The Washington Post - 12.11.2019

tuesday, november 12 , 2019. the washington post eZ re a27

N

ikki Haley used to be known as the other member of President Trump’s Cabinet who left with an intact reputation (in addi- tion to former defense secretary Jim Mattis). In an administration more influenced by Recep Ta yyip Erdogan than Ronald Reagan, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations often provided a more traditional rhe- torical take on American foreign policy. Haley seemed genuinely to care about human rights and democracy, and to somehow get away with displaying such caring in public. Her confidence in national principles marked her as such a freakish exception that some speculated she might be the rogue, anti-Trump Trump official who wrote an anonymous op-ed in the New York Times. But Trump’s corruption still pulls at a distance. Clearly convinced that Trumpism is here to stay, Haley has publicly turned against other officials in the administration who saw the president as a dangerous fool. She recounts an hour-long meeting with then-Chief of Staff John F. Kelly and then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who “confided in me that when they resisted the president, they weren’t being insubordinate, they were trying to save the country.” The conspirators (in Haley’s telling) considered it a life-and-death matter. “This was how high the stakes were, he and Kelly told me. We are doing the best we can do to save the country, they said. We need you to work with us and help us do it.” Haley, by her own account, refused to help. “Instead of saying that to me, they should’ve been saying that to the president, not asking me to join them on their sidebar plan,” she now ex- plains. “It should’ve been, ‘Go tell the president what your differences are, and quit if you don’t like what he’s doing.’ But to undermine a president is really a very dangerous thing.” Here Haley is confusing two catego- ries. If a Cabinet member has a policy objection of sufficient seriousness, he or she should take that concern to the president. I f the president t hen chooses against their position — and if imple- menting the decision would amount to a violation of conscience — an official should resign. Staying in office to undermine, say, a law or war you disap- prove of would be a disturbing arroga- tion of presidential authority. But there is an equally important

moral priority to consider: If you are a national security official working for a malignant, infantile, impulsive, au- thoritarian wannabe, you need to stay in your job as long as you can to mitigate whatever damage you can — before the mad king tires of your sanity and fires you. This paradox is one tragic outcome of Trumpism. It is generally a bad and dangerous idea for appointed officials to put their judgment above an elected official’s. And yet it would have been irresponsible for Mattis, Kelly, Tiller- son and others not to follow their own judgments in cases where an incompe- tent, delusional or corrupt president was threatening the national interest. Consider the case of former White House counsel Donald McGahn. Ac- cording to the Mueller report, Mc- Gahn complained to then-Chief of Staff Reince Priebus that Trump was trying to get him to “do crazy s--t.” McGahn (thankfully) told investigators he ignored presidential orders he took to be illegal. Or consider a negative illustration. When it came to pressuring Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden, the only morally mature adults in the room (and on the phone) were quite junior in rank. They expressed their concerns upward. But those above them — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney — had learned the lesson about officials fired for an excess of conscience. They apparently looked the other way as a friendly country was squeezed for political reasons. On the whole, I’m glad that responsi- ble officials such as Kelly and Mattis stayed as long as they did to prevent damage to the country. But I also think they have a moral obligation to come out before the 2020 election and say what they know about Trump’s unfit- ness. If Biden is the nominee, they might even get together and endorse him. But, in any case, if they believe Trump is a danger to the national interest, they eventually have a duty to say something. Saving the country requires no less. As f or Haley, s he has now signaled to Trump Republicans that she was not a part of the “deep state,” thus clearing away a barrier to ambition. All she had to do was to ignore her conscience, betray her colleagues and injure her country. A small price to pay for such a brilliant political future. [email protected]

michael gerson

Trump and ambition

corrupted Haley

T

hirty years ago, the Berlin Wall fell, signaling that the end was near for communism in Eastern Europe. The question now is whether the end might be near for East- ern Europe, demographically. This is an exaggeration — but not a totally unfounded one. Of the 20 most rapidly s hrinking countries in t he world, 15 are erstwhile Warsaw Pact members, ex-Soviet r epublics or c omponents of the former Yugoslavia (plus neighboring Al- bania). If East Germany were still a politically separate entity, i t would also be on the list, which is headed by Bulgaria. That Slavic nation’s population is on track to decline 23 percent, from 7.2 million to 5.2 million by 2050, according to United Nations projections. As you may also have noticed, Eastern Europe, including eastern Germany, is a hotbed of populism. Self-declared “illib- eral democrat” Viktor Orban reigns in Hungary (current population 9.8 million, with an annual growth rate of -0.25 percent), while in the eastern German state of Thuringia, whose population of 2.1 million represents roughly a 20 percent decline since the end of Communist rule, ultraleft a nd ultraright parties captured a combined 54 percent of the vote in elec- tions o n Oct. 27. The relationship between extremist politics and population decline is not coincidental — and it has powerful impli- cations both for Europe’s political future and that of the United States. Eastern Europe’s looming demographic crisis stems directly from its escaping the Soviet orbit in 1989. Freedom of move- ment, coupled with membership in the borderless European Union, enabled m il- lions of working-age people to leave the former Soviet bloc for work in the more prosperous West. Emigration, plus low and declining birthrates — a characteristic of modern society that Eastern Europe shares with Western Europe and the United States — has resulted in whole villages hollowing out, with o nly pensioners left b ehind. Peoples with ancient roots who experi- enced collective euphoria in 1989 now confront the demoralizing prospect of demographic malaise. Economically, the process feeds on itself, because growth requires an expanding labor force. In terms o f security, n ations with ever-small- er military-age cohorts cannot be effective NATO allies. And psychologically, it’s dispiriting to be part of a country that’s slowly e bbing. It can be enraging, too. That goes double in countries, such as Hungary and Poland, with histories of occupation and national dismemberment by outside powers. Instead of feeling like the heroes of the 1989 revolution, or, at least beneficiaries, many Eastern Europeans look at aging, shrinking populations and consider themselves victims. And if anything fuels populism, it’s a sense of victimization. The success of cities such as Prague and Berlin offers no consolation. To the con- trary. As Philip Auerswald of George Ma- son University and Palo Alto Longevity Prize founder Joon Yun have noted in an astute recent article on the phenomenon, populism feeds on “the juxtaposition of rural population and economic decline against the growth and increasing pros- perity of the largest cities.” By now, the parallels to Western Eu- rope and the United States should be apparent. Brexit enjoyed its greatest support in rural, demographically declining areas of E ngland; populists dominate politics in Italy, whose population of 60 million is projected to decline 10 percent by 2050. President Trump enjoys his strongest support among older inhabitants of light- ly populated areas where, as in much of Soviet Eastern Europe, e conomic life cen- tered on agriculture, mining o r, o ccasion- ally, basic industries. Loudly voiced con- tempt for the pampered, politically cor- rect hypocrites of San Francisco and Washington is central to his appeal. Fifty-eight percent of registered voters in West Virginia, for example, approve of Trump’s performance in office, according to an October poll by Morning Consult. West Virginia is the nation’s fourth oldest state, with a median age of 42.4 years; it is 94 percent white and, according to USA To day, the only state with both negative natural population growth and net out-migration in 2016. Demographic decline is extremely dif- ficult to reverse, wherever it occurs. As experience has shown in various countries, governments cannot do much to raise birthrates, even with generous sub- sidies for families with children. Obviously, immigration counters the negative impact of labor force decline on economic growth; in every other respect, however, it energizes populism, at l east of the right-wing variety, by raising the spec- ter of demographic “replacement.” The United States, with its robust tradi- tion of immigration and a national identity defined more by ideas than ethnicity, remains — even in the age of Trump — better positioned than Europe to cope with the economic and political effects of lower birthrates and slow population growth. On the other side of the Atlantic, demographic decline and populist reaction seem likely to persist and interact for the foreseeable future, as a long, long hang- over from that big coming-out party in 1989. [email protected]

charles lane

The shrinking

nations of

Eastern Europe

M

any of President Trump’s critics (myself included) have por- trayed him as a fantastically successful con artist, a man who has swindled customers, vendors and voters alike. We were all wrong. Trump isn’t history’s biggest scam artist; he’s history’s biggest dupe. At least, that’s the narrative Trump and his defenders are spinning as they portray the president as the victim of an elaborate, long-running political sting, perpetrated by his own devious underlings. Trump claimed once upon a time that he was recruiting the “best people” t o the White House and senior ranks of the executive branch. He now claims he got conned into hiring a cabal of covert Never Trumpers. The list of people who allegedly hustled the master hustler is long, an “Ocean’s Eleven”-like dream team carefully culti- vated to undermine their guileless boss. But rather than ninjas, pickpockets or pyromaniacs, this political heist has been perpetrated by diplomats, donors, law- yers, economists and generals who earned and then abused the trust of their mark. Four of the five sitting Federal Reserve governors, for instance, were Republicans handpicked for their current positions by Trump, and yet Trump now says they represent the “biggest threat” to his presi- dency and are an “enemy” to America. He has similarly accused his own Cabinet members, White House counsel, FBI director and other senior officials of allegedly plotting against him. These connivers have been astound- ingly effective. Somehow they’ve tricked Trump into saying and doing racist and corrupt things, in public and on camera. They hoodwinked him into passing economic policies that punish his working- class base while rewarding wealthy donors. And, worst of all — in the case of Ukraine — these schemers suckered Trump into subordinating U.S. national security to his own selfish political interests. Either that or they cleverly framed him. Consider Trump’s own top diplomat to Ukraine, William B. Ta ylor Jr., who testified to House lawmakers that Trump was extorting a desperate Ukrainian govern- ment into smearing Trump’s domestic political opponent. Ta ylor must secretly be a Never Trumper, the president claimed multiple times, without evidence. The decorated career diplomat had somehow hornswoggled Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo into giving him this senior diplomatic position — which Ta ylor knew would come in handy on the off-chance he’d someday be subpoenaed to testify against the president. Trump leveled the same Never Trumper

charge against Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a war hero serving as the Na- tional Security Council’s director of Euro- pean affairs. Vindman testified that the rough transcript of Trump’s “perfect call” with the Ukrainian president left out some damning details and was secreted away onto a special server against stan- dard procedure. Sure, Vindman might seem like a credi- ble, honorable witness — particularly given his subject-matter expertise and his impressive biography. But really this was all part of a (very) long con. He fled persecution in the Soviet Union as a child and was wounded while serving the U.S. Army in Iraq as an adult — all so that someday he could set up a future president by... accurately testifying about what that president said and did. The longest con of all, though, involves Trump’s European Union ambassador, Gordon Sondland. Sondland is a loyal Republican donor and was a bundler for Trump in 2016. He also gave more than $1 million to Trump’s inaugural committee through four differ- ent LLCs. Now you might think this donation history, coupled with Trump’s decision to award him an ambassador- ship, would inoculate him against accusa- tions of anti-Trump bias. Nope. After Sondland amended his testimony last week to confirm that there were indeed conditions placed on Ukraine before Trump would release military aid, Trump surrogates began impugning Sondland’s loyalties, too. This longtime GOP donor, it turns out, must secretly be a “deep-stater” i n cahoots with Democrats! “Why did Sondland change his testimony?” Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), a Trump ally, asked on Fox News. “Was there a connection between Sondland and Democratic operatives on the committee?” Indeed, what other possible explanation could there be for a Republican offering incriminating testimony about the president? Of course, there is a simpler way to interpret these accounts, and one that doesn’t require colorful conspiracy theories and secret double lives: that Trump did all the incriminating stuff in question. But as we head into the first public impeachment inquiry hearings this week, that straightforward Occam’s razor-esque explanation is the very last thing Trump- kins want voters to consider. They prefer confusion and discord. And so they invent improbable motives and complicated conspiracy theories involving cunning double agents. If voters hear hoofbeats, Te am Trump wants them to think not of horses or even zebras, but stampedes of unicorns. [email protected]

catherine rampell

Trump is history’s biggest dupe

I

f President Trump is impeached by the House without the vote of a single Republican, you know what? He’ll still be impeached, and for good reason. The same will be true if every Republi- can senator votes to acquit him. Partisan GOP solidarity might keep Trump in office — for another year — but it neither changes the facts as we know them nor absolves Congress of its constitutional responsibility. A decision by Republicans to put party loyalty ahead of the national interest cannot be allowed to derail this necessary process. Would a “partisan” impeachment di- vide the country? If you haven’t noticed, the nation is pretty divided already. It’s understandable to worry about the reaction of the nearly 45 percent of Americans who, according to the FiveThirtyEight average of polls, oppose impeachment and removal. But what about the 48 percent who support it? I put the word partisan in quotes because the House, in constitutional terms, i s acting not as “House Democrats” but as the House itself. The fact that the Democratic Party holds the majority does not absolve Speaker Nancy Pelosi or any other House member of the duty to hold Trump accountable for “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” If Trump grossly abused his power and committed bribery in his dealings with Ukraine, as evidence strongly indicates, the House has no choice. Tribalistic party identity is basically all the president’s defenders have left. They complained that the House had not taken a formal vote to proceed with impeachment... but then the House held such a vote. They complained that the House impeachment investigators were taking depositions of witnesses in secret

... but Republican committee members
already had access to those hearings. They
complained that transcripts of those in-
terviews had not been released... but
now they are being released, and one of
the loudest complainers, Sen. Lindsey O.
Graham (R-S.C.) says he will refuse to read
them. They complained that there had
been no public testimony that would
allow the American people to judge for
themselves... but a public phase of the
House investigation is beginning this
week, with the first witnesses scheduled
to appear Wednesday.
The latest diversionary Republican
complaint is that the whole process is
somehow illegitimate unless the anony-
mous whistleblower who brought the

Ukraine scandal to light is made to testify publicly. The problem with this contention is that the whistleblower’s secondhand sus- picions have long since been superseded by firsthand sources and documents, including the rough transcript of the phone call between Trump and Ukrainian Presi- dent Volodymyr Zelensky that was released by the White House. Republicans are basically arguing that an alleged ar- sonist, caught with a gas can in one hand and matches in the other, cannot be fairly tried without testimony from the passerby who saw a building on fire and called 911. You will note that all of the above arguments have to do with process, not substance. Evidence clearly indicates that Trump conditioned official acts — release of nearly $400 million in military aid and an invitation to the White House — on a commitment by Zelensky to meddle in the 2020 U.S. election. Republican members of Congress used to deny there was any quid pro quo, which in this case is Latin for bribery. Now they say there was, but it doesn’t rise to an impeachable offense. Assuming no exculpatory evidence sur- faces, articles of impeachment will surely be drafted and brought to the House floor. I hope that some Republicans — perhaps a number of the 20 who have announced they are retiring — vote conscience over party. But if the entire GOP caucus puts party before duty, so be it. Democrats and the lone independent congressman (former Republican Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan) will have honored their oath to defend the Constitution. Then would come a trial in the Senate. With the exception of Graham and a few others, most Republican senators are taking the position that since they are poten- tial jurors who may be called to sit in judgment of Trump, it would be improper for them to comment. I know for a fact that many of them are fully aware of how dangerously unfit Trump is to serve as president. I also know they greatly fear his wrath. Unless public airing of the evidence causes Trump to lose support among the GOP rank-and-file — which is possible but far from guaranteed — the Senate has to be considered highly unlike- ly to vote for removal. But that is not an outcome to fear. If Republicans in Congress fail to do their jobs, voters will have to do it for them. This is not a moment to calculate the political odds. It’s a moment to do the right thing. [email protected]

eugene robinson

Tribalistic party identity is all

Trump’s defenders have left

Calla Kessler/the Washington Post Then-U.S. Ambassdor to the United Nations Nikki Haley on Oct. 11, 2018.

Jonathan capehart

excerpted from washingtonpost.com/people/jonathan-capehart

Why it won’t be Bloomberg

Billionaire Michael Bloomberg would make an excellent president of the Unit- ed States. I’m not just saying that because I was a policy adviser on his first of three successful campaigns for mayor of New York. He started his 12-year tenure as mayor by pulling the city from the brink of economic oblivion after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and then presiding over a resurgent Big Apple in the years that followed. Still, if he does enter the Democratic primary, B loomberg won’t b e the nominee. If African Americans are the founda- tion of the Democratic Party and no candidate will win the nomination without their support, then Bloomberg’s vo- cal support of the New York City Police Department’s “stop and frisk” policy that targeted young African American and Latino men for police searches during his mayoralty will make his can- didacy a nonstarter for them. When Judge Shira Scheindlin ruled that the stops conducted by the NYPD were unconstitutional, Bloomberg called Scheindlin “an ideologically driv- en federal judge who has a history of ruling against the police,” adding, “When it comes to policing, political correctness is deadly.” That assertion was not borne out by statistics of police stops between 2004 and 2012 that were the basis of the judge’s ruling, which showed that the vast majority of those stopped were black or Hispanic, even though whites stopped were more likely

to have weapons or other contraband. Bloomberg and others argued that ending “stop and frisk” would increase crime, but that isn’t supported by the NYPD’s own data. “The number of reported police stops have dropped by a total of 98 percent since their peak in 2011,” r eported Politico late last year. “In that time, homicides have decreased 43 percent, while major index crimes have declined 9 percent.” For African Americans, “stop and frisk” was not some one-off police policy. It was a new technique in an old system of racial oppression that criminalized black and brown people, men in particu- lar. To argue in favor of it despite the innocent lives upended by it is to ignore the collective angst and anger that rip- ples through the overwhelming majority of the community that hasn’t done anything wrong. Bloomberg would enter the race for the Democratic nomination for president with a serious liability and no clear way to make it right. His reported decision to skip the four early states, which includes South Carolina, where blacks make up 60 percent of the Democratic electorate, compounds this problem. If Bloomberg were to succeed in be- coming the nominee, he possibly would have done so over the objections of African American voters. Come Novem- ber 2020, those voters could do what they have consistently done when they feel ignored: They could stay home. Thus, the candidate who jumped into the race because he was not satisfied that the current crop of candidates could beat President Trump could be the candidate who gets him reelected.

The Washington Post - 12.11.2019

Get our desktop app

Company

Features

Documentation

Resources