mind that he walked it back, a Giuliani mannerism: he has already signaled to our foreign foe what he wants – that he intended to press the Ukrainian government to open an investigation into a Democratic presidential contender:
“There’s nothing illegal about it,” he said. “Somebody could say it’s improper. And this isn’t foreign policy — I’m asking them to do an investigation that they’re doing already and that other people are telling them to stop. And I’m going to give them reasons why they shouldn’t stop it because that information will be very, very helpful to my client, and may turn out to be helpful to my government.”
And this week, when information came to light that the Senate Intelligence Committee – which traditionally has functioned in a bipartisan way, because the nation’s security is not a partisan issue – has subpoenaed Donald J. Trump, Jr. to return as a witness (after apparent conflicts in his previous testimony with other witnesses and documented evidence, and DJTJ declined to return voluntarily), so the committee can clarify the role of Russia in the attack on our country, Chairman Richard Burr was pilloried by a host of his fellow Republicans in the Senate and the House. That doesn’t happen very often, but defense of Trump requires it. The mob included Senators Rand Paul, Tom Tillis, and John Cornyn, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, and Chairman of the Freedom Caucus in the House, Mark Meadows.
When Trump’s campaign began, most Republican leaders kept their distance (and a modicum of self-respect). At the beginning of his presidency, Trump still faced occasional push-back from Congressional Republicans, among others, who valued their professional reputations. Post-Mueller, the Trumpification of the Republican Party is virtually complete.