Category Archives: Democracy

Democracy, Off the Rails, Republicans, Tribalism

“And as we all know, in the United States political system of the early 2000s, what goes around comes around.” — Brett Kavanaugh

“This confirmation process has become a national disgrace. The Constitution gives the Senate an important role in the confirmation process, but you have replaced advice and consent with search and destroy.

Since my nomination in July, there’s been a frenzy on the left to come up with something, anything to block my confirmation. Shortly after I was nominated, the Democratic Senate leader said he would, quote, “oppose me with everything he’s got.” A Democratic senator on this committee publicly — publicly referred to me as evil — evil. Think about that word. It’s said that those who supported me were, quote, “complicit in evil.” Another Democratic senator on this committee said, quote, “Judge Kavanaugh is your worst nightmare.” A former head of the Democratic National Committee said, quote, “Judge Kavanaugh will threaten the lives of millions of Americans for decades to come.”

I understand the passions of the moment, but I would say to those senators, your words have meaning. Millions of Americans listen carefully to you. Given comments like those, is it any surprise that people have been willing to do anything to make any physical threat against my family, to send any violent e-mail to my wife, to make any kind of allegation against me and against my friends. To blow me up and take me down.

You sowed the wind for decades to come. I fear that the whole country will reap the whirlwind.

The behavior of several of the Democratic members of this committee at my hearing a few weeks ago was an embarrassment. But at least it was just a good old-fashioned attempt at Borking.

Those efforts didn’t work. When I did at least OK enough at the hearings that it looked like I might actually get confirmed, a new tactic was needed.

Some of you were lying in wait and had it ready. This first allegation was held in secret for weeks by a Democratic member of this committee, and by staff. It would be needed only if you couldn’t take me out on the merits.

When it was needed, this allegation was unleashed and publicly deployed over Dr. Ford’s wishes. And then — and then as no doubt was expected — if not planned — came a long series of false last-minute smears designed to scare me and drive me out of the process before any hearing occurred.

Crazy stuff. Gangs, illegitimate children, fights on boats in Rhode Island. All nonsense, reported breathlessly and often uncritically by the media.

This has destroyed my family and my good name. A good name built up through decades of very hard work and public service at the highest levels of the American government.

This whole two-week effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit, fueled with apparent pent-up anger about President Trump and the 2016 election. Fear that has been unfairly stoked about my judicial record. Revenge on behalf of the Clintons. And millions of dollars in money from outside left-wing opposition groups.

This is a circus. The consequences will extend long past my nomination. The consequences will be with us for decades. This grotesque and coordinated character assassination will dissuade competent and good people of all political persuasions, from serving our country.

And as we all know, in the United States political system of the early 2000s, what goes around comes around.”

—Brett Kavanaugh, speaking before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on September 27, 2018.

Rancorous, aggrieved, conspiratorial. Brett Kavanaugh’s tribal embrace of Republican Party talking points and his manic rage toward Democrats, Democratic Senators on the Judiciary Committee, “the left,” “left-wing opposition groups,” and the Clintons couldn’t be clearer.

Until 2006, when he was placed on the appellate court by George W. Bush, Kavanaugh was a partisan political operative. His appointment was a reward for his loyal partisanship. Kavanaugh’s career highlights up to that point: “He worked for independent counsel Kenneth Starr and laid out the grounds in 1998 for impeaching President Bill Clinton; he acted on behalf of Bush in the Florida recount in the 2000 presidential race; he promoted conservative judicial nominees as Bush’s associate counsel; and as Bush’s staff secretary, he helped shape presidential policies.” Oh, and he was also “pro bono counsel in the Elián González affair.”

Clarence Thomas – who also faced credible charges of sexual misconduct at the time of his nomination and the only member of the majority in Bush v. Gore still on the court – and Samuel Alioto – who mouthed “Not true” during President Obama’s 2010 State of the Union – may harbor partisan grievances toward Democrats and almost certainly identify with the Republican Party as newly installed Justice Kavanaugh does. They may be, as is sometimes said of members of the court, ‘politicians in robes.’ But neither of them, nor any other SCOTUS nominee in our history, has directed such bitter acrimony towards the opposition political party at a confirmation hearing – or any other public setting.

In his written testimony, Kavanaugh crossed a line that has never before been crossed by a Justice of the Supreme Court. No list of Republican grievances – even stretching back more than three decades to the Senate’s rejection of Robert Bork’s nomination in 1987; no complaints about process, or timing, or the presumption of innocence; no excuses that critics have “destroyed” his family; no claims of a grand Democratic conspiracy; no appeals to Kavanaugh’s conduct on the appellate court; no nod to his judicial qualifications – no whataboutism of any kind can change the simple, evident fact that Kavanaugh’s words and deportment were unprecedented.

At a time of extraordinary political polarization, on the plain meaning of his words and straightforward observation of his demeanor, Kavanaugh harbors deep animosity toward the opposition political party. With his confirmation by the Republican majority in the U.S. Senate, he brings illegitimacy to the nation’s highest court.

Count this as another institutional and governing norm that Republicans have deliberately trashed for (what is often short-term political advantage, but in this case is long-term – perhaps several generations’ long) political advantage.

Image is a screen grab from the C-SPAN video of Kavanaugh’s testimony.

Democracy, Democrats, Donald Trump, Republicans, Tribalism

“You need to vote because our democracy depends on it.” Barack Obama sounds alarm, implores students to step up to restore American values

In the twenty-two months since leaving the White House, Barack Obama has kept quiet. He broke his silence on Friday in a speech at the University of Illinois, making it clear he believes the country is in crisis, having strayed from our values, and urgently needs to get back on track:
“I’m here today because this is one of those pivotal moments when every one of us, as citizens of the United States, need to determine just who it is that we are. Just what it is that we stand for. And as a fellow citizen, not as an ex-president, but as a fellow citizen, I’m here to deliver a simple message, and that is that you need to vote because our democracy depends on it.”

Obama painted a picture of “fitful progress, uneven progress” throughout American history, as our country moved nearer our ideals, while describing “a darker aspect to the American story.”

Each time we’ve gotten closer to those ideals, somebody somewhere has pushed back. The status quo pushes back. Sometimes the backlash comes from people who are genuinely, if wrongly, fearful of change. More often it’s manufactured by the powerful and the privileged who want to keep us divided and keep us angry and keep us cynical because it helps them maintain the status quo and keep their power and keep their privilege. And you happen to be coming of age during one of those moments.

It did not start with Donald Trump. He is a symptom, not the cause. He’s just capitalizing on resentments that politicians have been fanning for years, a fear and anger that’s rooted in our past but it’s also born out of the enormous upheavals that have taken place in your brief lifetimes.

The former president reminded students of the financial crisis at the time he took office and the progress he made in setting things right – but the fear remained.

So we pulled the economy out of crisis, but to this day, too many people, who once felt solidly middle class, still feel very real and very personal economic insecurity. Even though we took out bin Laden and wound down the wars in Iraq and our combat role in Afghanistan, and gotten Iran to halt its nuclear program, the world’s still full of threats and disorder that come streaming through people’s televisions every single day.

And these challenges get people worried. And it frays our civic trust. And it makes a lot of people feel like the fix is in and the game is rigged and nobody’s looking out for them, especially those communities outside our big urban centers.

And even though your generation is the most diverse in history, with a greater acceptance and celebration of our differences than ever before, those are the kinds of conditions that are ripe for exploitation by politicians who have no compunction and no shame about tapping into America’s dark history of racial and ethnic and religious division. Appealing to tribe, appealing to fear, pitting one group against another, telling people that order and security will be restored if it weren’t for those who don’t look like us or don’t sound like us or don’t pray like we do, that’s an old playbook. It’s as old as time.

He continued, “And in a healthy democracy, it doesn’t work.” The old playbook falls flat. When, however, “the better angels of our nature” are eclipsed, things go awry.

But when there’s a vacuum in our democracy, when we don’t vote, when we take our basic rights and freedoms for granted, when we turn away and stop paying attention and stop engaging and stop believing and look for the newest diversion, the electronic versions of bread and circuses, then other voices fill the void. A politics of fear and resentment and retrenchment takes hold and demagogues promise simple fixes to complex problems. No promise to fight for the little guy, even as they cater to the wealthiest and most powerful. No promise to clean up corruption and then plunder away. They start undermining norms that ensure accountability and try to change the rules to entrench their power further. And they appeal to racial nationalism that’s barely veiled, if veiled at all.

He indicted the Congress of the United States for its failures:

This Congress has championed the unwinding of campaign finance laws to give billionaires outside influence over our politics. Systematically attacked voting rights to make it harder for young people, the minorities and the poor to vote. Handed out tax cuts without regard to deficits. Slashed the safety net wherever it could, cast dozens of votes to take away health insurance from ordinary Americans, embraced wild conspiracy theories, like those surrounding Benghazi or my birth certificate, rejected science, rejected facts on things like climate change, embraced a rising absolutism from a willingness to default on America’s debt by not paying our bills, to a refusal to even meet, much less consider, a qualified nominee for the Supreme Court because he happened to be nominated by a Democratic president. None of this is conservative.

I don’t mean to pretend I’m channeling Abraham Lincoln now, but that’s not what he had in mind, I think, when he helped form the Republican Party. It’s not conservative. It sure isn’t normal. It’s radical. It’s a vision that says the protection of our power and those who back us is all that matters even when it hurts the country. It’s a vision that says the few who can afford high-price lobbyists and unlimited campaign contributions set the agenda. And over the past two years, this vision is now nearing its logical conclusion.

He denounced the lack of checks and balances, passage of $1.5 trillion tax cuts for the richest Americans with resulting skyrocketing deficits, carte blanche to polluters and dishonest lenders, repudiation of the global climate change agreement, eroding our relationships with allies, cozying up with Russia, and sabotaging the Affordable Healthcare Act. He also criticizes, in passing, the infamous Anonymous op-ed:

In a healthy democracy, there’s some checks and balances on this kind of behavior, this kind of inconsistency, but right now there’s nothing.

Republicans who know better in Congress, and they’re there, they’re quoted saying, yes, we know this is kind of crazy, are still bending over backwards to shield this behavior from scrutiny or accountability or consequence, seem utterly unwilling to find the backbone to safeguard the institutions that make our democracy work. And, by the way, the claim that everything will turn out okay because there are people inside the White House who secretly aren’t following the president’s orders, that is not a check. I’m being serious here. That’s not how our democracy’s supposed to work.

These people aren’t elected. They’re not accountable. They’re not doing us a service by actively promoting 90 percent of the crazy stuff that’s coming out of this White House. And then saying, don’t worry, we’re preventing the other 10 percent. That’s not how things are supposed to work.

This is not normal. These are extraordinary times. And they’re dangerous times.

Finally, Obama urged his listeners to participate in the political process  – and, especially, to vote – to change the country’s direction:

Thirty minutes, 30 minutes of your time, is democracy worth that? We have been through much darker times than these and some how each generation of American’s carried us through to the other side. Not by sitting around and waiting for something to happen, not by leaving it to others to do something but by leading that movement for change themselves.

And if you do that, if you get involved and you get engaged and you knock on some doors and you talk with your friends and you argue with your family members and you change some minds and you vote, something powerful happens.

The complete speech, annotated by Amber Phillips, is available at the Washington Post.

Democracy, Donald Trump

Amid deep background reporting and anonymous bravado, the overall picture is unchanged: a train wreck of a presidency

In a week when Bob Woodward’s “Fear” paints in chilling detail a portrait of a White House engulfed in conflict, chaos, and covert insubordination, and an anonymous op-ed in the New York Times attests to the derisive views of President Trump by those closest to him and persistent workarounds to keep him from getting his way, what have we learned?

Conflict in presidential administrations is commonplace. Appointees often represent wings of a political party with different priorities than the president. Directives are often ignored by cabinet members. Aides try to protect the president from his worse impulses. This is all normal.

“But,” Jonathan Bernstein writes, “what we’re hearing about in these Trump stories is sort of a radical version of standard operating procedure for White House staff and the executive branch when faced with a president who is utterly unfit for the job.”

Donald Trump is impulsive, indulges in reckless rants and incoherence, has a short attention span, is easily distracted, lacks intellectual curiosity, is ignorant of history and policy, and reveals an irrepressible narcissism. We already know all this (which touches only on Trump’s mental capacity, not on his prejudice, avarice, or lack of principle) from watching the public Donald Trump and, for anyone who reveres democratic government, this is frightening. In Bernstein’s words:

What’s really scary is that Trump’s ineptitude at his job means that the normal constraints that keep presidents from doing terrible things may simply not apply. Normal presidents care about their professional reputation among those they work with, and about their popularity among the nation at large, and so they attempt to do the sorts of things that would enhance their reputations and make voters like them. Because he’s unable to even try to do those things — because he has apparently has no sense at all of how the job works — Trump doesn’t see the clear warning signs and then back off things that damage himself and the nation.

Or, as my Bloomberg Opinion colleague Timothy L. O’Brien puts it, “he generally doesn’t care about the long-term damage he might inflict on himself or those around him as long as he’s the center of attention.” That’s truly scary because the entire political system, as those who have read Federalist 51 will recognize, depends on politicians who care deeply about avoiding damage to themselves.

Federalist 51, generally attributed to James Madison, describes the features of the Constitution intended to “furnish the proper checks and balances between different departments” of government, such as constraints on personal ambition and buffers against encroachment of one branch on another. As remarkable as Donald Trump’s incapacity is, equally remarkable is the implacable abdication of the Republican majority in Congress to provide oversight over the executive branch.

Two of the President’s ‘critics’ in the majority party – both of whom have chosen not to seek reelection, which would require them to face the GOP voter base (still in lockstep with Trump) – find no grounds for disputing the devastating portrait of their leader.

Senator Bob Corker: “This is what all of us have understood to be the situation from day one… I understand this is the case and that’s why I think all of us encourage the good people around the President to stay. I thank General Mattis whenever I see him…”

Senator Ben Sasse: “It’s just so similar to what so many of us hear from senior people around the White House, you know, three times a week. So it’s really troubling, and yet in a way, not surprising.”

Neither Senator proposed any activity by Congress to remedy the situation our nation finds itself in. Congressional investigations of the executive branch are commonplace, even when the same party controls both Congress and the White House. Yet taking a closer look at what is going on is not in the cards for this Congress.

There is ample evidence, dating back to Newt Gingrich’s first days as Speaker of the House, of Republicans paring back the capacity of Congress to do its job. The inability to repeal the Affordable Healthcare Act (aka Obamacare) is the most glaring example of this failure in the current Congress (in part because no one on the Republican side of the aisle had developed the policy expertise to understand the ACA or to craft a plausible alternative, and no one in the leadership or among committee chairmen cared enough to do so).

Nonetheless, Speaker Paul Ryan and his team, which encouraged investigation after investigation of Benghazi (while boasting that it would harm Hillary Clinton’s 2016 election prospects) hasn’t simply forgotten Congress’s investigative role. Republicans have actually catalogued scandals and controversies that Congress could be investigating, if it had the will to do so (which is anticipated if Democrats regain the majority in the House this fall). A partial list from Axios, which obtained a copy of a document prepared by House Republicans:

  • President Trump’s tax returns
  • Trump family businesses — and whether they comply with the Constitution’s emoluments clause, including the Chinese trademark grant to the Trump Organization
  • Trump’s dealings with Russia, including the president’s preparation for his meeting with Vladimir Putin
  • The payment to Stephanie Clifford — a.k.a. Stormy Daniels
  • James Comey’s firing
  • Trump’s firing of U.S. attorneys
  • Trump’s proposed transgender ban for the military
  • Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s business dealings
  • White House staff’s personal email use
  • Cabinet secretary travel, office expenses, and other misused perks
  • Discussion of classified information at Mar-a-Lago
  • Jared Kushner’s ethics law compliance
  • Dismissal of members of the EPA board of scientific counselors
  • The travel ban
  • Family separation policy
  • Hurricane response in Puerto Rico
  • Election security and hacking attempts
  • White House security clearances

Things aren’t normal in either the executive or legislative branches of government. (I’ll set aside for the moment consideration of the judicial branch, which will be transformed for at least a generation as Brett Kavanaugh takes a seat on the Supreme Court and the U.S. Senate continues to approve ideologues to district and appellate courts nationwide.)

Things aren’t normal because the Republican Party has become an outlier, trashing traditional governing norms whenever it has glimpsed a partisan advantage, while ignoring – and diverting attention from – the resulting harm to the country.

September 9, 2018 update: Barack Obama reentered the political fray on Friday, decrying the course our nation is on, the absence of checks and balances, and the urgency of changing direction.

“This is not normal. These are extraordinary times. And they’re dangerous times.”

Image: Dr. Richard Kimble (Harrison Ford) running for dear life in “The Fugitive.”

 

2020 Democratic Primary, Democracy

Whether or not she’s running for president, Elizabeth Warren is picking a fight by introducing the Anti-Corruption and Public Integrity Act

The first line of the Boston Herald ’s story about Elizabeth Warren’s introduction of the Anti-Corruption and Public Integrity Act begins, “Warren will announce an ‘anti-corruption’ initiative tomorrow at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. – a move political operatives say looks like another blatant push toward a 2020 run.” (That would be a run for president.)

The Nation ’s opening sentence is, “Elizabeth Warren’s proposed sweeping anti-corruption legislation—which would, among other things, ban members of Congress and White House aides from owning individual stocks—has generated speculation about her plans for 2020.”

The Washington Post doesn’t mention such speculation until the fourth paragraph: “The speech also emphasized Warren’s clout at a time when Democratic bills have little chance of passage but media attention is beginning is beginning to turn to the 2020 presidential race. Reporters sprawled from chairs to the walls of a midsize room, including next to TV cameras that were capturing a six-part government reform agenda.”

Will she run or won’t she? Who knows. What’s clear is that Elizabeth Warren has long been a passionate advocate for shifting the power balance from corporations to consumers, from the abundantly wealthy to folks who work for a living, from richly paid lobbyists to voters stretching to make ends meet. This is a woman who has never forgotten her working-class roots.

The Anti-Corruption and Integrity Act isn’t a campaign ploy; it’s a timely expression of an enduring commitment.

The bill, as Senator Warren describes it, would:

  • Padlock the Revolving Door and Increase Public Integrity by eliminating both the appearance and the potential for financial conflicts of interest; banning Members of Congress, cabinet secretaries, federal judges, and other senior government officials from owning and trading individual stock; locking the government-to-lobbying revolving door; and eliminating “golden parachutes”.
  • End Lobbying as We Know It by exposing all influence-peddling in Washington; banning foreign lobbying; banning lobbyists from donating to candidates and Members of Congress; strengthening congressional independence from lobbyists; and instituting a lifetime ban on lobbying by former Members of Congress, Presidents, and agency heads.
  • End Corporate Capture of Public Interest Rules by requiring disclosure of funding or editorial conflicts of interest in rulemaking comments and studies; closing loopholes corporations exploit to tilt the rules in their favor and against the public interest; protecting agencies from corporate capture; establishing a new Office of Public Advocate to advocate for the public interest in the rulemaking process; and giving agencies the tools to implement strong rules that protect the public.
  • Improve Judicial Integrity and Defend Access to Justice for All Americans by enhancing the integrity of the judicial branch; requiring the Supreme Court follow the ethics rules for all other federal judges; boosting the transparency of federal appellate courts through livestreaming audio of proceedings; and encouraging diversity on the federal bench.
  • Strengthen Enforcement of Anti-Corruption, Ethics, and Public Integrity Laws by creating a new, independent anti-corruption agency dedicated to enforcing federal ethics laws and by expanding an independent and empowered Congressional ethics office insulated from Congressional politics.
  • Boost Transparency in Government and Fix Federal Open Records Laws by requiring elected officials and candidates for federal office to disclose more financial and tax information; increasing disclosure of corporate money behind Washington lobbying; closing loopholes in federal open records laws; making federal contractors – including private prisons and immigration detention centers – comply with federal open records laws; and making Congress more transparent.

The sweep of these proposals is breathtaking. One is tempted to argue that they may go too far. Here are three reasons to push back on that notion.

First, there is a strong presumptive case for the proposals.

Consider one of the most far-reaching ideas: “banning Members of Congress, cabinet secretaries, federal judges, and other senior government officials from owning and trading individual stock.” What if, for instance, a corporate titan decided to run for Congress? I am highly unlikely to be enamored of any such candidates, but my fellow citizens might beg to differ. If, say, Mark Zuckerberg decided he wanted to represent the Silicon Valley in Congress, or California in the U.S. Senate – should we insist that he give up his stock in Facebook in order to serve?

It only takes a moment’s thought to decide: Why, yes! This makes perfect sense if we want to root out corruption, self-dealing, and the failure to represent voters who can’t afford to contribute enough money to ensure ‘access’ and a respectful hearing from their Member of Congress. If the man’s ego or fortune is so closely tied to a corporate stock that divesting himself of it, and settling for investing in mutual funds (or another sound alternative), represents an obstacle to serving in Congress – then he should dismiss the idea of running for public office. He could never be expected to put aside his financial self-interest, or his pride of ownership, to focus on doing his job. The conflicts of interest would virtually ensure that he would forever be doing the wrong things for the wrong reasons.

And Zuckerberg isn’t the exception; he’s the rule.  Conflicts of interest – between the public good and individual self-interest – are at the heart of corruption in government. Money infects the process. We need tough rules to change this.

Getting rid of these conflicts is essential for responsive representation and meaningful democracy.

Second, the ‘goes too far’ argument looks much shakier when we look at where we are today.

The system is corrupt. Warren’s unforgiving vision is far and away better than the ugly situation we find ourselves in now.  Donald Trump was never serious about “Drain the swamp” (as he acknowledges in this video). He didn’t like the expression, had no interest in what it conveyed, but consistently got huge cheers whenever he said it. So he said it again and again. His voters – and not just fans of an outspoken woman representing the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate – recognized the endemic corruption in Washington.  With all our tribal divisions, with Red America on one side and Blue America on the other, this is something that Americans have in common: disdain for a corrupt political system.

Once in office Trump, of course, turned to crooks and grifters to staff the White House and fill his cabinet. That’s the ugly situation we find ourselves in. Deeper in the swamp than any time in memory.

In Warren’s words:

There’s no real question that the Trump era has given us the most nakedly corrupt leadership this nation has seen in our lifetimes. But they are not the cause of the rot — they’re just the biggest, stinkiest example of it.

Corruption is a form of public cancer, and Washington’s got it bad. It’s time for treatment, time to isolate and quarantine the ability of big money to infect the decisions made every day by every branch of our government.

This problem is enormous – but we’ve dealt with enormous problems before. We just need some big reform ideas and a willingness to fight for real change.

Finally, Warren’s proposals are a good place to begin the discussion. In an up or down vote in Congress today, this legislation wouldn’t come close to passing in either House (or getting a presidential signature). But – if there are Democratic majorities in the future (won with pledges to usher in reform), and a Democrat in the White House – then we can begin a discussion. That’s the first step. Whatever is deemed to ‘go too far’ can be trimmed back, if that’s what it takes to get something done.

There is general agreement – outside of Washington – that something needs to be done. There is little political will – inside Washington – to do anything. Elizabeth Warren just picked a fight on behalf of the folks on the outside.

 

Democracy, Donald Trump

National security officials at odds with President regarding ongoing Russian attacks on democracy

“”In Helsinki, I had a great meeting with Putin. We discussed everything. I had a great meeting. I had a great meeting. We got along really well. By the way, that’s a good thing, not a bad thing. That’s a really good thing. Now we’re being hindered by the Russian hoax — it’s a hoax, OK?” – Donald Trump (at 1 minute, 20 seconds into the video by CBC).

This dismissal of “the Russian hoax” came only hours after the White House presented a briefing from the administration’s top national security officials underscoring a pervasive, ongoing, 24/7 effort by Russia to weaken American democracy and disrupt the 2018 elections.

“The reality is, it’s going to take all of us working together to hold the field, because this threat is not going away.  As I have said consistently: Russia attempted to interfere with the last election, and continues to engage in malign influence operations to this day.

This is a threat we need to take extremely seriously, and to tackle and respond to with fierce determination and focus.”– Christopher Wray, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation

“The intelligence community continues to be concerned about the threats of upcoming U.S. elections, both the midterms and the presidential elections of 2020.

In regards to Russian involvement in the midterm elections, we continue to see a pervasive messaging campaign by Russia to try to weaken and divide the United States.” – Dan Coats, Director of National Intelligence

“Our democracy itself is in the crosshairs.  Free and fair elections are the cornerstone of our democracy, and it has become clear that they are the target of our adversaries, who seek, as the DNI just said, to sow discord and undermine our way of life.” – Kirstjen Nielsen, Secretary of Homeland Security

When reporters asked Mr. Coats about the substance of the Helsinki meeting – 17 days earlier, which the President boasted about in the video above, the Director of National Intelligence acknowledged that he was not privy to what was said: “I’m not in a position to either understand fully or talk about what happened at Helsinki.”

Photo: screen grab from C-SPAN.

Democracy, Donald Trump

“Is this the most divided you have ever seen the United States?”

Jamie Dupree, a reporter whose career began during the Reagan administration, reports hearing that question frequently.

His response: “My answer is always – no, this is not the most divided that our country has been, even in my lifetime.”

He points to events of 45 to 50 years ago (1968-1973).

I was a freshman in college in 1968, a year the nation experienced two political assassinations – of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy; the My Lai massacre; and brutal clashes between protesters and the police at the National Democratic Convention in Chicago, which paved the way for the election of Richard Nixon.

The nation was engulfed in the Vietnam War abroad and protests in the streets at home. In 1970, National Guardsmen fired on protesting students at Kent State University, killing four of them. (Dupree’s post features a soundtrack of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young’s “Ohio,” with a photo montage from that year to illustrate the social chaos the country was experiencing.)

We don’t have half a million troops fighting a war in Southeast Asia today with high casualties and a military draft. We don’t have the level of violence in the streets that we had 50 years ago. So Dupree’s conclusion that we are less divided today than we were then is not unreasonable.

Nonetheless, this conclusion leaves something out. Since the late ’60s and early ’70s, our politics has become much more tribal. We are more separate than before in many ways. And in 2016, we elected the first president in my lifetime who, in Jonathan Bernstein’s words, “doesn’t even attempt to be president of the whole nation.” Even Nixon, who kept an enemies list – but kept it private, often spoke to the country as a whole and sought to appeal to – and to represent – both independents and Democrats, not just the Republican base.

Donald Trump began his political ascent as the chief proponent of the birther theory – intending to delegitimize his predecessor in the White House. His political rallies in 2016, and the Republican National Convention that nominated him, featured frenzied chants of “Lock her up!” directed at his Democratic opponent.  So (although for many months following his election, pundits predicted, and often professed to see, a pivot – the turning point where Trump adopted the norms and mores of recent – and distant – presidents) his approach to governing has been of a piece with his campaign. It’s either all-in with Trump; or excluded and excoriated.

The 45th president has, in effect, championed factional government. (Josh Marshall makes this point.) He has done so very deliberately and for all to see.

The phrase, “factional government,” is something we are accustomed to hearing applied to unstable regimes, or where opponents control separate regions – in the Middle East, for instance. When sectarian divisions exist, and there is no shared conception of the national interest, then insular, zero-sum tactics predominate. When one faction gains the upper hand, however precariously, disfavored groups – and a common, overarching public good – suffer.

The concept of factions has a special place in American political thought. James Madison – who feared that democratic society could be ripped apart by factionalism – wrote, in Federalist 10: “By a faction I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.”

The stubborn refusal of our president to embrace America whole – all of our citizens; our country’s abiding national interest; what we share in common, not what divides us – sets this era apart from the divisive years that Dupree recalls.

(Post revised July 13, 2018 to introduce Josh Marshall’s reference to factional government.)

(Photo from video montage – CSN&Y’s “Ohio.”)