When the history of this period is written, the smears against honest and decent law enforcement officials by political shills will warrant detailed treatment. — Benjamin Wittes (@benjaminwittes) December 22, 2017 Yascha Mounk, at NYRDaily, “If Trump Fires Mueller⊔: A year ago, during those foreboding months in which Donald Trump had already been elected but …
Excellent Read: “If Trump Fires Mueller⊔Post + Comments (110)
Like more than a hundred thousand other Americans, I recently took a pledge to take to the streets the moment Mueller is fired (if he is). Perhaps our protests will make a difference. Perhaps they will even manage to shame those supposedly moderate Republicans who have, again and again, proven to be astoundingly unwilling to live up to their professed principles. For now, the other branches of government still retain the power to check the president: Congress could, for example, revive the independent counsel statute, allowing Mueller to be reinstated without fear of further interference from the executive. This would go a long way toward containing the damage Trump is trying to wreak…
… [O]ur resolution for 2018 should be to defend our institutions in a more proactive manner. When Trump and his supporters start to signal what outrage they might commit next, we need to immediately bring maximum pressure to bear on the most persuadable members of the presidentâs coalition. Doing so will be difficult and exhausting for the resistance. But a great prize beckons: If we manage to defend the basic rules and norms of the American republic over the next twelve months, and Democrats win back control of the House or the Senate (or both) in the midterm elections, the hour of greatest danger will have passed…
Bonus op-ed, from Mr. Mounk, “The Real Coup Plot Is Trumpâs”:
… Now, as Mr. Trump and his allies seem on the verge of staging a coup against independent institutions and the rule of law â maligning the special counsel Robert Mueller and threatening a purge at the F.B.I. â the presidentâs supporters are appropriating yet another word for themselves. Mr. Muellerâs investigation aims to âdestroyâ the Trump presidency âfor partisan political purposes and to disenfranchise millions of American voters,â the Fox News host Jesse Watters claimed on Saturday. âWe have a coup on our hands in America.â
This marks a new era in American politics. The Republican Party is no longer just obfuscating the truth or defending the president when he is accused of wrongdoing. Rather, Mr. Trump, Fox News and Republicans in Congress seem to be actively using falsehoods to prepare an assault on the institutions that allow American democracy to function…
The rapid degeneration of the public sphere in Turkey, India and Hungary can teach us two important lessons: First, up can become down and legitimate investigations can turn into supposed coups only if a few politicians and journalists are shameless enough to repeat blatant lies over and over again. Second, and more important, these lies can justify a power grab by the executive only if many more politicians and journalists are willing to stand by instead of calling those outrageous calumnies what they are.
This is why the pundits and politicians who have helped to delegitimize Mr. Mueller and his investigation over the past weeks are making themselves active accomplices in a deliberate assault on our democracy. But it is also why those who have failed to condemn these attacks â like Paul Ryan, the speaker of the House, and Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader â are equally to blame…