4 Years Like This?

The brutal dismissal of James Comey, FBI director, by Donald Trump is the culminating, but entirely emblematic peak of the extraordinary circus number that is the presidency of Donald Trump. The apotheosis of the “society of the spectacle,” announced by Guy Debord precisely 50 years ago.*

Repeated excesses of a “child president” who is 70 years old, contempt for all traditions, abysmal ignorance of files, proliferation of insults, provocations, faux pas, caprices and whimsical tweets at 3 a.m…

This breathless media saga gives us the impression that this man has been in the White House for well over three months and three weeks.

It’s a paradox because on the subject of legislative accomplishments, this presidency has practically nothing to show for itself. Certain spectacular executive orders have hit the wall of reality, of judiciary disagreement and injunctions. Even the announcements of private investments (and of jobs created or saved) that the president connects to his magical presence are nearly all overinflated or untruthful.

At most, because of the rest of the world, the worst has not happened until now, thanks to some less whimsical or less partisan nominations (Rex Tillerson for the Department of State, James Mattis for the Defense), which had the effect of preventing derailment and of more or less keeping U.S. foreign policy on track.

But with the “Comey case,” a new boundary has been crossed. We could speak of political chaos in Washington. A question arises: How long could this last? Can Donald Trump really continue and finish his term in office with the rise in imprecations, intimidation, and attacks on the separation of powers? Won’t he end up exploding in midflight?

More specifically: Is it conceivable now that he will undergo an impeachment procedure?

The question seemed premature a month ago. Today, with the president’s dismissal of an intelligence chief who was investigating precisely the legitimacy of the 2016 election – with the apparent involvement of Russia to aid the Republicans – everything leads us to believe that there has been a will to snuff out the truth, to intimidate or to push off to the side those who could have made it apparent.

After all, an impeachment procedure has been initiated in the U.S. for a lot less. I am referring to Bill Clinton and his lies (under oath) in 1998 concerning his illicit relationship with Monica Lewinsky. An affair that had driven the Republican opposition to madness (even if, at the end, it did not destroy Clinton).

The constitutional reasons for impeaching a president are “crimes or serious misdemeanors,” or mental illness.

Since Jan. 20, Trump has hired (with full awareness) one or more advisers with financial ties to a hostile power (Russia); he has profited from dividends of companies that are active abroad; he has put in the White House members of his family who are active in these companies; he has refused to publish his taxes; has declared as “illegitimate” judges who spoke against his policies; denounced the media as the “enemy of the people;” accused thousands of people of “voting illegally” against him; and in the Comey case, he has probably intimidated witnesses and obstructed justice!

We could go on. For a fraction of all this, if the current president were a Democrat (and Republicans had a majority in Congress), the impeachment procedures would already be underway … oh yeah!

The problem is that impeachment is both a judicial and political procedure. Those who investigate the case at hand are the representatives in the House, and those who pass judgment later are the senators.

Yet, in both cases, we have Republican majorities, and nearly all of the Republican members of Congress (except for a handful of senators) have until now behaved as yes-men for the White House.

Will there be a serious investigation of the “Russian scandal” that haunts Trump? If so, who can lead it after last week’s political purge? Will Republican elected officials change their minds on Trump if the scandal swells up? Could the majority in Congress shift during the 2018 elections?

The answers to these questions will let us know whether Trump will do his four years or not.

*Editor’s note: Guy Debord was a French Marxist theorist, writer, and filmmaker who died in November, 1994. He was the author of the 1967 book “The Society of the Spectacle.”