I have been fixated on the expression - an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure - but in this case applied to our national politics, particularly the Big Lie and the events in and around 1/6. The rhetoric from the House Committee recently mentioned that their purpose was in large part to prevent a situation like this from happening again. I have no quibbles with that. But they seemed to contain their investigation to the time interval between the November election and the events in question. What about earlier? Wouldn’t that be where to look for that ounce of prevention?
The House Committee itself was likely constrained from doing so. They already had quite a bit on their plate with getting detailed information about more contemporaneous events that were clearly within the scope of their investigation. Looking at earlier events would open them up to accusations of overreach and thereby lessen the impact of their findings. But that shouldn’t prevent others from doing so, if only in a speculative manner. I’m going to do some of that in the rest of this post.
There are questions that immediately pop up in doing this. How far back should one go? What sort of events should one look for to find some prevention? I don’t have great answers to these questions. What I feel comfortable saying here is that as a rule we are not very prescient. Thus, taking the prevention soon before it is needed is desirable, if possible. But if the event doesn’t provide much in the way of prevention then one must look elsewhere; quite possibly one must look earlier.
The event I will focus on is the first Impeachment and Senate Trial of Donald Trump. In doing this analysis, I will rely on this explanatory piece from Vox, which I found helpful to understand things, although on one key point I will take issue with what they say.
https://www.vox.com/c/2020/2/6/20914280/impeachment-trump-explained
I will assume that the House Impeached Trump, as actually happened. But then we’ll consider the counter factual, where the Senate finds Trump guilty. The questions we’ll consider are these:
1) Would a guilty verdict serve as an effective preventive, in the sense discussed above?
2) Assuming that Pence would become President after a guilty verdict in the Senate, what would be the likely consequences of that?
3) Given the answers to both #1 and #2, would enough Republican Senators rationally vote for a guilty verdict that such a verdict is obtained?
In considering each of these questions there is a lot of uncertainty to reckon with. So answers certainly shouldn’t be considered as definitive and probably are closer to pure speculation. Nonetheless, I think that working through to those answers is useful, which is why I’m writing this post.
In my recollection, there was little blowback from Trump about the first Impeachment, though perhaps that was because he had assurances that the Senate would find him innocent. Surely there would be substantially more blowback if he thought a guilty verdict were possible and even more blowback if he thought such a verdict was likely.
Given the nature of the crime he was charged with, there would be no Big Lie. Instead, the blowback would likely focus on the Deep State. While this might do damage to the “national fabric” l think there would be far less damage than has happened under the Big Lie.
What about collateral damage from MAGA types who are coordinated by Trump? We should expect some of that, but how much of it will be harder to determine. Here is what can be readily determined.
During the actual Senate trial, no witnesses were called. The duration of the trial was less than the two months between the November election and 1/6. If a guilty verdict had been a serious possibility, witnesses would have been called. This would lengthen the trial, giving Trump and the MAGA types more time to , coordinate and a larger time window in which to identify a date for disruptive action.
As to whether other dates might offer similar opportunities for disruption as to what happened on 1/6, I really can’t say. I’m out of my element here. But my guess is that when in the calendar the disruption happens should matter. During regular work weeks when most students are in school, the opportunities for disruption lessen.
If that’s right, then a guilty verdict would offer some prevention but not full prevention. And then we surely would quibble about how much prevention it would offer. Let me leave it there and move onto the next question.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg was still alive during that first Impeachment trial. If Pence became President at the trial’s conclusion, there is then the question of what he would do regarding filling her seat on the Supreme Court after she passed. Would he not nominate anyone and leave that choice to the next President? Or would he do as Trump had done and nominate a very Conservative candidate?
Then there is the matter of the 2020 election. Presumably, Pence would be the Republican candidate for President. I suspect he would be regarded as a weak candidate. The perceived impact on downstream races would be negative. Of course, the voter perception of Trump’s guilt matters.
Let’s keep that voter perception as separate from his actual guilt or innocence. (The Vox piece argues that he actually was guilty.) Republican voters and Democratic voters will differ in their perceptions. And among the Republican voters there might be substantial variation in perception.
As I write this I’m trying to recall my attitude to Gerald Ford when he became President. Everyone I knew hated Nixon. But I’m convinced that if Ford hadn’t pardoned Nixon he would have won the election in 1976. Likewise, might a Pence Presidency experience goodwill across the board? That seems possible, though how likely that would be I really don’t know.
The upshot is that on purely political grounds, keeping Trump as President looks like a safer play to a Republican Senator. The Vox article is useful in reminding us that the Democrats in the House were also political in not having an Impeachment based on the Mueller Report because it didn’t say explicitly that crimes were committed. This in spite of the fact that the public was much more aware of Mueller’s investigation than they were of Trump’s manipulations with Zelenskyy. (Vox blamed this on Mueller being a Republican. I think the real blame lies in the charge Rod Rosenstein gave to Mueller not to look at Trump’s financial dealings with Russia. Plus Barr may have indicated to Mueller to tone down the language in the Report if the findings were suggestive rather than definitive.)
I suppose that the best we can expect is for Members of Congress to have dual motives in the Impeachment process. One would be to seek truth. The other would be to follow political inclinations. And one might also hope that the severity of the crime determines which motive wins out.
But that is just a hope
If we return to what actually happened, it appears that Senate Republicans whitewashed the Impeachment trial. That makes it seem there was a conspiracy between them and Trump. If that is correct, the amount of preventative in the Impeachment itself is essentially nil.
* * * * *
I think there is a logical problem in considering Trump as the source of the problem but then ignoring the role played by Republicans in Congress in enabling Trump. An effective preventative needs to deter such enablement.
In the novelette that I have recently written, I try to work through this idea. But it is fiction rather than an essay, or a series of essays, because some of the ideas seem so improbable that they will strain credulity, especially at first. The reader needs to get past that to give the full set of ideas a fair hearing.
https://uofi.box.com/s/c9ufajuqt8to9k0paqvbdpwc8k52920r
