37
removal unfolds, the nation’s immediate and long-
term future depends on whether Americans will be
guided by reason rather than passion, fact rather
than faith, evidence rather than tribe.
And the facts keep piling up. The U.S. ambas-
sador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland,
has now revised his congressional testimony to say
that he was involved with a quid pro quo regard-
ing Ukraine: the nation was to publicly announce
an investigation into the family of Trump’s political
rival Joe Biden, or the U.S. would hold up congres-
sionally appropriated military aid. Other previously
closed transcripts from key players are emerging,
and even those who have refused to testify have
shed light on the Administration’s dealings. Mick
Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff
who has so far refused to answer a congressional
subpoena, has already publicly framed perhaps the
largest question of the moment when he told re-
porters that they should “get over” the Administra-
tion’s pressuring Ukraine. Mulvaney later tried to
walk back these remarks, but the initial comments
had all the hallmarks of the Trumpian vision of the
world: do what you want, and dare anyone to do
anything about it.
Here we are, then, trapped in a time of dema-
goguery, reflexive partisanship and a Hobbesian
world of constant and total political warfare. We
know all the factors: the return of the kind of partisan
media that shaped us in the 18th and 19th centuries;
relentless gerrymandering that has produced few
swing congressional districts; the allure of reality-TV
programming that has blurred lines between enter-
tainment and governance.
So what to do? A grasp of the past can be
orienting. “When the mariner has been tossed for
many days in thick weather, and on an unknown
sea,” Daniel Webster said, “he naturally avails
himself of the first pause in the storm, the earliest
glance of the sun, to take his latitude and ascertain
how far the elements have driven him from his true
course.” The fate of this presidency, of the ensuing
elections and of our true course lies in two sets
of hands. The first is the House and the Senate,
the second the electorate that will determine the
outcome of the 2020 campaign. The past and the
present tell us that a demagogue can thrive only
when a substantial portion of the demos—the
people—want him to.
A tragic element of history is that every advance
must contend with forces of reaction. In the years
after Abraham Lincoln, the America that eman-
cipated its enslaved population endured Recon-
struction and a century of institutionalized white
supremacy. Under Theodore Roosevelt and Wood-
row Wilson, the America that was rapidly industri-
alizing and embracing many progressive reforms
was plagued by theories of racial superiority and
fears of the “other” that kept us from acting on the
Democratic
leaders
address
reporters
after the
House
approved
rules for the
impeachment
inquiry
The
President
on Oct. 25
Republicans
criticize the
impeachment
process
outside the
secure site of
the closed-
door hearings
DEMOCRATS, REPUBLICANS: GABRIELLA DEMCZUK FOR TIME; TRUMP: TOM BRENNER—REUTERS
