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In opposing Trump and the GOP the Dems have an embarrassment of riches. However, that in itself is something of challenge. How do they frame it to voters? There’s a danger in talking about everything you talk about nothing-at least that gets through to the voters.

With the latest bombshell of Chris Collins being arrested for insider trading, some are arguing the Democrats ought not to talk so much about Russia but more about a general GOP ‘culture of corruption.’

First of all, it has to be noted that Collins is a true Trumpist: just like the illegitimate ‘President’ Collins tried to hide his crimes by committing them in plain sight. It’s quite appropriate that he was the first Congressman to endorse Trump and was his liaison to Congress; after the election he was on the transition team. He was caught talking to his son about the drug at the WH picnic. How Trumpian!

“Rep. Chris Collins’ indictment on insider trading charges sent ripples through Washington on Wednesday. Collins, the first member of Congress to endorse Donald Trump for president, was key in supporting Mr. Trump early on.”

“One of the most pivotal moments in the prosecution’s case actually, allegedly, took place at the White House picnic last year. CBS News’ Sara Cook and Arden Farhi uncovered video of Collins on the phone, at what appears to be the same time federal investigators claim Collins was making a call to his son to tell him to sell stock in Australian biotech company Innate.”

Apparently no one in Washington-Democrat or Republican-feels in any way sorry for him, feeling that he got his just desserts.

But the bigger picture is how should the Dems message this embarrassment in a way that covers all the important bases and not got bogged down precisely because there’s so much to work with?

As noted above, there’s the argument that they should run against a GOP ‘culture of corruption’ similar to what Nancy Pelosi and the House Dems ran on in 2006. This was certainly an effective strategy then.

“But what was a successful strategy more than a decade ago — Democrats seized both the House and Senate majorities in 2006 by promising to “drain the swamp” — might be a lot harder to pull off in a political landscape that’s light years different.”

“It’s become so rampant. You have a corrupt Cabinet, from one Cabinet member after the next. It’s not just Chris Collins,” Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.) said in an interview when asked why she thought Democrats’ strategy would still resonate.

“It’s this steady drip, drip, drip, and it’s one scandal on top of the next on top of the next. I think there’s a severe fatigue about this kind of behavior.”

“Democrats know they’re operating in a political environment that bears little resemblance to the last time they won the House, upended by a president who has shattered many of the long-embedded political norms held by both parties.”

Actually Trump ran on ‘drain the swamp’-as outrageous as it was he was allowed to get away with that in 2016. Chris Collins himself is quite as the NY Post put it a swamp thing. 

I don’t think the problem is necessarily that corruption charges can’t stick. It’s just that there are so many examples of it-Wilbur Ross, Ryan Zinke, Steve Mnuchin, Betsey DeVos, the list is so long.

Nor does it seem that outrage is gone-just that it’s selective. What would destroy other politicians evidently doesn’t destroy Trump. There was plenty of outrage over the fake scandal about the email server.

On the other hand, I think there’s a fallacy that Trump is teflon. He’s got a 40% approval rating in an economy that’s pretty strong according to many metrics-though wage growth remains weak. If anything the 40% approval rating is artificially high due to the GOP doing what investigations into Russia they have done behind closed doors-with the GOP House shutting it down way prematurely back in February.

UPDATE: So I wrote this way back on August 12, 2018-hard to believe nine months have passed since then. The Dems won a historic victory on November 8, 2016 focusing mostly on healthcare. This has led to some arguing the Dems should do the same thing in 2020. I personally think this is a mistake. It’s clear that even if the Dems mostly talked about protecting the ACA many voters chose them in the belief there would be oversight of an out of control, lawless ‘President.’

Indeed, what’s amazing in retrospect is that while I complained above about the way the GOP has done whatever investigations they did into Trump behind closed doors-we know the Nunes investigation was woefully insufficient-see Chapter A-since the Dems took over in January they have held one public hearing-Cohen in March. They were supposed to hear from Felix Sater but then Bill Barr put out his fake exoneration letter and that somehow led Adam Schiff to cancel his hearing.

Since the redacted Mueller Report came out on April 22 there have been no public hearings. The House Dem leaders have pushed back on impeachment arguing we need to do public hearings to educate the public-yet where are the public hearings? There are plenty of witnesses you could put forward now. So it is that it’s five months in to Dem House leadership and there’s been 1 public hearing. It’s hard to argue that at this point it’s not just the GOP co-conspirators but also the feckless Dem opposition enabling ‘President Trump.’

End of UPDATE

What I think is the real issue is that corruption is one thing and it’s rampant. Trump promised to drain the swamp but has instead filled it with alligators. We’ve never seen this level of corruption in a WH or at least since Warren Harding. But the bigger picture is that corruption is bad collusion with a hostile foreign power is worse. It’s like Bill Maher put it: if you can’t make treason a campaign issue, maybe you ought to disband as a party.

If anything talking about a culture of corruption risks marginalizing the culture of collusion and obstruction. As Devin Nunes hot mic moment reveals, the GOP has chosen to abdicate its role as providing oversight and instead serve as Trump’s protectors and co-conspirators.

So I’m all for discussing the culture of corruption if this doesn’t overshadow the culture of collusion and obstruction. Greg Sargent does a pretty good job at finding a way not to lose either thread. He  puts Nunes’ involuntary ‘confession’ in this context:

“This is a straight-up declaration that the imperiled GOP congressional majority is the last line of protection for Trump, given that his attorney general is not defending the president from the Russia investigation, and given that the investigation could, in fact, pose a threat to him.”

UPDATE 2.0: We had thought the GOP House was his last line of defense until we got a load of the Dem House who Trump has conned into thinking impeachment is a trap for them. 

It might have seemed that the GOP House-Nunes, Paul Ryan, Mark Meadows, Jim Jordan was Trump’s last line of defense but that was before we saw Steny Hoyer in action.

End of UPDATE 2.0

“In this audio, Nunes is forthrightly declaring that the importance of maintaining the GOP majority lies in the need for it to continue carrying out this campaign. What’s really devastating about this quote is that it positions the GOP majority as a kind of backstop for Trump, should his attorney general keep failing in his duty to protect him from the investigation, a task, of course, that Trump himself has demanded Sessions carry out.”

“Indeed, Nunes has now directly implicated the House GOP leadership in this damning picture. McMorris Rodgers is no. 4 in the leadership, and in the audio, she doesn’t take issue with Nunes’s floating of the possibility of post-election impeachment of Rosenstein. This neatly highlights how GOP leaders have cleverly obscured their involvement in Nunes’s campaign, by publicly defending the Mueller probe, even as they tacitly encourage Nunes to continue undermining it. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan should now face questions about this new Nunes audio, particularly Nunes’s portrayal of the GOP majority as Trump’s last-resort protector.”

UPDATE 3.0:

Of course, now Trump does have an AG to protect him-Coverup AG Barr. Regarding Rosenstein it turned out he was their ally all along-I’ll make sure you’re treated fairly I can land the plane. For more See Chapter A.

Regarding Mueller now that the report is out the GOP is opposing Mueller testifying publicly and having the full unredacted report. True Nunes did actually co-sign a letter with Adam Schiff to release the unredacted report and the underlying counterintelligence but he opposed Schiff sending a subpoena after Barr failed to comply.

End of UPDATE 3.0

Yes, Ryan needs to be pushed on what Nunes’ says on that tape. Rick Wilson in his new book discusses how Paul Ryan has let Nunes ‘run buck wild’ to please the Trump caucus in the House and keep them in line. 

Back to Sargent:

“The midterm elections are partly about whether we will get a Congress that functions as a real check on our out-of-control president. Majorities in competitive House districts have said they want this check, and large national majorities view the Mueller probe as legitimate and disagree with Trump’s portrayal of it as a “witch hunt.”

“It is sometimes argued that Democrats should make the midterms about Trump’s seamy culture of corruption, rather than about Russia. But the Nunes audio demonstrates that Democrats can point to those two things as part of the same story. Whether it’s Trump’s profiteering off the presidency and his refusal to release his tax returns, which might shed light on his self-dealing — or his efforts to derail scrutiny of the corruption of our democracy on his behalf, and of the real reasons he continues to absolve Russia of culpability for it — Trump is counting on a GOP Congress to shield him from accountability and to allow him to operate with impunity.”

It has become obvious that the only way we are going to get serious oversight of Trump is if Democrats take control of the House. Nunes has now helpfully confirmed this as clearly as anyone could want.

Indeed, as NY Dem Congressman Hakeem Jeffries put it last night, in the House you have the ‘coverup’ caucus currently running the show.

As for messaging, I don’t agree that it has to be one side fits all. But I think that a message that can appeal to both the base and the moderates and independents-as well as many recovering Republicans like Jennifer Rubin, Steve Schmidt, and George Will- is that we need a Democratic Congress as a check on Trump. He can no longer be allowed to act with impunity. Wether it’s about his the Trump Russia White House’s swamp-Wilbur Ross who is accused of stealing $120 million dollars from his associates or Trump’s reprehensible zero tolerance policy on immigration, or his failed Puerto Rico response:

or finally getting his tax returns or reopening the Russia investigation and having public hearings, as the public has a right to know about what happened in its own elections, and that’s the only way for there to be closure and ending our legitimacy crisis-it’s time for a check on Trump: a Democratic Congress.

The choice is very simple my friends: we either allow Nunes and Trump to consolidate his illegitimate regime, or we #MakeAmericaLegitimateAgain

UPDATE 4.0: But again it needs to be asked-is the Dem leadership now doing the same thing? As Applebaum notes sometimes it seems the one thing Pelosi and Trump agree on is impeachment.

End of UPDATE 4.0

 

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