A Republic, If You Can Keep It

It’s been pretty easy to take our democracy and its constitutionally-guaranteed rights for granted. Unlike our Western allies, we have never seriously been threatened or occupied by a foreign power. So, there’s a sense of security -- invincibility, really -- that other countries don’t share. Moreover, we, as a nation, have long bought into the myth that we really are the land of the free and home of the brave. We have never come to grips with our wholesale denial of human rights, much less civil rights, to wide swaths of our population for most of our existence. Obviously, and most egregiously, is the utter resistance to a meaningful reckoning -- through a truth & reconciliation commission or any genuine consideration of reparations -- with the genocide of native peoples and the fact that our country’s wealth and power were built -- literally -- on the backs of enslaved people, whose descendants continued to be brutalized and denied equal rights. There was the imprisonment of anti-war protestors during World War I. There was the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. There was McCarthyism. There was the FBI’s infiltration of the civil rights and anti-war movements. There was the widespread wiretapping after 9/11. The list goes on. But when our government has overreached, we routinely refuse to ensure accountability. The assumption has always been that there’s no need -- that our constitutional democracy is resilient enough to be pulled back from the brink. So, Ford pardoned Nixon. Bush I pardoned those responsible for Iran Contra. Obama determined not to hold Bush II accountable for torture and the aforementioned wire-tapping. 

And so here we are. We keep hoping that somehow, this time will be different. It feels different.  Trump’s unrelenting malfeasance has been so blatant, so utterly indefensible. Unjust enrichment. Financial fraud. Rape. Insurrection. Stealing classified documents. Surely, in a democratic nation such as ours justice will be done.  

Yet despite multiple indictments, it looks increasingly likely that Trump will be able to hold off going to trial on most of the cases against him until after an election that, if he wins, will empower him to make it all go away. We can thank the right-wing takeover of the Supreme Court. But also, there’s Biden’s ill-fated appointment of the ponderous Merrick Garland as Attorney General, who predictably slow walked the investigation of January 6. There are, of course, Trump’s enablers in the Republican Party, who rely on minority rule, and therefore believe they must cling to his coattails to stay in power.  

And, critically, there are the Democrats – with their fetish for bipartisanship and compulsion to stay above the fray, who have completely abdicated from exposing and highlighting Trump’s past perfidies as well as the existential danger he poses if he returns to power. As always, they have ceded the narrative to the Republicans. Which is just fine with the mainstream press, which has yet to grapple with how to cover politics where one of the two candidates is a demented fascist, and one of the two political parties is facilitating a Christian theocracy. It maddeningly continues to focus on the odds, not the stakes, obsessing about Biden’s age, while ignoring Trump’s incoherent rambling and his all-too-coherent plan for mass deportations, the replacement of civil servants with loyalists, and taking revenge on his political enemies. 

It is long past time to recognize that our democracy has always been fleeting and fragile, and that Trump and his Party are eager to sweep it all away.  

It Can Happen Here -- It Is Happening Here

Why, America's the only free nation on earth.  Besides!  Country's too big for a revolution.  No, no!  Couldn't happen here!  -- Sinclair Lewis

Whether or not you approve of President Biden, he is not going to destroy the pillars of democracy.  Say whatever you want about him, he is not a fascist.  Yes, it's a low bar, but this is why he must be re-elected.  Republican Party officials are through with democracy.  From voter suppression to gutting fundamental rights, they are all in on or (to give some the benefit of the doubt) are afraid to oppose a white, Christian, patriarchal society controlled from the top.  They keep telling us this.  But we continue to treat them as a legitimate political party merely with different policy goals.  This is how democracies die.  

This is why it is so dangerous to entertain third party candidates who (as we have seen before) can help Republicans win office.  This is why the mainstream media must eschew both reflexive bothsidesism and the compulsion to view Republican proposals through the prism of "the horserace" rather than report on their disastrous impact.  And, most importantly, this is why the Democratic Party needs to make clear to voters -- every day -- what kind of government the Republican Party envisions for this country.

The United States has been a stable democracy that has withstood a civil war, constitutional crises, and, most recently, an insurrection.  We take for granted that we will always be a democracy with three co-equal branches of government, even as we see the Supreme Court going rogue, the House being taken over by MAGA extremists, and Trump's first term (and attempted coup) not that far in the rearview mirror.  But what will happen if Trump (or some reasonable facsimile) wins in 2024?  We don't have to guess.

As Masha Gessen wrote in November 2016, "Trump is the first candidate in memory who ran not for president but for autocrat—and won."  In her remarkably prescient piece, "Autocracy: Rules for Survival," Gessen gave us a set of rules necessary to defend the laws, the institutions, and the ideals on which this country is based.  The first rule: "Believe the Autocrat."  As we are now all too familiar, Trump relentlessly spews ignorant and malevolent nonsense that one would not expect from any rational human being, much less the purported leader of the free world.  Gessen stressed back then that while it is human nature to assume he was exaggerating and to reach for a rationalization, it was critical to believe that he meant what he said.  We barely survived one term.  

And here we go again.  Trump and members of his Republican Party keep telling us what they plan to do if they seize control of the executive branch.  They publicly extoll as their model for electoral success and governance none other than Hungary's Victor Orban.  As Heather Cox Richardson describes it, Republicans have disavowed the fundamental tenets of democracy -- "equality before the law, free speech, academic freedom, a market-based economy, immigration," which they believe "weaken a nation by destroying a 'traditional' society based in patriarchy and Christianity."  Instead, they prefer Orban's "“illiberal” or “Christian” democracy, which uses the government to enforce their beliefs in a Christian, patriarchal order."  This is not a secret.

Then there's DeSantis, Trump's competition, who is experimenting with his own version of a mini-fascist state in Florida.  He recently announced the activation of a State Guard, purportedly to aid in disaster relief, but which is apparently being trained as a heavily militarized force.  And, as Cox Richardson reminds us, "DeSantis has pushed through laws that ban abortion after six weeks, before most people know they’re pregnant; banned classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity (the “Don’t Say Gay” law); prevented recognition of transgender individuals; made it easier to sentence someone to death; allowed people to carry guns without training or permits; banned colleges and businesses from conversations about race; exerted control over state universities; made it harder for his opponents to vote, and tried to punish Disney World for speaking out against the Don’t Say Gay law. After rounding up migrants and sending them to other states, DeSantis recently has called for using “deadly force” on migrants crossing unlawfully."  This is not a secret.

An explosive article in the New York Times this week (with a typically tepid headline: Trump and Allies Forge Plans to Increase Presidential Power in 2025) essentially describes Trump's plan to become dictator if he wins the next election (or is otherwise able to seize power).  It is beyond alarming.  It describes Trump's plan to “to alter the balance of power by increasing the president’s authority over every part of the federal government that now operates, by either law or tradition, with any measure of independence from political interference by the White House."  Again, this is not a secret.  

The plan couldn't be more clear: (1) bring independent agencies (like the FTC and FCC) under direct presidential control; (2) revive the practice of “impounding” funds (i.e., refusing to spend money appropriated by Congress) -- which was banned after Nixon abused; (3) strip employment protections from tens of thousands of career civil servants, making it easier to replace them if they are deemed obstacles to the Trump agenda and remove officials from intelligence agencies, the State Department, and the defense bureaucracies who, according to Trump, "hate our country."  Russell T. Vought, who ran the Office of Management and Budget in the Trump White House says of the plan: "what we’re trying to do is identify the pockets of independence and seize them.” 

Yes, it can happen here. 

Investigate, Prosecute, "Lock Him Up"

For years I've regarded his very existence as a monument to all the rancid genes and broken chromosomes that corrupt the possibilities of the American Dream; he was a foul caricature of himself, a man with no soul, no inner convictions, with the integrity of a hyena and the style of a poison toad.”  -- Hunter S. Thompson (on Richard Nixon)

When President Ford pardoned Richard Nixon for "all offenses against the United States," he stated that it was out of concern for the "immediate future of this great country."  Next came Iran-Contra, which culminated in the pardon by the first President Bush (with the support of then-Attorney General Barr) of several key participants who had been indicted and whose trials would likely have dispelled the notion that Bush was, as he claimed, "out of the loop."  More recently, President Obama refused to seek any investigation of Bush II's "War on Terror," despite substantial evidence that wiretapping laws were broken and torture was authorized at the highest levels.  Much like President Ford, Obama claimed that “nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past.” 

And now that the end is nigh for the malevolent orange shit-gibbon, there are the frustratingly familiar calls for abstaining from investigating and prosecuting the myriad acts of abuse of power and corruption that have marked this horrid presidency from Day One.  The argument goes that we should be grateful that we are rid of this "mentally deranged U.S. dotard," as dear leader Kim Jong-un calls his dear friend  -- that, in the words of President Ford, "our long national nightmare is over." 

Accordingly, we are supposed to maintain our democratic cred by not engaging in political retribution against those who have lost power.  Further, given the immediate attention needed to address the economic, environmental and, most urgently, public health, disasters that will have been left in the disastrous wake of this disastrous presidency, we must, as President Obama said about his predecessor, "look forward as opposed to looking backwards." 

In The Atlantic, my old high school classmate (and favorite Republican), Paul Rosenzweig, gamely tried to thread the needle, arguing that any investigation and prosecution of Trump should be limited to his conduct before and after his presidency, and that declining to pursue him for his actions as president is "the price we pay for the routine peaceful transition of power."  In Rosenzweig's view, going after Trump for his acts as president would result in an "ever-escalating cycle of retribution," with each administration prosecuting its opponents -- that "indicting one former president risks making a habit of doing so, and reducing America to little more than a revolving-door banana republic."  As Rosenzweig put it, if we think "lock her up" is wrong to say about Hillary Clinton, then "lock him up" is equally improper.  

First, the notion that Democrats should not launch legitimate investigations into the most corrupt administration in history out of fear that Republicans would respond in kind once they are again in control of the White House assumes, wrongly, that the GOP is not a nihilistic, anti-majoritarian cabal.  The modern Republican Party is not constrained by civility or norms or any notion of decency.  As Mitch McConnell made clear in completing his theft of the Supreme Court, the GOP will always put party over country and wield whatever power they can, while they still can.  Indeed, if they manage to hold onto the Senate, stay tuned for their shameless obstruction of Biden's efforts to restore the economy or deal responsibly with COVID or climate change, their refusal to pass any meaningful legislation or confirm judicial and executive nominees, and their bogus investigations of Hunter Biden and others in order to sabotage the new Administration. The Pelosi/Schumer/Feinstein non-confrontational approach (e.g., limited investigations, narrowly-drawn impeachment, docile SCOTUS confirmation opposition) does nothing but embolden Republicans, who know that Democrats default to compromise and appeasement.    

Second, there is a world of difference between fevered cult-inspired cries at Trump rallies for locking up Hillary Clinton, who was never found to have committed any criminal wrongdoing, with the reasonable investigation and pursuit of justice in response to the unprecedented level of corruption committed by, what Sarah Kendzior so aptly calls, "a transnational crime syndicate masquerading as a government."  

 

Rosenzweig agrees that the tax and mortgage fraud, campaign finance violations, and sexual assaults that occurred pre-presidency are all fair game.  But he would stop there, although he concedes that "the discretionary policy of not prosecuting an ex-president for acts committed while in office ... would have to yield in extreme cases."  But if this isn't an extreme case, I'm hard pressed to imagine what would be.  Trump's pervasive malfeasance as president has been far more egregious and has posed a far greater threat to our nation than anything he did before he slithered into office.  

Under normal circumstances it is certainly not ideal to go after a leader who has been justly defeated in a popular election.  BUT THESE ARE NOT NORMAL CIRCUMSTANCES.  There has never been a more corrupt president and the bill of particulars grows larger every day.  Indeed, we have only recently learned about Trump's interference with a criminal case against a state-owned Turkish bank at the urging of Turkey's authoritarian leader and presumably so as not to jeopardize Trump business interests there.  More details are emerging about Trump's unfettered self-enrichment while in office and reports of millions of dollars that taxpayers have paid to Trump-owned entities.  He appears to have worked with Russian disinformation operations to taint his opponent, used the resources of the government in his reelection campaign and undermined the efficacy of the Post Office to thwart the timely arrival of mail-in ballots.  And he's got a couple of months to do even more damage.

There has been a disturbing pattern of Republican Administrations, beginning with Nixon, to engage in abuse of power, violate of the Constitution and federal law, and break formerly-sacrosanct norms.  Each time we are persuaded it would be unseemly and undemocratic to hold them accountable. This has led us to this moment and to this presidency.  

And as Kendzior recently lamented: 

The current American crisis is in part due to those officials who refused to curb Mr. Trump’s worst behaviour. When organized crime hijacks government, officials must act aggressively, transparently, and immediately. They cannot waste time like Robert Mueller did with his plodding, placating probe. They cannot “impeach at the ballot box,” which Nancy Pelosi – a staunch opponent of impeachment until she buckled to pressure from her colleagues and the public – suggested throughout 2019. They cannot go by the book when the book is burning.

We need to hold Trump, his family and his cronies accountable because their brazen wrongdoing demands it.  But we also have to come to grips with how easy it was for this "fascist carnival barker" to undermine our system of government.  All it took was a political party willing to follow him in lock step and a compliant media that normalized his pathology.  And so, a full accounting of all the ways our institutions have been corrupted is essential so we can figure out how to better protect the nation from the next wannabe kleptocrat -- one who may not be as clownish and incompetent as this one.  

Remembering Tom Seaver

"There is actually a good argument that Tom Seaver should be regarded as the greatest pitcher of all time ... Seaver pitched for eight losing teams, several of them really terrible, and four other teams which had losing records except when Seaver was on the mound."  —Bill James, The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, 2001

Tom Seaver passed away today.  2020 keeps getting worse.  This piece was written in March 2019, when it was announced that Tom was suffering from dementia.  RIP to my childhood hero.

For Met fans of a certain vintage -- those old enough to have rejoiced in the first of (only) two Met championships -- Tom Seaver will forever hold a special place in our hearts.  We love everyone from that team -- from the key players (Cleon Jones, Tommie Agree, Donn Clendenon, Jerry Koosman) to the more obscure (Rod Gaspar, Duffy Dyer, Jim McAndrew).  But Tom Seaver was on a different level altogether.

He wasn't just a great Met.  He was one of the greatest pitchers in Major League history.  And he was ours.  His pitching form was a thing of beauty -- both powerful and graceful.  He was called "The Franchise" because of how he transformed the Mets' identity, from a joke -- albeit a lovable one -- to World Series winner (until they became a less lovable joke once again).  He did it with his brilliant pitching and with his no-nonsense, brash professionalism. 

I treasured pretty much every start in those years -- watching on a black & white TV or listening on the radio or, occasionally, getting to see him live at Shea.  I would check out the box score in the paper the next day and diligently recalculate his E.R.A. after every game he pitched.

We all have our favorite Tom Seaver memory.  For many it is his near perfect game against the Cubs in 1969 or the 10-inning complete game victory in Game #4 of the 69 Series or any of the over 60 shutouts in which he simply dominated opposing hitters.  My favorite memory is being at Shea Stadium on April 22, 1970, when he tied what was then a record of 19 strikeouts in a game and set a record for striking out the last 10 hapless Padres hitters in a row.  Simply epic.

Yes, he changed the perception of the Mets, but even with the miraculous World Series win in 1969, they remained a feeble-hitting team (some things never change), and Seaver had to consistently pitch flawlessly to keep his team in games, often losing heartbreakers 2-1 or 1-0.  (Jake deGrom can relate -- but try doing it for a decade.)  Typical was 1971, when he led the league in ERA (1.76) and strikeouts (289 in 286 innings), pitched 21 complete games and still lost 10 games, going 20-10.   Had Seaver played with a decent team for the bulk of his career, his remarkable numbers would be off the charts.

And as a recent New York Time article pointed out, in stark contrast to the current game, where starting pitchers rarely go more than six or seven innings, Seaver excelled in finishing what he started, getting even better as the game wore on.  His lifetime ERA in the last three innings was 2.75, and in 1969, he pitched in the ninth inning 17 times without giving up a run.

Seaver continued to pitch brilliantly for a mostly awful team, and then, on June 15, 1977, came the "Midnight Massacre" -- the worst in a very long list of dismal management decisions.  The penurious Mets refused to renegotiate Seaver's contract and shipped him off to the Cincinnati Reds for a collection of mediocre players.  I attended his return to New York, where, looking positively surreal  in a Reds' uniform, he faced off against his old teammate and fan favorite, Jerry Koosman.  Along with the rest of the crowd, I was cheering for Seaver, who beat the Mets that day.   

Seaver continued his great career as a Red, including the strike-shortened season in 1981, when he led the league with 14 wins and came in second in the Cy Young voting.  And then came some measure of redemption.  Seaver was traded back to the Mets for the 1983 season.  It was indescribable to see him pitch a shutout on Opening Day.  But at 38 years old, it didn't seem he had much left.  He didn't have a great year -- and neither did the Mets -- but with Seaver wearing his familiar number 41, the Mets seemed like a team on the rise, with promising young pitchers, a Rookie of the Year in Darryl Strawberry, and the acquisition of Keith Hernandez.

But it was not to be. The Mets would have to rise without Seaver.  Incredibly, before the 1984 season began, the Mets left the 40-year old Seaver off the protected list, assuming no other team would want him.  The White Sox quickly scooped him up, leaving Met fans distraught once again.  Seaver won 15 games for the White Sox in 1984 and 16 in 1985, including his 300th.  In 1986, he finished an injury-plagued season with the Red Sox.  (A bad knee prevented him from playing against the Mets in the World Series.)

The Mets tried to atone once more, hoping to bring Seaver back to the Big Apple to finish his storied career where it began.  But after pitching a few exhibition games in June 1987, Seaver realized he had nothing left and announced his retirement. 

3 Cy Young Awards -- and deserving of at least another in 1971, 311 wins, 61 shutouts, 3,640 strikeouts and a 2.86 E.R.A.  In 1992, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame.  A career of remarkable moments and incredible milestones marred only by stupid, short-sighted management decisions -- including, more recently, the failure to honor Seaver with a statue at Citi Field. 

In devastating news, it was announced yesterday that Tom Seaver is suffering from dementia.  His family announced he will no longer make public appearances.  As the Mets gear up for the 50th anniversary of the 1969 team, his out-sized presence as a Met icon, a baseball legend, and a childhood hero to so many of us will be felt even more deeply and the memories he's given us will be held even more tightly.

Kamala's People

Originally posted Jan. 29, 2019

I met Kamala Harris about 15 years ago and she was very impressive. I was on the board of an anti-death penalty organization that gave her an award when she was the San Francisco D.A. for courageously refusing to seek the death penalty in a cop-killing case despite intense political pressure (Sen. Feinstein pushed for the death penalty at the officer's funeral!)  She was not only extremely personally engaging but she also gave a powerful speech about how the resources spent on death penalty cases could be better spent to ensure public safety. 

But as California's Attorney General she was a disappointment.  As did her predecessors (including Jerry Brown), Harris essentially deferred to the deputy AGs in the death penalty unit, who vigorously defended every death penalty case, no matter how suspect.  Under Harris's watch, the AG's office used every procedural technicality to prevent the courts from considering the underlying merits of cases, defended truly egregious cases of prosecutorial misconduct, refused to acknowledge cases of actual innocence, and vigorously appealed a federal court decision that found the death penalty law unconstitutional.  Harris also refused to support California ballot propositions that sought to reform the  criminal justice and replace the death penalty with life without parole.

Harris claims to have been a progressive prosecutor, but that phrase is really something of an oxymoron.  In my three decades as a defender of death row inmates, I admit to a long-standing bias against prosecutors who, generally, seem to care more about securing convictions than doing justice.  Even the more thoughtful or "progressive" ones still by and large see the criminal justice system as fair and just -- despite the overwhelming disparity in resources between the government and the defendant, and despite the built in bias against the poor and people of color.  And they view the way to solve society's ills through the prism of the criminal justice system, as Harris's history of threatening parents with prosecution for their children's truancy when she was D.A. suggests.

By using the slogan "Kamala Harris for the People" for her presidential campaign, Harris is explicitly linking her history as a prosecutor to her strengths as a candidate.  But the phrase "for the People" is a fraught one, as least from a criminal defender perspective -- after all, my clients were people too.  A prosecutor really represents an agency within the government.  But invoking the phrase "for the People' implies something different; it misleadingly suggests that the community at large wholly supports the prosecution of a given defendant, providing an unfair rhetorical advantage from the get go.

So, I don't buy the progressive prosecutor thing.  But at the same time, I find Harris to be an extraordinarily compelling candidate.  She is brilliant, a dynamic presence and a compelling speaker.  She is fearless and has put her prosecutorial skills to great use on the Judiciary Committee, where she skewered Trump nominees, from Jeff Sessions to Brett Kavanaugh.  She is unabashedly and consistently taking progressive positions on health care, climate change, immigration, equality and even criminal justice reform.  And the zeitgeist calls for a woman -- and a woman of color -- to run for president against an incumbent and a political party that have fully succumbed to misogyny and white nationalism.  And, at least according to Nate Silver, she appeals to the widest coalition of Democratic voters at this point.

I'm not sure how to reconcile Harris's history and her candidacy -- but I'm not sure I have to.  After all, there is not a candidate seeking or thinking about seeking the presidency who isn't flawed.  Indeed, our search for ideological purity last time is no small reason why we are where we are.   So although I'm wary of the embrace of a prosecutor's perspective as Harris's slogan suggests, I will support whoever has the best chance to take back the White House.  It's early, but it very well might be Kamala Harris.

Super Tuesday Post Mortem

So if you leave with only one thing, it must be this: Choose to fight only righteous fights, because then when things get tough — and they will — you will know that there is only one option ahead of you. Nevertheless, you must persist.  -- Elizabeth Warren, March 5, 2020

With the notable exception of Barack Obama, no one I've supported to win the Democratic primary has ever won it (except for George McGovern when I was 12 -- and that didn't turn out so well).  And here I am again.  Elizabeth Warren is/was my candidate -- and Barack included, I have never felt more passionate about a candidate or believed more strongly about their strength, brilliance, competence and sincerity -- ever.  I think she not only could have crushed the malevolent orange shit-gibbon in the general election (like she unmercifully fileted Bloomberg), but would have gone on to be a great president. (See Why Elizabeth Warren Would Be The Best President)

As Rebecca Solnit put it: "Perhaps Warren's greatest strength is her commitment to listening and listening to many constituencies; she is a candidate speeding up the journey of ideas by making space to hear and plans that respond to what she heard. By shortening the distance between the grassroots and the center of power." Jodi Jacobson is right:  Warren is "once in a lifetime. She not only knows how to wield power, she is unafraid of doing so. She knows how government works and has worked it to our advantage. She has moral clarity. She has the best plans for addressing debt, bank corruption, corporate corruption, government corruption, climate crises, race and class analyses, the goddamn coronavirus epidemic and everything else you can imagine. SHE GETS SHIT DONE."

Despite all this Warren couldn't seem to gain traction, particularly on what should be the most compelling issue facing the country -- corruption and the erosion of democracy in the Age of Trump.  I wholeheartedly agree with her that we can't address other critical issues from climate change to gun control until we deal with the corrosive effects of corruption in Washington and the corrupting power of wealth.  But, alas, it is not to be.  There were perhaps some strategic missteps, but I think it was a combination of a whole lot of misogyny, a panic-stricken electorate fleeing to the perceived safety of the center, an "establishment" -- in the media and the Party -- that reinforced the nonsensical (and misogynist) concept of "electability," and the mainstream media's incomprehensible erasure of her that doomed her candidacy.

Charles Pierce nails it:  "This is not a country that is ready for what she called, endlessly, 'big, structural change.'  This is a country fearful of any kind of change at all, a country longing for a simpler time—which, these days, does not mean the flush 1950s or the pastoral 1850s, but 2015. The election of Donald Trump has lodged in so many minds a longing for the status quo ante that there’s no room for intelligent experimentation."  As Pierce says, "we have been rendered such a timorous people that even someone as open and lively and welcoming as Elizabeth Warren was considered too much of a risk."  She will, of course, remain a formidable leader and critical progressive voice, but I will always feel an enormous sense of loss for what could and should have been.

I've liked Bernie since he was first elected mayor when I was a senior in college in Burlington, VT.  I wrote admirably about him on this blog ten years ago.  (See Vermont's Finest)  He has an inspiring, compelling message about inequality that should resonate across multiple demographics.  But as Tuesday demonstrated, he doesn't seem able to expand his base to include African Americans -- the most critical of Democratic voters (although he has impressively garnered support from Latinx communities) -- and his key strategy of energizing new, young voters seems to be flailing.  And, yes, his abusive, divisive supporters, including those who have official positions high in the campaign, are dangerously alienating wide swaths of progressive-minded people.

But that leaves Biden -- who I still can't believe has parlayed Jim Clyburn's South Carolina endorsement into front-runner status.  The dude can rarely complete a coherent thought, much less a sentence.  How bizarre that all those debates I suffered through in which he seemed so tired and lost didn't matter. (I want those hours back.)  He barely campaigned, instead relying on Obama's coattails (notwithstanding Obama's silence) -- and it's fucking working.  I think he's an awful candidate who is not only cognitively compromised but has never really reckoned with much of his record, in particular, his unforgivable performance as chair of the Judiciary Committee that humiliated Anita Hill and put Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court. (See Joe Biden's "Apology" To Anita Hill Is Too Little, Too Late And Too Lame).  I believe he is dangerously naive when it comes to the perfidy of the Republican Party, which is baffling given he was Obama's Vice President when Merrick Garland was denied a confirmation vote, not to mention their continued bad-faith Ukraine investigation.

I feel that those who are certain that Biden is the most electable candidate were also sure that Hillary Clinton would win, as would John Kerry and Al Gore.  Are we really going to do this again?  Are we really going to choose our nominee based on fear.  It shows a remarkable lack of imagination, a failure to understand that we are living in a far different world than we were living in even four years ago.  We need someone who can capture the zeitgeist, energize voters and articulate why Trump is such a danger to our survival.  I seriously doubt that person is Joe Biden, who just wants to return us an imagined normalcy -- to the halcyon days of bipartisanship and smoked-filled rooms.  Maybe it could be Bernie Sanders, but he still hasn't shown the ability to embrace a wider constituency.  But what the fuck do I know?

I do know that it is critical that the nominee, whoever it is, must pick a running mate who can actually capture the zeitgeist -- someone who can begin to transform the Party away from one that is still led by old white men.  It needs to be a woman.  It needs to be a person of color.  It needs to be someone who is brilliant and vibrant and progressive.  Stacey Abrams seems the obvious choice.  I could get excited about that.  I'm sure there are others.

At bottom, we need to enthusiastically support whoever the candidate is, no matter how flawed.  No more of this purity bullshit.  (See #NeverNader: A Reminder About The Perils Of Purity)  Yes, I love Elizabeth Warren.  I do not love Bernie or Biden.  But it doesn't matter.  It's time to retire that tired old cliche about how Democrats fall in love, but Republicans fall in line.  We don't have to love them.  We have to get in line and do whatever we can to win in November.

The Democratic Presidential Candidates Need To Unite Behind Common Principles

Viewers watching the recent network-sponsored debates, with the focus on spectacle and conflict, could be forgiven for failing to absorb a key point missing from most of the coverage:  The Democrats generally agree on the goals for the United States that align with the majority of Americans, although they may not fully agree on how to reach them.  But it is the Republican Party and their leader who are dangerously out of touch.  It is they who are embracing white nationalism, condoning the separation of families at the border, reversing efforts to combat climate change and failing to reckon with the Russian attack on our elections.

There is plenty of time for the Democratic candidates to highlight their differences and challenge each other's policies and vision.  But not now.  These are not normal times and this is not a normal election.  We are facing an existential crisis and the Democrats need to unite to demonstrate, collectively, what is at stake.  They should sign a statement of common principles in order to illustrate the stark differences between the two parties on fundamental principles that often get muddied in the daily discourse.  Such a document would demonstrate why the 2020 election is so critical.

Perhaps something like this:

1.  We condemn white nationalism, and Trump's rhetoric that has emboldened a white nationalist movement.  We support common sense gun control reform, including mandatory background checks and banning assault-style weapons.  

2.  We believe in the urgency of addressing global climate change and the irrefutable science that warns of the dire consequences of inaction.  We support rejoining the Paris Climate Accords immediately, and taking meaningful and substantial steps to reduce fossil fuel consumption in the United States.

3.  We are horrified by the cruelty of Trump's immigration policies which have led -- and continue to lead -- to the needless and tragic separation of families at our southern border, and have imposed extreme hardship and trauma on those seeking escape from violence and injustice in their home countries.  We support immigration reform that will protect our borders while ensuring that those seeking political asylum and refugee status are provided with a safe, fair and timely process.

4.  We believe in a woman's right to decide what to do with her own body, including the right to have an abortion.  We strongly oppose efforts by Republican lawmakers at the state and federal level to undermine Roe v. Wade, and place obstacles in the way of women -- particularly poor women -- seeking abortions.   We will pursue policies to ensure full access to abortion rights and reproductive health for all women. 

5.  We may differ on the details, but we believe that health care is a human right and oppose Republican attempts to sabotage Obamacare, including their pursuit of a federal lawsuit that would eliminate insurance for pre-existing conditions.  We all believe in policies aimed at expanding, not reducing, health care coverage for all Americans.

6.  United States intelligence agencies and the Mueller investigation have documented Russia's interference in our elections, which we consider an attack on our country.  Special Counsel Mueller has warned in his recent testimony that this remains a serious threat for 2020.  Yet, the president refuses to acknowledge it and the Senate Majority Leader refuses to allow bills on election integrity and security to come to the Senate floor for a vote.  We believe it is urgent to safeguard democracy by implementing immediately the measures that passed the House of Representatives.  In addition, we support efforts to stop voter suppression schemes, gerrymandering, and the proliferation of dark money that have undermined the time-honored principle of one person, one vote.

7.  The President of the United States has committed several documented instances of obstruction of justice that impeded the Special Counsel's investigation into Russia's interference with the 2016 election.  He was not indicted because of a Department of Justice policy that bars indictment of a sitting president.  That policy must be re-examined.  He also has refused to release his tax returns or divest from his many business entanglements with private and foreign interests. He and his administration are stone-walling legitimate attempts at Congressional oversight.   Trump's conduct is rife with conflicts of interest and he has lied to the American people over 10,000 times, according to a study by the Washington Post.  There has never been a more corrupt president and we believe it is far past time to restore dignity and the rule of law to the presidency.

Abandoning The Dog Whistle

You start out in 1954 by saying, "Ni***r, ni***r, ni***r." By 1968, you can't say "ni***r" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Ni***r, ni***r."  -- Lee Atwater, 1981

Turns out St. Ronnie was a racist.  A new audio that has been obtained of a conversation between then-Governor Reagan and another racist Republican, President Nixon, gives up the game.  To wit:

The day after the United Nations voted to recognize the People’s Republic of China, then–California Governor Ronald Reagan phoned President Richard Nixon at the White House and vented his frustration at the delegates who had sided against the United States. “Last night, I tell you, to watch that thing on television as I did,” Reagan said. “Yeah,” Nixon interjected. Reagan forged ahead with his complaint: “To see those, those monkeys from those African countries—damn them, they’re still uncomfortable wearing shoes!” Nixon gave a huge laugh.

But what was key to St. Ronnie's political success and that of his Party was that he kept his more overt racism on the down low.  He was, instead, the ultimate master of dog whistle politics.  Recall he launched his first presidential campaign in 1980 in Philadelphia, Mississippi, a place notorious for the 1964 slaying of three civil rights workers, and gave a speech about states' rights:  "I believe in states' rights.... I believe we have distorted the balance of our government today by giving powers that were never intended to be given in the Constitution to that federal establishment."  What Reagan was really signaling by talking about states' rights in that particular venue was that he was squarely on the side of White America.  It presaged his unceasing hostility to civil rights and voting rights, and his opposition to entitlements for the poor, particularly, African Americans, who he famously disparaged with classic dog whistles -- the "Cadillac-driving welfare queen" and the "strapping young buck" buying T-bone steaks with food stamps.

And ever since Republican politicians have become expert at using coded language to tap into anxiety of white middle and lower class Americans about losing ground culturally and economically to African Americans and immigrants.  Could there be a more perfect segue than from Reagan's presidency to Bush I's famous Willie Horton campaign ad?  Support for states' rights, calls for curbing federal assistance programs, blaming poverty on a "culture problem," referring to "illegal aliens," expressing fear of the spread of Shariah law, and framing opposition to LGBT rights as "religious liberty" all get the message across without sounding overtly racist, bigoted, xenophobic or homophobic.  The references to "Barack Hussein Obama" and relentless questions about Obama's birth certificate -- pioneered by one Donald J. Trump, of course -- tapped into the code as well. 

But Donald Trump discarded the dog whistle during his campaign in 2016.  He referred to Mexican immigrants as drug dealers and rapists.  He argued for discriminatory treatment of Muslims.  He asserted that the judge presiding over the Trump University fraud cases, born in Indiana but of Mexican heritage, must be biased against him in light of Trump's proposal to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico.  

And then he won the presidency, anyway -- or, more likely, because of it.  And after that, he brought white nationalists into the White House to be key advisors and installed them in his cabinet.  He sought to impose a travel ban on Muslims.  He redirected a counter-terrorism program to focus solely on "radical Islamic extremism" and no longer target white supremacists. And when white nationalists armed with torches and Nazi flags felt emboldened by him to rally in Charlottesville, he talked about the fine people on both sides.  

And it has only gotten worse, most recently with unhinged racist attacks on members of Congress.  With such hate-filled vitriol aimed at people and communities of color being tweeted out almost daily, it is getting harder for Trump's fellow Republicans to defend him.  But they keep trying.  They have to because if they admit that Trump is racist, then they will have to concede that Trump policies that the Republican Party stands behind -- most notably his unconscionable border policies -- stem from racism and a white nationalist agenda rather than simply hard-line pragmatism.  In other words, Trump's racist rants have proven -- as if we really needed more proof -- that his efforts to thwart asylum seekers and radically reduce the number of refugees isn't about national security, border safety or providing a more fair and orderly process -- it's about keeping black and brown people out of the country.

Now that the truth is undeniable -- 51% in a recent poll believe Trump is racist -- Trump and his Republican enablers may hope that his unmitigated racism will energize a base that is otherwise low energy because it has not benefited from his purported economic miracle.  But it looks like there actually may be a whole lot fewer deplorables than Trump thinks there are.  Suburban voters, particularly white women, appear to be recoiling from Trump's white nationalism.  It seems that abandoning the dog whistle may very well backfire.  Maybe Trump should have tried to be more subtle like St. Ronnie.

The Mets: Amazing Then, Appalling Now

The Mets are really bad at honoring their history.  Given that the franchise is younger than me with only two World Series wins and a handful (or two) of iconic players, it shouldn't be that hard to celebrate our modest amount of glory.  But their stadium, Citi Field, completed in 2009 and patterned after old Ebbetts Field, was more of an homage to the Brooklyn Dodgers -- unless (with all due respect to Jackie Robinson) the big number 42 in the rotunda was meant to honor Butch Huskey or perhaps Ron Hodges.  Only two players' numbers have been retired. There are no statues of their stars as at other stadiums, much less a Monument Park like they have in the Bronx.

But with this being the 50th Anniversary of the magical, miraculous season of 1969, it seems that management has been shamed into doing the right thing.  They finally commissioned a statue for their greatest player, Tom Seaver, and also renamed the stadium's address 41 Seaver Way.  This weekend there are a host of festivities scheduled with commemorative giveaways and tributes, and many former players will be in attendance.  It should be a sweet, sentimental ride.

But painful too.  Painful because of the stark difference between the joyful highs of the 1969 season and the agonizing lows halfway through 2019.

I'm reminded of the 10th Anniversary.  The Mets honored the 1969 team at an Old Timers' Day game on July 14, 1979.  As the Met announcer, the great Bob Murphy, introduced members of the 69 squad, they each came out of the dugout and onto the field in their old uniforms -- a little tighter to be sure, but only ten years out, most of old Mets still looked more or less like ballplayers.  The fans went wild, boisterously cheering their beloved heroes, which included most of the heart of the team: Tommie Agee, Cleon Jones, Donn Clendenon, Jerry Grote, Art Shamsky, Ron Swoboda and several others.  Ed Kranepool, who was still on the Mets, joined his former mates.  They played a couple of innings against a team of aging stars from an earlier era, including several former Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants.  Gary Gentry started for the Mets (since the aces, Seaver and Jerry Koosman, were still active and playing elsewhere).  It wasn't too hard -- especially if you were in the upper deck -- to imagine having been transported back in time -- Agee pounded his glove before smoothly catching a fly ball, Cleon Jones crushed a double (albeit against a much older Ralph Branca) and Swoboda, swinging from his heels, smashed a ball against the outfield wall that was just foul.  I was there with my best pal, Michael, and we couldn't have been happier, lapping up the nostalgia.

And then it was time for the real game.  The 1979 version took the field with the likes of Willie Montanez, Richie Hebner and the detritus from the brutally painful Tom Seaver trade two years earlier.  We left before game began.  We simply couldn't bear the contrast with our cherished 1969 team.  (Indeed, the Mets would lose 99 games that year for a last place finish, although I looked it up and they actually won that day, with Tom Hausman outpitching the Giants' Vida Blue for one of his 15 career victories, aided by RBIs from the aforementioned detritus, Doug Flynn and Steve Henderson.)

Which brings us to today.  The Mets have again become unwatchable.  A poorly constructed roster assembled by their new general manager, baffling moves by their deer-in-the-headlights field manager, dysfunction throughout the organization and the bizarre mishandling of injuries, has undermined what looked to be an exciting season and a  promising future.  True, unlike the 79 team, there is some hope thanks to a core of exciting young players who have yet to be beaten down by the team's toxicity -- particularly, Pete Alonso, Jeff McNeil and Michael Conforto (and maybe Amed Rosario and the now-injured Brandon Nimmo).  And last year's Cy Young Award winner, Jacob DeGrom, is a true star.  But their starting pitching is wildly inconsistent, their defense is atrocious and their bullpen is a nightmare (more blown saves than saves!)  Every day seems to bring another gut-wrenching loss caused by a late inning defensive miscue and/or a bullpen meltdown.  And there is talk about trading once-promising players at the trading deadline for prospects, in other words, conceding that's its time to rebuild, again.

Every year Met fans hope that somehow everything will fall into place and we will become champions once more.  Such optimism (some would say delusional thinking) is surely due to our formative Met experience in 1969, which has led us to believe that a miracle can happen again.  And then every year, sometime in June or July, it becomes clear that this isn't going to be the year for a miracle.

And that's where we are.  There's nothing to do but enjoy the festivities, revel in the nostalgia for the 1969 team, and then go home.

This Shit Is Getting Real

The press is the enemy of the people and can be prosecuted for espionage if they publish leaked national security information.  Federal law enforcement officials are traitors who can be tried for treason for investigating a foreign power's efforts to interfere with U.S. elections if it leads to all (or some) of the president's men.  Moreover, the president's de facto personal attorney, formerly known as the Attorney General of the United States, has been given sweeping powers to declassify any intelligence from any agency regarding the impetus of that investigation and, as his prior conduct suggests, will selectively provide that information to the public in a way that favors the president and undermines the investigation.

Meanwhile, the president has instructed his staff -- past and present -- to ignore Congressional subpoenas and has refused to cooperate with any attempts at legitimate oversight by the Democratic-led House of Representatives.  Instead, he is relying on incendiary rhetoric and court challenges.  As to the latter, perhaps not fast enough to serve his purposes, he is stocking the federal judiciary at an unprecedented rate -- already over 100 judges and two Supreme Court justices  -- in the hope that this will provide a bulwark against challenges to his authoritarianism.  

This shit is getting real.

The Democrats in Congress sound the alarm on the one hand, but go back to business as usual on the other.  They rail about Trump's authoritarianism, corruption and unfitness for office, but believe it is more important to pass poll-tested bills in the House that the Senate will not even take up.  As Democrats act calmly, rationally and reasonably in the face of rampant abuses of power, they not only betray weakness and political calculation, but are nevertheless tarred as partisan enemies of the people.  

The cautious, disjointed response by the Democratic leadership since the Mueller Report was released that focuses on process, not substance, has allowed Trump, AG Barr and the GOP to create a false narrative that exonerates the president.  Sure it is outrageous that Barr is withholding the unredacted report and the administration is refusing to honor subpoenas -- and this must be challenged -- but we can't lose sight of the fact that there is already plenty in the redacted version, in the public record, and in Trump's continued authoritarian moves that warrant an impeachment inquiry -- an inquiry that could more easily obtain this information.

Democrats' avoidance of the "I" word signals that they don't believe there is enough to go forward.  If there isn't enough now -- if there isn't at least a prima facie case of high crimes and misdemeanors --what would it take, FFS?  Does Trump really have to stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot someone?  Shall we take another poll to find out if it would be worth it then?

While Democrats dither, Trump's latest move of aggressively investigating the investigation will now put Democrats on the defensive, where holding impeachment hearings would have the opposite effect.

Once an impeachment inquiry is launched, a committee would subpoena documents and call witnesses (with heightened powers to compel) and weigh the evidence before proposing specific articles of impeachment to be considered by the House. If the House votes to impeach, then the proceedings would move to the Senate where, after a trial, it would take two-thirds of the Senate to remove him.  While it is virtually impossible at this point to envision the Senate Republicans putting country over party, they should be required to stand up in the face of what is sure to be overwhelming evidence and explain to the American people why they continue to support this palpably unfit miscreant.  And even if the Senate fails to convict, the process itself will impede Trump's ability to pursue his destructive agenda as well as cause him deep and lasting political damage.

Michelle Goldberg concludes in her recent New York Times op-ed:

The point of impeachment is not to remove Trump before the 2020 election. It is to make clear, in the starkest possible way, why Democrats believe he should be removed. The remainder of his term should be consumed by a formal, televised presentation of all the ways he’s disgraced his office. It’s true that were Trump to be re-elected after such a reckoning, he might be even further unleashed. But were Trump to be re-elected in the absence of impeachment, it would still be seen as a vindication for him, and would leave Democrats humiliated by their excess of caution.

Teach Your Children: The Essential Films

It is incumbent upon parents to teach their children core values: love, kindness, self-respect and respect for others, fairness and justice, family culture/tradition and tolerance for those of others, appreciation of nature and the need to protect the planet, openness to the spiritual or magical, cultivation of healthful habits and self-sufficiency, the power of literature and music, the importance of baseball, and how to eat a slice of pizza.  

Then there are the movies -- those essential 20th Century American films that our kids should be familiar with before moving on into the world.  These are not necessarily the ones you would see in a film class (although several you might) but those iconic gems that say something fundamental about ourselves and our culture.  Here's my initial attempt at a list that probably says more about me:

1.  Duck Soup, A Night at the Opera, Animal Crackers  

2.  Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

3.  Sullivan's Travels

4.  The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, Treasure of Sierra Madre 

5.  Double Indemnity

6.  Harvey

7.  Rear Window, North by Northwest, Vertigo, Notorious

8.  The Searchers
9.  Bridge on the River Kwai

10. 12 Angry Men

11. Some Like It Hot, The Apartment

12. Lawrence of Arabia

13. The Manchurian Candidate, Seven Days in May, The Train   

14. To Kill A Mockingbird

15. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance 

16. The Great Escape, The Guns of Navarone, Stalag 17, Von Ryan's Express

17. Dr. Strangelove  

18. The Pink Panther, A Shot in the Dark

19. The Graduate 

20. In The Heat of the Night

21. Planet of the Apes

22. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
23. Little Big Man
24. Harold and Maude

25. Fiddler on the Roof

26. The Godfather & The Godfather II 

27. Jeremiah Johnson

28. Young Frankenstein
29. Chinatown
30. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

31. Three Days of the Condor

32. The Outlaw Josey Wales

33. Annie Hall 

34. The Last Waltz

35. Apocalypse Now
36. Airplane

37. This Is Spinal Tap, Waiting for Guffman

38. Stranger Than Paradise

39. Bull Durham, A League of Their Own, Eight Men Out

40. Midnight Run
41. Do The Right Thing

42. My Cousin Vinny

43. Groundhog Day

44. Pulp Fiction

45. The Big Lebowski, Fargo

The Frog And The Shit-Gibbon

With the daily onslaught of lies, corruption and abuse of power from the Trump Administration, it is not possible to maintain a meaningful perspective on the scope and magnitude of its horror.  The latest outrage is dutifully reported while the traditional media and the political establishment mostly give a collective shrug because it simply confirms the already baked-in view that the president is a lying, corrupt scoundrel.  And we move on to the next outrage the following day, one that would be a massive scandal in any other Administration.  There is no sense of urgency from Democratic leadership -- no sense that we are in a true national emergency -- no sense that without immediate, drastic action, the Administration will: (1) stall, obstruct and distract to avoid accountability for this term, and (2) use corrupt means (e.g., doubling down on voter suppression and foreign interference while investigating its political opponents) to remain in office for another term.

But never mind.  After all, it's Infrastructure Week (again).  So the Democratic leadership dutifully meets with Trump with a plan for a compromise infrastructure bill in its never-ending quest to appear reasonable and responsible in the face of insanity.  Couldn't they have slipped him a subpoena while they were there?  Sure, Nancy Pelosi, the House Majority Leader, says Trump's conduct is "worse than Nixon's," but she and her fellow Democrats don't act as if he is anything like Nixon.  They continue to argue about whether opening an impeachment inquiry would be politically prudent while dithering over requests for testimony and documents from Trump officials.  'OK,' they say, 'this is your last chance to appear voluntarily and if you don't, we will ... mock you by eating buckets of fried chicken.'  Maybe next week they will issue subpoenas or contempt citations.  Or maybe the week after that -- and if that doesn't work, maybe then they might revisit the impeachment question, but only after checking the polls.  Or, they'll just wait to see what happens in November 2020, as if that won't embolden Trump to turn up the malfeasance meter to 11.

Meanwhile, Trump dangerously promotes an egregious lie about Democrats relishing the execution of newborns, proposes new rules to create even greater hardship for political asylum seekers, and provides cover to racists by re-framing Charlottesville as nothing more than a good-faith dispute over a Civil War statue.  Trump's 10,000th lie milestone was greeted mostly with jokes from late night comedians rather than any kind of shock or outrage.  Indeed, the numbers no longer mean anything.  Neither it seems do facts.  He lies so often and so brazenly that he has successfully created an alternative universe for his base that cannot be penetrated by reason or logic.

And speaking of his base, Trump continues to encourage white nationalist-inspired violence -- not only in his speeches and rhetoric that give legitimacy and comfort to white supremacists and anti-semites, but in defunding and disbanding the Dept. of Homeland Security's branch that had previously focused on domestic terrorism.  Imagine the scandal that would have ensued if there had been spike in domestic terrorism during the Obama Administration after funding for domestic terrorism had been cut to assuage Obama's constituency.  For Trump, in the wake of more shootings by white supremacists, it is barely a one-day news story.

How about this frightening statistic:  the Senate has just confirmed Trump's 100th nominee to the federal bench, virtually all of whom are extremely young and extremely conservative, having been incubated in Federalist Society dogma.  These are lifetime appointments, jammed through the Judiciary Committee without meaningful hearings.  Along with stealing a Supreme Court majority, the Republicans are successfully skewing the entire federal judiciary for a generation or more.  The consequences are dire.  But the lack of any urgency to win back the Senate is demonstrated by the number of potentially formidable Democratic senatorial candidates deciding they are better off running for president.  This is madness.

Not surprisingly, the Mueller Report, augmented by AG Barr's creative interpretation of it, failed to fulfill the always unrealistic hope that our thoughts and prayers would be answered -- that there would finally be a definitive determination of Trump's perfidy that would inexorably lead to his removal.  Although the report itself provides incriminating bombshells and a tantalizing roadmap for further investigation -- indeed, impeachment -- by Congress, Barr did what he was undoubtedly appointed to do.  He provided -- and continues to provide -- the necessary sound bites and obfuscation for Trump to claim vindication.  It is plain, after Barr's remarkably disingenuous testimony, that Trump will not only use Barr and the DOJ as a shield to avoid any Congressional oversight, but -- like any good dictator -- as a sword to go after the investigators and Trump's political opponents.  Get ready for bogus but overly-reported "scandals" involving whichever Democratic presidential hopeful appears to be gaining traction.  First up: Joe Biden and the Ukraine.

This is all like the fable about the slow boiling of a frog -- where we, as the frog, fail to notice our doom because of the gradual heat being brought to bear.  The daily lies and reports of corruption and abuse of power slowly add up.  The drip, drip, drip of disclosures about Russia simply don't have the dramatic impact of having learned about all of it at once.  Had we been dropped in boiling water -- confronted with the sum total of Trump's malevolence  -- we surely would have collectively jumped.  That's where impeachment hearings would come in handy -- putting it all in one scalding pot.

There's another frog story -- the one about the frog and the scorpion, where the scorpion, after promising not to sting the frog if it carries the scorpion across the water, does so anyway, even though it meant that both the frog and scorpion would drown.  When the frog protests, the scorpion helplessly replies, "I can't help it, it's in my nature."

It is in Trump's nature to be willfully ignorant, to be cruel and to degrade and corrupt everything he touches. It is in his nature to not just lie but to make the truth meaningless.  It is in his nature to use threats, lawsuits and the levels of power at his disposal to avoid accountability.  And it is in his nature to to be an authoritarian bully.  The key is that we recognize the danger, amplify it and fight against it -- and to do so expeditiously -- and not allow ourselves to go down with him.