The evidence from the Ukraine affair clearly incriminates the U.S. president. But his party is ignoring the facts — or using the fact that he is mentally unstable as a defense.
Everyone knows the truth. Everyone knows what Donald Trump did. Even Trump, a notorious liar, cannot lie enough to obscure the truth. And the truth is this: The president of the United States of America abused his office and his power for his own political gain. He pressured the Ukrainian government to have its prosecutors investigate one of Trump’s domestic rivals, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.
Those are the facts. Whoever wants to know them, knows them. For that, it is not actually necessary to conduct the public hearings that the Democrats have begun in Congress. And in Washington there is no one other than Trump who is willing to further sabotage themselves by seriously questioning these facts.
But it’s easier to find Republican representatives and senators who ignore, excuse or downplay these facts; who pick on the Democrats for having brought these facts to light; or, in the most recent variant, acknowledge these facts, but also explain them away by saying that Trump — who is, after all, the man they otherwise praise as a really great president — is just intellectually too stunted and emotionally unstable to be made responsible for what he did.
That does not flatter the president. But as long as the Republicans keep talking like this, Trump really has nothing to worry about. His defense strategy against the impeachment proceedings consists of denouncing it as a partisan strike by the Democrats for revenge. That will only work as long as no Republican switches sides and favors impeachment. Thus, it is much more important for Trump that no Republican in the House of Representatives or the Senate votes against him than what his fellow party members actually say about him.
Trump Does What He Does
The Democrats know this. For this reason, starting Wednesday, they will question witnesses against Trump on live TV.* The goal is not to air new facts; it is to back the Republicans into a corner. The Democrats want to raise the political price that Republicans have to pay for defending a president who violated his oath of office.
If Trump were dependent on the loyalty or even the affection of the Republicans in Congress, then he might as well pack his bags. Neither loyalty nor affection of those Republicans exists in sufficient quantities to guarantee that he will remain in office. Instead, the president is counting on base fears to save him: the Republican representatives’ fear that their own party’s followers will revolt and throw them out if they take a stand against Trump, and the party’s fear that they will lose next year’s presidential election if they dispose of their candidate now by impeaching him.
The fear that America’s democracy may be irreparably damaged if Trump continues to govern does not outweigh the Republicans’ fear of becoming the opposition party. That is also part of the truth: Trump does what he does. But it is the Republicans’ cowardice that lets him get away with it.
*Editor’s note: Hearings before the U.S. House Intelligence Committee began on Nov. 13, 2019 and concluded on Nov. 21, 2019.
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