The EconomistNovember 9th 2019 United States 312
1tests. They also have ramifications for poli-
cy. In Kentucky, Mr Beshear has pledged to
bolster education funding, though the Re-
publican supermajority in the state legisla-
ture may handicap these aspirations. But
his election would stop Mr Bevin’s efforts
to scale back the expansion of Medicaid,
the government health-insurance pro-
gramme for the poorest. Hopes for an ex-
pansion of Medicaid in Mississippi, one of
least healthy states in the country, how-
ever, are probably dashed.
In Virginia, Mr Northam will be able to
advance gun-control and voter-registra-
tion legislation that had previously beenstymied. He also has plans for a clean-ener-
gy bill, adding some substance to his
pledge to ensure carbon-free electricity by- All these elections will also affect the
redrawing of congressional district bound-
aries after the 2020 census.
If there is any lesson, it is that the bifur-
cation in political views between rural and
urban America continues apace. Mr Besh-
ear was able to win by squeezing 110,000
more votes out of Louisville and Lexington
than the previous Democratic candidate.
Population growth in Northern Virginia, in
the suburbs of Washington, dc, has made
the state tough terrain for Republicans. 7
S
tevescalise, theHouseMinority
Whip, brought a visual aid to the
House floor in the run-up to a vote for-
malising the impeachment inquiry. It
depicted the Red Square’s onion domes,
and blasted the Democrats’ “37 Days of
Soviet-Style Impeachment Proceedings”.
Though the Soviet Union lacked a consti-
tutional mechanism whereby freely
elected legislators could censure and
remove the country’s executive, follow-
ing months of open hearings and a pub-
lic trial, Mr Scalise’s point was that the
impeachment process—which has so-far
operated behind closed doors—is some
kind of show trial.
That is one of two main defences of
President Donald Trump offered by
congressional Republicans. The other is
that there was no quid pro quo in with-
holding military aid to Ukraine, as Mr
Trump himself has repeatedly asserted.
This implies that asking for foreign help
in an American election is perfectly fine;
the impeachable conduct would be
offering something in return. Both these
lines are starting to fray.
The first was always rather weak. Just
as a criminal trial involves a grand jury
gathering information to determine
whether to indict, an impeachment
inquiry involves the House doing the
same. Closed-door hearings have long
been a feature of congressional over-
sight. Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker,
has given Republicans the full House
vote that they long demanded. And next
week public hearings begin.
The second defence has grown diffi-
cult to sustain as witness after witness
has testified, under oath, that there was
in fact a quid pro quo. Gordon Sondland,
America’s ambassador to the eu, is the
newest member of this chorus line. MrSondlandhadpreviouslytestifiedthat he
never talked to Ukrainian officials about
opening an investigation, that he never
thought there was any precondition
attached to the military aid, and that he
“didn’t know why” it was delayed.
In a revision released on November
5th, Mr Sondland wrote that testimony
from William Taylor, America’s top
diplomat in Ukraine, and Tim Morrison,
until recently the National Security
Council’s top adviser on Russia and
Europe, had “refreshed my recollection”.
Mr Sondland said he now recalls a con-
versation with Andriy Yermak, an advis-
er to Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr
Zelensky, “where I said that resumption
of usaid [to Ukraine] would likely not
occur until” Mr Zelensky made the “pub-
lic anti-corruption statement” demand-
ed by Mr Trump. He said he had “no
reason to question the substance” of Mr
Morrison’s recollection that aid “might
be conditioned on a public statement
reopening” an investigation into the firm
that employed Joe Biden’s son.
Mr Trump’s defenders have conse-
quently shifted, arguing that foreign
policy routinely involves quid pro quos,
and that even if Mr Trump engaged in
one, it is not impeachable conduct. “Get
over it,” as Mr Trump’s chief of staff, Mick
Mulvaney, told reporters in October. That
appears to be the argument that Repub-
licans are carrying into the next, public
phase of the impeachment process.
Lindsey Graham, who chairs the Senate
judiciary committee and therefore could
play an important role in the trial of the
president in the Senate, offered another
approach—less a defence than a shrug.
“I’ve written the whole process off,” he
told cbs, a news network. “I think this is
a bunch of bs.”Impeachcobbler
The Ukraine scandalWASHINGTON, DC
The evolution of the defence, from “no quid pro quo” to “quid pro so?”A
ccording to oneof the great myths of
American politics, George Washington
could not tell a lie. No politician since has
felt such compunction. Slandering oppo-
nents has been part of the political play-
book since at least the 1800 election, when
John Adams’ campaign accused Thomas
Jefferson of being “the son of a half-breed
Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto
father.” Given this, last month’s controver-
sy over Facebook’s refusal to take down a
Donald Trump ad slandering Joe Biden
might seem strange. In response, Elizabeth
Warren published an (untrue) ad on Face-
book suggesting that Mr Zuckerberg, Face-
book’s ceo, had endorsed Mr Trump. Alex-
andria Ocasio-Cortez, a democratic
representative from New York, joined in
the trolling, asking Mr Zuckerberg whether
she would be permitted to run ads saying
that Republican candidates had voted for
the Green New Deal. Mr Zuckerberg went
on the defensive, presenting Facebook as a
champion of freedom of expression.
Both sides have engaged in overblown
rhetoric and muddled thinking. This is a
problem, given the importance of digital
advertising in modern politics. Advertis-
ing Analytics, a political advertising re-
search firm, says that digital ads account
for 57.5% of tracked ads by presidential
candidates so far this cycle, with over half
of that going to Facebook.
No advertising platform is required to
assess the truthfulness of political ads.
Some, including local tv, are even required
to run campaign ads uncensored by theSALT LAKE CITY
Neither Facebook nor its critics are
thinking clearlyPolitical advertisingLie-posting