I am a registered Democrat, who has voted for Democratic candidates in every election since I was 20, when I voted in my first election (1976). There was one exception, one year, but don't ask: it's a long story, and has absolutely nothing to do with why I'm writing this today. I have given money for Democratic and progressive causes for decades, to the point where it hurts, simply because I believed (and still do) that it was the right thing to do, and that the fate of the nation and perhaps the world depended on as many of us as possible doing so. I have been, in person and in print (including online, in social media and on this blog) been a strong and steady advocate of the aforesaid candidates and causes, frequently leading to more arguments (and insults) directed at me than I can count. I'm not saying all of this to complain, by any means. I simply want to let you know where I'm coming from, politically speaking, before I go any further with what I have to say today.
And, before I get to that, I have two other things to say, specifically addressed to you.
First, as a fellow native of Baltimore, I have been an admirer of you and your career for a long time, You do our city an enormous amount of credit. You are the daughter and sister of two mayors of Baltimore, and learned from an early age how politics works at the most basic level: the streets and blocks on which ordinary citizens live, love, work, fight, and build a future for themselves and their families. You then, as an adult, went all the way on the other side of the nation to build a separate political career for yourself, and rose through that career to become the first female Speaker of the House of Representatives. You lost that position for a time largely by fighting for something you believed in very strongly, the Affordable Care Act, but you continued to lead your caucus for six more years and become Speaker again early this year. I know you are willing to fight against tough odds on a matter of principle. I know that you know how to survive in a business that can be very unforgiving in its setbacks. As is the case with everyone else in our city, I am proud of you and what you have accomplished.
And second, although I'm sure that you would have no way of knowing this, yes, I've read your e-mails.
You know which ones I'm talking about. The ones in which you say you haven't heard from me lately. Of course, I'm well aware of what you actually mean when you begin your e-mails in that fashion. It's my money that you haven't heard from lately. You, and, with a few notable exceptions, a lot of politicians and political organizations to which I have, in the past, been what could be considered generous.
And yes, there's a reason lying behind my recent lack of generosity. I'm here today to tell you all about it.
Last fall, when your party won back control of the House, but failed to do the same in the Senate, I was fully prepared for legislative gridlock. I knew that you and your Democratic colleagues were prepared to pass a number of bills that, legislatively speaking, were doomed to die in Mitch McCONnell's Chamber of Horrors. I was fine with that, and knew that you were as well. After all, legislating for a party is a way of setting an agenda for the public to see, even when the legislation has no hope of becoming reality.
But what I did expect--indeed, demanded, under the circumstances--was a no-holds-barred effort to investigate, hold accountable, and if necessary (and this necessity seemed pretty damned strong to me) impeach the current Criminal-in-Chief, D***** J*** T****.
And, boy, have I been disappointed. Me and several other million people who wrote, phoned, knocked on doors, gave money, advocated in various ways and, above all else, voted with that one goal in mind: to fully expose the corruption of the most corrupt occupant of the Oval Office in the history of the Republic (and yes, I am including Richard Nixon, whose corruption I didn't think could be surpassed).
True, there have been few timid attempts at investigations. True, there have been a few Democrats in the House who have made it clear they are willing to go much further than that, that they are in fact ready to take the I-word and put it front and center in the House's agenda.
But, as the leader of the House, the buck stops with you. And you have blocked that buck with the ferocity normally shown only by NFL players in the final minutes of a Super Bowl.
Your reason? It's too "divisive." In your stated view, impeachment doesn't happen until around 80%, maybe even 90% decides it's OK for it to happen. This despite the fact that it took an actual impeachment proceeding in the case on Nixon to get a consensus on impeachment that was anywhere close to being that size. And this despite the fact that the Republicans, when they controlled the House in the '90s, launched impeachment proceedings against then-President Bill Clinton with far less than a consensus that size.
Well, then, let me walk you through a few facts in what has by now become, in my mind, a near-desperate attempt to change yours.
To begin with, Madame Speaker, you are waiting for
a bipartisan consensus that is already here.
The Republicans would not hesitate to describe one of their proposals as
bipartisan if they could enlist the support of a single Democrat. The Joe Lieberman era, of which I do not have
fond memories, was rife with such moments.
You now have a single Republican Congressman in favor of an impeachment
investigation. Actually launching such
an investigation would, as it did in the Nixon-Watergate case, bring along a good many more, especially in those swing districts filled with freshperson
Democrats filled with fear at the thought that doing their constitutional duty
would imperil their job security.
Actually, you could start by
showing them that T**** voters are not uniformly lined up behind T****, as is
the case here.
And this gentleman is far from
alone. T**** likes to brag about the
stock market, but his voters, the ones who care about “jobs, jobs, JOBS” just
aren’t feelin’ it. Take a look.
And they’ve got good reason to feel
that way:
None of this should be surprising. T**** is and always has been an economic fraud, which is illustrated not only by his
so-called career as a business person, but also by his so-called “accomplishments”
as President.
His primary legislative accomplishment, the tax-cut bill (sorry, Paul
Ryan, but it was never a “jobs” bill) has been shown by every measure to be an utter failure. And this at a time when even millionaires are willing to argue for tax increases.
He promised to bring back the coal industry, but the coal industry is still going under.
He promised to get better trade deals, but all he has done is pushed this
country to the brink of a world-wide trade war on multiple fronts, for which
the American people are receiving no benefits except higher prices for consumer
goods
T**** is, in fact, a grifter, a con
artist who has separated thousands of people from their money by promising them
the moon and failing to deliver even a slice of green cheese. And that self-dealing tendency trickles down
to the type of people who are attracted to working for him. This is the personnel dynamic of any
organization: good people attract other
good people, and bad people attract bad people.
Case in point: Kris Kobach, who
wanted a lot more than the moon in order to be T****’s immigration czar.
Further case in point: Jerry Falwell, Jr., carrying on his father’s
legacy of serving God and mammon by denouncing any actual Christian who opposes T**** of the unpardonable sin of being an “employee.” I’m guessing that the second Reverend Falwell
only values employees when they are pool boys willing to pose au naturel with his wife.
Even worse, T**** is not merely,
like his predecessor-in-impeachment, Bill Clinton, a serial philander; he is,
unlike Clinton, a serial rapist, whose victims keep coming forward one by one
to testify to his physical perfidy. E.
Jean Carroll has most recently done so, bringing the number of publicly-known
victims of T****’s appetites well into double-digits. Can you, as a woman, look the other way at
this? Can you expect the women members
of your caucus to look the other way?
Can you expect their constituents, or yours, to do so? More importantly, should you have any such
expectations?
T**** is presiding over the
systematic destruction of the planet, by dismantling the system of
environmental regulation that was put into place nearly 60 years ago by a
Republican President (one who, in fact, was nearly impeached himself), and has
been supported by governments of both parties throughout the intervening
decades. That this destruction is proceeding
apace is even acknowledged by publications that support T****, such as the New York Post. And this, mind you, is the same New
York Post that tried to suppress the Carroll story. I never thought I’d live to see the
day when I would see photographs of polar bears going through dumpsters,
wandering outside of their habitat because we have systematically destroyed
it. But here we are.
T****, charged by the Constitution
to ensure that the laws are faithfully executed, including treaties by which
the United States has bound itself, has effectively become an international
criminal, along with members of his Administration, by detaining potential
asylees in camps that not only deny those imprisoned their rights to petition
for safety, but directly imperil them and the children who are brought along
with them. Even worse, T**** has cut aid
to the countries from which these people are fleeing, forcing them to flee in greater numbers than would otherwise be the case.
The cruelty on display here is not
inadvertent or accidental; it is systematic cruelty as a policy tool, and,
given some of the venom T**** has spewed at immigrants, calling them “animals”
from “s---hole countries,” it may very well be cruelty for its own sake. Why else would conditions like
these
be considered acceptable? Especially when the funding currently
available is more than enough for at least adequate facilities. Why else would public donations of
necessities be turned away?
And why would anyone, let alone
anyone with a connection to T****, be allowed to make a profit off of it?
No one ever told T**** that one can
seldom, if ever, make a dog hunt by beating it.
Yet these people are being treated in these camps at a sub-human level, one that has already lead to the
known deaths of seven children. How many
more children do we not know about? And
yet, rather than responding humanely to these tragedies, we waste time and
decency debating what the camps should be called. That debate can save neither a single child,
nor the increasingly endangered soul of the nation. Perhaps this is why, despite the
perception that immigration is T****’s signature issue, it has become the issue
on which he gets the greatest disapproval rating of his presidency:
And, when it comes to families from
other parts of the world, T****’s abortion policies may be spreading the same kind of misery.
In short, T**** is a crook. As crooked as can be. And I haven't even gotten into his love affairs with foreign tyrants that advance his ego at the expense of American interests. Or his willingness to sell his office, its powers and its perks, in ways that advance his private business (to which he shouldn't even be connected while President). Or ... well, I'm pretty sure you get the general idea at this point.
Madame Speaker, your behavior under
the weight of the public case for impeachment hearings is no longer reasonable
or otherwise prudent, if it ever was at all.
It merely telegraphs weakness, which allows people to libel you with impunity. It creates a vacuum that, even when
handed an opportunity to hold Trump to account such as the concentration camps
on the border, is instead filled by Mitch McCONnell in a way that might
actually subject more children to harm, or even death, as recently happened. And all because, as pointed out by Joy Reid
on Twitter, you are by your inaction effectively giving McCONnell, and Senate
Republicans, veto power over a process that is supposed to be initiated and
controlled in the first instance by the House, of which you are the leader.
This is the same veto power that
McCONnell asserted over the Supreme Court process during the last year of Obama’s
Presidency. At the rate of inaction currently
being set by Congressional Democrats, the American people may be subjected to
one-party government on a permanent basis—and by default, not defeat at the
polls.
If anything, McCONnell’s
unwillingness to pursue any legislation that protects the integrity of our elections is itself a damning admission of guilt not simply on the part of T****, who McCONnell is clearly protecting, but the entire Republican Senate caucus,
and perhaps the entire party itself.
That caucus, and the party, seems to function less like a political
movement and more like a criminal enterprise, as the conduct of McCONnell’s wife (a T**** Cabinet secretary) amply illustrates.
Contrast both your behavior and
that of McCONnell with the more forthright statements of the evidence against T**** by Robert Mueller, the special counsel assigned to investigate T****’s
Russian dealings, in the report his investigation produced and in the press conference he recently held to discuss his findings, to say nothing about his
planned testimony next month before the House Judiciary Committee.
For that matter, look at how cowardly T**** acts when the subject of Muller’s report comes up.
A Republican, Mueller has been
subjected to a tremendous level of abuse by members of his own party, but it
has in no way and to no extent dissuaded him from doing his duty. I have sometimes found myself thinking that,
if it is the fate of this nation to be governed by no one other than
Republicans, let it be governed by Republicans such as Mueller, who are
motivated by things that are above rubies.
And the fact that a McCONnell-led
Senate trial would undoubtedly acquit T**** in record time, and despite the
fact that some have used that reality as an admonition for not impeaching him,
that fact is that is all the more
reason to pursue impeachment like the Hound of the Baskervilles going after its
hereditary prey. McCONnell’s political
genius—to the extent that it can fairly said to exist—is in finding ways to
shield his caucus from difficult votes.
Impeachment, on the other hand, is perhaps the only tool provided by the
Constitution, apart from the budget process, that allows the House to force the
Senate to take a difficult vote. For G-d’s
sake, Madame Speaker, use that tool.
Can’t you see that McCONnell is desperate to
make you NOT want to use it? Does it
take the potential for an open rebellion from within your own caucus, the one
you supposedly rule with an iron fist, to make you understand that, if all
of the dithering on your part is about a desire to keep your job, the path to
keeping your job lies in this instance in doing it in the first place? Especially since Trump has all but confessed
that the things he “didn’t do”—collusion, obstruction—are things he would willingly do in the next election, without any sense of wrongdoing about it. Even his own Congressional defenders
took him to task for doing so.
This further reinforces the point
that, between now and Election Day 2020, if T**** is not held to account, he could conceivably act out in a way that could do enormous harm not only to our
political system, but to our country and even the world. A war with Iraq? T**** could conceivably order that or worse
if he thinks that it would give him even five more seconds of public adoration. His short-term thinking may have already put him in the position where he has no choice but to pursue that option. And, let’s face it, when it comes
to his “thinking,” especially regarding the subject of Iraq, T****’s thinking
is something less than razor-sharp.
If you are worried about a rerun of
the Bill Clinton impeachment episode, which cost Republicans a number of seats
in the 1998 midterm election, you’re making a major mistake.
Clinton was a popular President,
which shaped the public reaction to his impeachment, along with the lack of
connection between his offense (lying under oath during a deposition related to
a civil suit) and his public office.
And, in fact, the impeachment process did have a delayed political
effect: two years after those midterms,
Republicans won both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. Impeaching T**** just might give history a
chance to repeat itself here. Only, this time, in favor of the Democrats.
And it may prevent something even
worse: the collapse of our entire system
of government into armed camps, ready to shoot each other rather than to work
together for the common good. Have you
looked at what has been going on in Oregon, over the fate of something as
innocuous as a climate change bill? In
order to deny the Democratic supermajority in the state Senate an opportunity
to consider the bill, the minority Republican members walked out of the
statehouse and into the protective arms of Idaho militias, leading to the shutdown of the state house for security reasons, and with the full blessing and approval of the state GOP. This in turn lead the Governor to send state police after the legislators, and caused some observers to
wonder whether our entire democracy may be at the breaking point. In the short run, all of this lead the minority to successfully bully the majority.
So, yes, I'm wondering: what the hell are you waiting for?
If you're waiting for the supposedly liberal press to somehow save you, forget it. No matter what the Republicans say to the contrary, they're simply not all that liberal. I'm not sure they ever were; freedom of the press, as the saying goes, belongs to the person who owns one. It's a property right, and Republicans are nothing if not the party of property rights. And the Republicans who own the presses, and the airwaves, and the Interwaves, and all the other marvelous means of communication that we take for granted make sure that their employees (i.e., reporters and editors) know on which side their proverbial bread is buttered.
Which is why those employees, for the most part, are past masters at the art of sucking up to the powerful, the recently powerful, and the perhaps-soon-to-be-again powerful. Case in point: Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who arguably falls into all three of these categories. She is the daughter of a former Governor of Arkansas, she was recently (and memorably, in a bad way) the White House press secretary, and she is rumored to be in line to run for her father's old job in the near future.
In her most recent job, she earned the reputation of being perhaps the worst press secretary in the history of the White House. She was dishonest to a fault, she was abusive to reporters without regard to the fact that press secretaries often depend on the goodwill of those reporters when their boss is in political hot water, and she was far too eager to do little more than carry water for a boss who himself practises the art of deception at an Olympian level.
So what did the White House press corps do for Ms. Sanders, upon her departure from their midst? That's right, exactly what everyone would do for such a reprehensible human being--everyone, that is, in Washington, where every second of everyone's life is a potential career move. They threw an enormously expensive farewell party for her, on the grounds that lying and abusive conduct can easily be overlooked for the sake of "civility." Never mind the fact that both press secretaries and reporters have an obligation to the public that transcends any obligation they might have to each other. It's all about civility. In fact, it's all about access. After all, if you expect to see each other again ...
And then, there's the question I don't want to ask, but feel that I have to ask: does T**** have something on you? Or someone you care about? Or someone you know? I don't want to believe that, but I need you to understand that your conduct in connection with the impeachment question is so out of line with reality on the ground that I have no choice but to raise it. And, as I said earlier, you have always been someone who understands things from the ground up. Which is why I don't think I have to explain to you that, if I'm right on this point, you owe it to yourself, all of your supporters, and everyone in this country to come forward and come clean. Even if that means resigning from Congress.
I don't want that to happen. But I need to get your attention. Literally millions of us need to get your attention. And, since you are a politician, there's only one sure-fire way to do it.
I'm responding to your e-mails. By not responding.
That's right. In the words of a disappointed parent to a child who has underperformed in college, I'm cutting you off for the time being.
No more contributions. Not. One. Penny. Until you and your House colleagues can show some understanding of your constitutional duties AND IMPEACH T****. NOW.
If you cannot impeach this President, you can't impeach any President. It is impossible for me to believe that the Framers had that intention when they wrote the Constitution. They put the Impeachment Clause in there as a fire alarm for those rare but real moments in our history when the Constitution itself is on fire. And, right now, we're in the middle of the biggest five-alarmer we've ever had.
Madame Speaker, you hold a constitutional office. You are a party boss, but your first allegiance is to our system of government. You and your colleagues have sword an oath to protect that system. In the words of the Avengers from their most recent movie, whatever it takes. You did not sign up for the easy task. You signed up for the necessary one. Do it. Or I and my like-minded, deeply disappointed Democratic voters will find someone who will.
But I want it to be you. I'm begging for it to be you. I'm begging you to make the author of the words in this column eat them. Don't wait. Your America, and my America, can't afford any more delays.
Sincerely,
Stephen Rourke, actor, lawyer, theater preservationist, and lifelong Democrat
