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As James Fallows points out much of the institutional fabric of our US system has held up pretty well against Trump’s authoritarian -the courts, federal agencies, the media.

“I think this assessment (by me), from six months into Trump’s tenure, stands up now—and is strengthened by the felony convictions of Trump’s 2016 campaign chair (Paul Manafort) and the guilty pleas to felony charges by his longtime personal lawyer (Michael Cohen):

More parts of the formal and informal U.S. constitutional system are still functioning more normally than might have been expected six months ago. Members of the judiciary are applying standards that predate this administration, and administration officials have complained but complied. A special counsel is building his staff and pursuing his work, with every indication that if Donald Trump were to fire him, some Republicans (along with all Democrats) would object and resist …

As for the non-governmental parts of civic structure, the press has—overall—worked harder and more successfully to pick its way through this new terrain than most people might have foreseen, or feared … Compared with what you might have expected six months ago, reporters and editors have succumbed less either to “normalization” of historically unusual behavior, or boredom or distraction from matters of consequence, than they might have.

And the signs of engagement by Americans who, unlike reporters or civil servants aren’t paid to concern themselves with public affairs, are unmistakable: demonstrations and protests around the country to resist the proposed health-care law or to protect immigrants and refugees. Mayors and governors vowing to pursue climate-policy goals, even if the national government does not. Organized movements and individual decisions attracting new candidates for the hard work of running for office, at levels from Congress down to state and city elections, and including larger numbers of women and veterans of our recent wars.

“That’s the good news. Tentative. Fought out every day. Still potentially jeopardized by the next authoritarian spasm from the man in charge of the executive branch. Not enough to offset damage that has already been done, in realms ranging from environmental protection, to domestic race relations, to whatever other areas you might name.”

“Still: The struggle for the country’s values and future continues, as a struggle, rather than as a settled and tragic result. The complex institutional fabric of the country has proven more tenacious and resilient than many people might have guessed or feared. A generation from now, the verdict on our era could be: irrecoverable tragedy. But that verdict is not yet determined.”

But as Fallows notes, there is a disappointment: the utter failure of the GOP Congress to provide any kind of meaningful oversight on the illegitimate ‘President.’

“If  there is  a surprise, a disappointment, and a settled tragedy so far? There is. It is the same one I described last year, in the first summer of the Trump age:

“The major weakness these six months have revealed in our governing system is almost too obvious to mention, but I’ll name it anyway. It is the refusal, so far, by any significant Republican figure in Congress to apply to Donald Trump the standards its members know the country depends on for long-term survival of its government. A system of checks and balances relies on each of its component branches resisting overreach by the others. The judiciary has done its part; Paul Ryan’s House and Mitch McConnell’s Senate have not. We’re seeing the difference that can make.”

It hasn’t gotten any better than when Fallows wrote these words in 2017 -to the contrary, the GOP Congress has only gotten more cravenly partisan, less willing to fight back against Trump’s authoritarianism and obstruction; to the contrary, they’ve done everything they can to collude with Trump’s obstruction.

What I’ve noticed is that even some previously relative Trump skeptical GOPers like Lindsay Graham have become far more obsequious starting with about September of 2017-for whatever reason since then Graham and most GOPers have been totally unwilling to take a stand against Trump no matter how mild.

Over the last year, we’ve seen the GOP Congress-where the blatant collusion with Trump’s obstruction has been particularly pronounced-prematurely shutdown the Russia investigation while claiming ‘no evidence of collusion’ though they didn’t even look for any evidence while opening up a parallel investigation into the investigators-the FBI, the DOJ, the NSA-while of course, at the same time reopening investigations into Uranium One, and, yes, the damn emails.

Regarding the metamorphosis of Lindsay Graham, he had previously vowed there would be holy hell if Trump fired Sessions, now he seems to be all but encouraging him to do so. 

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has made a 180 on President Donald Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

“Last year, Graham said there would be “holy hell” if Trump fired Sessions, but now he is more than fine with it.”

“The president is entitled to an attorney general he has faith in,” Graham said on Thursday. “And I think there will come a time sooner rather than later where it will be time to have a new face and a fresh voice at the Department of Justice.”

“That’s in stark contrast to what he said in July 2017.”

“I’m 100 percent behind Jeff Sessions,” Graham told CNN then. “There will be no confirmation hearing for a new attorney general in 2017. If Jeff Sessions is fired, there will be holy hell to pay.”

“Trump has hammered away at Sessions over a number of issues, but is largely upset that the attorney general recused himself from the Russia investigation. In an interview that aired on Thursday, the president told Fox News that he only gave Sessions the job out of loyalty and claimed the attorney general “never took control” over his department.

“Sessions hit back later in the day with a statement saying the department “will not be improperly influenced by political considerations.”

Note that Sessions in-finally-standing up for himself and his agency a little is putting himself on the side of the US institutions that have held up well under Trump’s authoritarian onslaught. Some are almost ready to lionize Sessions. Let’s not get too carried away. Sessions has been on the front lines of Trump’s war with people of color both in rolling back civil rights and ‘zero tolerance’ which is in fact zero logic and zero compassion

UPDATE: More recently we’ve learned a lot more about Sessions’ role in firing McCabe and instructing his subordinates to lie about when Sessions learned he was under FBI investigation for lying-actually January, 2018 two months before he fired McCabe rather as he falsely claimed and told his staff to claim-in March around the same time he fired McCabe.

Then there’s still the issue that Jason Wilson claims Papadopoulos told him in a Chicago sports bar in March 2018 that he told Jeff Sessions what Mifsud told him about the incriminating emails the Russians had on Clinton.

End of UPDATE.

All things being equal you’d love to see an unreconstructed segregationist like Sessions fired and as far away from the Department of Justice as possible. Indeed, Trump was right for a profoundly wrong reason when he declared that the DOJ is now the Department of Injustice. In a way it is but because Sessions is an unreconstructed segregationist not because he recused himself from the Russia probe.

That’s the one thing he did that was  right and good-he finally defended the agency. Note though that I don’t want Trump to fire him because it’s for the wrong reason-because Sessions recused himself. After Trump fired Comey he expressed surprise that the Democrats weren’t happy-hadn’t they been vociferous critics of Comey’s actions in costing Hillary the election? As Scott Sumner pointed out at the time, what Trump failed to understand is that process matters. 

“Trump thought the Dems would be elated by his firing of Comey, because many Democrats had called for the same—outraged by the FBI director’s treatment of Hillary in the final stages of the campaign.  What Trump didn’t understand is that certain things just aren’t done.  And one of those taboos is firing the head of the FBI because you are angry that he is investigating links between the Russian government and some of your top campaign officials.  I see this same flaw in many commenters; they underestimate the importance of process, and focus entirely on content.  Comey may have deserved being fired (I have no opinion), but it is not acceptable to fire a top law enforcement official because that person is investigating your administration.”

“It’s just not done.”

Correct which is why I don’t want to see Sessions fired. There are a lot of good reasons to fire him but his failure to protect Trump from the Russia investigation is not one of them.

UPDATE 2.0: Sessions was fired after the election for precisely this wrong reason and as bad and as big as a joke as Trump’s interim AG Matthew Whittaker was-Emptywheel always refers to him as the Big Dick Toilet Salesman Coverup AG Bill Barr is worse as unlike Big Dick Toilet Salesman, the Coverup AG specialist was effective at setting a dishonest narrative and continuing to obstruct a full public airing of the report-holding back the full unredacted report-as well as three investigations into the basis for the Russia investigation-investigating the investigators.

End of UPDATE 2.0

As for Graham, his metamorphosis is similar to what most Republicans have undergone. Chuck Grassley has also clearly changed his tune.

“Earlier in the day, GOP leaders had moved quickly to quell a rebellion against Sessions sparked by Graham’s remarks. Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R.-Iowa) had chimed in to say that he, too, was open to confirming another attorney general.”

Last year Grassley had claimed there was no time to confirm another AG. Now he is saying ‘I didn’t have time last year, but I have time this year.’

Yes that was before Trump signed the GOP fake tax reform scam.

“Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 3 GOP leader, said in an interview with POLITICO: “Do we really want to go through that kind of confirmation fight? Is there anybody we can confirm? Our conference supports Jeff. Our members are behind him. At least that’s the message they’ve tried to convey to him.”

“The Senate majority whip, John Cornyn of Texas, echoed those concerns.”

“It would be bad for the country, it would be bad for the president, it would be bad for the Department of Justice for him to be forced out under these circumstances,” Cornyn told reporters.

Sure, but at this point there’s ambiguity-who can really be assured the GOP Senate won’t give its blessing to fire Sessions in the future? And Trump is very clear on why he wants to fire him: because he recused himself. So Trump’s next AG would vow not to recuse?

No, my friends, it’s very clear: we need a Democratic Congress or Trump consolidates his illegitimate regime. If you think the GOP is complicit now, watch them after the election if they hold onto the House.

Let’s #MakeAmericaLegitimateAgain and elect a Democratic Congress.

UPDATE 3.0 From the standpoint of the present-today is May 18, 2019 the picture looks quite different.

Regarding the picture Fallows drew in July, 2017 it’s much less clear today. Let’s read his words again:

More parts of the formal and informal U.S. constitutional system are still functioning more normally than might have been expected six months ago. Members of the judiciary are applying standards that predate this administration, and administration officials have complained but complied. A special counsel is building his staff and pursuing his work, with every indication that if Donald Trump were to fire him, some Republicans (along with all Democrats) would object and resist …

As for the non-governmental parts of civic structure, the press has—overall—worked harder and more successfully to pick its way through this new terrain than most people might have foreseen, or feared … Compared with what you might have expected six months ago, reporters and editors have succumbed less either to “normalization” of historically unusual behavior, or boredom or distraction from matters of consequence, than they might have.

And the signs of engagement by Americans who, unlike reporters or civil servants aren’t paid to concern themselves with public affairs, are unmistakable: demonstrations and protests around the country to resist the proposed health-care law or to protect immigrants and refugees. Mayors and governors vowing to pursue climate-policy goals, even if the national government does not. Organized movements and individual decisions attracting new candidates for the hard work of running for office, at levels from Congress down to state and city elections, and including larger numbers of women and veterans of our recent wars.

As noted above while the Mueller Report did reach its conclusion and we did we receive a large portion of material there’s a crucial fight for the rest of it along with the counterintel material. Coverup AG Barr is doing everything to keep as much buried as he can and his helping Trump ‘fight all the subpoenas’ as Trump put it.

Even if it seems we received a large portion of the report the new information we’re receiving thanks to Judge Emmet Sullivan in the Michael Flynn shows how crucial it is that the remaining redacted parts are shown to Congress and at least in time the public. Kudos to Judge Sullivan for appreciating the stakes even if the Dem Congress often seems not to.

 

As for what Fallows said about the press it’s less clear now than it was then that this is the case.

Compared with what you might have expected six months ago, reporters and editors have succumbed less either to “normalization” of historically unusual behavior, or boredom or distraction from matters of consequence, than they might have.”

Recently there’s been a clear case of the MSM trying to play the Mueller Fatigue card-there were endless predictions about the end of the Mueller probe and when it finally came the mainstream press totally freaked out.

TOTAL EXONERATION NO COLLUSION NO OBSTRUCTION the press exclaimed after a few short sentences from Bill Barr’s misleading memo.

On the night of Barr’s fake exoneration letter-before he even read it-Kasie Hunt declared that ‘people are tired of the Mueller investigation.’

This fatigue gambit was reminiscent of the game the MSM played with Clinton in 2014 when Chuck Todd stated ‘I don’t think the public has Clinton fatigue I think the media does’-see Chapter A.

Katty Kay was even more blatant about the Beltway media’s intentions after reports that folks from the Mueller probe were unhappy with the way Coverup Barr had characterized the investigation.

What this clearly shows is the desire of the MSM to move on from Mueller. This has been made impossible with subsequent events-Mueller himself wrote a letter to Barr complaining of the Coverup AG’s mischaracterizing his work. 

Now we have the report itself and the Dems are pursuing the full report and witness testimony though as Beutler suggests they are not being aggressive enough.

Still the ‘smart set’ have largely treated the fight between Trump and Congress as ‘political squabbling’ rather than a constitutional crisis.

When they do discuss impeachment it’s always from the lens of ‘will it backfire politically for the Democrats?’

The MSM in 2019 does seem largely distracted by trivia and losing sight of the forest for the trees. There seems to be a clear desire to pivot to a normal election season.

Indeed the the MSM has so normalized this illegitimate ‘President’ Dan Balz now thinks he’s Obama’s twin-wish we were kidding.

To not normalize Trump means to stop always immediately looking for historical corollaries to him but I notice nowadays with every new outrage the MSM pundits will furrow their brows and reach for examples of other-legitimate-Presidents doing the same exact thing.

But then the MSM couldn’t possibly treat Trump more gently compared to how it treated Clinton during Whitewater-Monica Lewsnisky et al.

Speaking of the Democrats that’s another part of the picture that is at least worrisome. Since the Dems took over Congress in January of this year they’ve often seemed not much more eager than the GOP House was to really hold Trump accountable.

The Dem leaders are also falling for the canard about ‘impeaching Trump at the ballot box’ that really misses the point. Even if they win an election after not holding Trump accountable the Rule of Law will be dead. 

FN: This is a very good piece by Alternet though even they fall into the canard that ‘impeachment will likely fail’-wrong! Even if there’s no ultimate conviction and removal that doesn’t mean ‘impeachment has failed’ impeachment is simply a vote by the House to indict-if it has the votes to pass it’s already succeeded if McConnell and Friends abdicate their roles to protect Trump that doesn’t somehow mean impeachment ‘failed.’

UPDATE: Now we have a Republican going further than the Dem leaders are willing to go.

That is the key- as Abraham Lincoln himself said it’s not about political expediency but about principle.

As I argued in Chapter A the issue of the political calculus of impeachment is kind of ambiguous-which is why a Nate Silver-who only looks at positive not normative issues-will never feel like impeachment makes any sense-after all, if Congress should only impeach an unpopular President-or in Trump’s case ‘President’-then you fall into the trap of the Dem leaders-let’s just impeach him at the ballot box’

Indeed as Elizabeth Drew documents in her wonderful deep dive on impeachment the Framers had this debate in the Federalist Papers-Hamilton and Madison considered and ultimately rejected the idea that if a President is engaging in maladministration you just beat him in the next election. But from a purely expedient viewpoint it’s never clear why impeachment would be needed-after all if the President is so self evidently bad the voters will ‘impeach him at the ballot box.’

The trouble is if the Dems play this canard here it will mean as David Jolly points out that the Democrats allow history to have a harsher rebuke of Clinton than Trump.

Indeed, there’s a very legitimate concern that if Trump isn’t impeached despite the illegitimate way he gained his Office and the abuse of power and obstruction he’s engaged in while in office-added to his always intensifying maladministration and the fact that he’s a legitimate national security threat-hence the importance of Adam Schiff demanding not just the full, unredacted Mueller Report but the underlying intelligence–then the Rule of Law and Precedent have been desecrated-how in the future can any President be held accountable for anything?

The only way to save all the norms shattered by ‘President Trump’ is to impeach him so that History will offer a clear rebuke.

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