Friday, January 26, 2018

Free and Open Debate

Our democracy depends upon such formal protections as our Constitution, the separation of powers, fair elections, and so on.  It also depends, however, upon responsibilities that are more amorphous, harder to define or slippery to protect, such as free and open debate among people who disagree with one another.

In our large and diverse American culture, disagreements about core issues are inevitable.  Democracy depends on our willingness to voice those differences and actually listen to those with whom we disagree.  And it depends upon our confidence that our leaders will hear, pay attention to our arguments, and lead us to the compromises required.

EJ Dionne, a columnist for the Washington Post has written an insightful commentary on the importance of these debates and on the President’s role in them:
Given my social democratic leanings I would assert, for example, that equal opportunity—including the opportunity to participate fully in self-government—demands a far greater degree of economic security and equality than we currently enjoy. This is particularly true when it comes to access to health care, education, family time away from paid labor, and the chance to accumulate wealth.

You might push back and say that my proposals toward these ends impinge more than they should on individual freedom and require higher levels of taxation than you are willing to put up with. Or you might insist that I am focusing too much on economics and that promoting better personal values society-wide is more conducive to the nation's well-being than any of my programs for greater equity.

And, yes, we might quarrel about who has a right to join our political community and become part of our nation. …

Such debates can be bitter, but democracy's health depends on our ability to hold our passions against each other in check and to offer each other at least some benefits of the doubt.

In our disagreements, I must accept you as a “legitimate rival.”  I must listen to you with respect.  I must argue against what you are saying and not attack you personally.  I must be willing at least to search for tolerable compromise.  Without such debate our country succumbs to acrimony and distrust, subverting our democracy.

There can be no question that our capacity to debate freely and openly has taken a profound hit over the last thirty-five years.  Our increasing polarization has made it very difficult to listen to one another.  We have shut down debate, either literally (shouting down speakers) or figuratively (listening to and reading only those who agree with us).  Compromise has too often become betrayal.  We have poisoned our democracy.

Dionne again:

Which, alas, brings us yet again to President Trump, who (no matter how much we want to) cannot be avoided at this moment because he threatens the conditions under which democracy can flourish.

Our current debate is frustrating and not only because Trump doesn't understand what "mutual toleration" and "forbearance" even mean. By persistently making himself, his personality, his needs, his prejudices and his stability the central topics of our political conversation, Trump is blocking the public conversation we ought to be having about how to move forward.

[T]here should now be no doubt (even if this was clear long ago) that we have a blatant racist as our president. His reference to immigrants from "sh--hole countries" and his expressed preference for Norwegians over Haitians, Salvadorans and new arrivals from Africa makes this abundantly clear. Racist leaders do not help us reach mutual toleration. …

But notice also what Trump's outburst did to our capacity to govern ourselves and make progress. Democrats and Republicans sympathetic to the plight of the Dreamers [had] worked out an immigration compromise designed carefully to give Trump what he had said he needed.

There were many concessions by Democrats on border security, "chain migration" based on family re-unification, and the diversity visa lottery that Trump had criticized. GOP senators such as Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., bargained in good faith and were given ample reason by Trump to think they had hit his sweet spot.

Trump blew them away with a torrent of bigotry.

The President broke no laws.  He attacked no specific constitutional protections and suggested no outright muzzling of the free press (though he has done each before).

But his complete domination of the news cycle with self-aggrandizement, bigotry, disrespect, lies and so on poisons the possibilities for us to talk to each other and preserve at least a thread which we can follow back to a truly democratic society.

Sunday, January 21, 2018

A Washington Post Editorial: Undermining Democratic Values


Since beginning this blog, I have been concentrating primarily on the danger that Donald Trump and his presidency present to our democracy.  It has seemed to me that amidst the ongoing tidal wave of the President’s coarse, demeaning and outrageous comments, commentators have been distracted from adequately exploring his deeper danger to the democratic process.  

That seems to be changing.  In the past several days an editorial (which I’ll examine today) and an opinion column (which I’ll review in the next post) have appeared in the Washington Post focusing on this specific threat.    

The Post editorial suggests that Trump’s “toxic influence” goes well beyond the “awful things” he says and does; more importantly, the danger “lies in how he undermines democratic values in less spectacular ways that go relatively unchallenged.”  The editorial deserves to be extensively quoted:
● Following the publication of an unflattering book, Mr. Trump insisted that the country should have tougher libel laws that would make it easier for powerful public figures such as himself to sue writers who say things that are “false” — that is, to gag critics the president does not like.
● The president continued his paranoid smear campaign against the Federal Bureau of Investigation, suggesting that the FBI influenced the 2016 presidential election to his detriment and accusing a senior FBI investigator of committing treason for privately sending anti-Trump texts. He also implied that law enforcement scrutiny should focus on a political opponent, Hillary Clinton. The president’s assault on a nonpartisan law enforcement agency and his insistence on prosecuting political opponents suggest he does not understand the differences between advanced democracies and authoritarian states. So, too, did his contention that the “Court System” is “broken and unfair,” following a ruling he did not like.
● With similar contempt for facts and fairness, the president called the Russia probes “the single greatest Witch Hunt in American history.” The inquiries include a formal law enforcement investigation based on ample evidence of Russian involvement in the 2016 election … [that] is is compelling. Nevertheless, Mr. Trump suggested that Republicans should “take control,” presumably to end the probes before they have fully accounted for the actions of a hostile foreign power and any Americans who may have helped. Congressional inquiries and special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into the hostile acts of an unfriendly foreign foe should be insulated from political pressure; instead, the president is demanding the pressure be ramped up.
● Mr. Trump’s obsession with the Russian probes also was manifested in his suggestion that a U.S. senator, Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), broke the law by releasing non-classified testimony at the request of the witness who delivered it to lawmakers. Mr. Trump’s real objection was that the testimony undermined a conspiratorial narrative he had been building about the FBI’s Russia investigation.
While I have previously written in this blog about these issues (with the exception of the last), it is, of course, much more important that the mainstream press is, on the one-year anniversary of Trump’s inauguration, highlighting them and their implications for our democracy.

Tuesday, January 16, 2018

Prosecute Comey?

In most circumstances, expressing a political opinion or making a political suggestion is healthy for democracy. But it’s different for a president of the United State, as evidenced by the international reaction to President Trump’s “shithole” remark last week. While that comment was a crude expression of the President’s racism that further demeaned both his reputation and America’s place in the world community, other remarks and tweets have been much more dangerous to the fragile web that supports our democracy. The President’s tweets and his spokesperson’s comments encouraging the investigation and prosecution of former FBI Director James Comey are important examples.

In September of 2017, President Trump’s press secretary Sarah Sanders suggested that the US Department of Justice should “should certainly look at” prosecuting James Comey, the former director of the FBI, for (unsubstantiated) false testimony to Congress. Trump himself hinted that he had tapes implicating Comey. Then last week, the President tweeted that the Justice Department must “finally act … on Comey.”

While acknowledging that it wasn’t up to the President to decide, his press secretary nevertheless detailed a list of Comey’s violations that should warrant investigation. Although we have become accustomed to the President’s intervening in other legal cases (see my post here), it’s important to reiterate how inappropriate these interventions are and their risk to democracy.

The comments about Comey, however, go even deeper.

The role of the FBI is to investigate crime within the country. Because some crimes have political implications, it’s crucial that the FBI remain above even a hint of partisanship. Trump’s response to the FBI’s (appropriate) investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails and then its (appropriate) investigation of Russian interference in the election, however, has politicized both the FBIs and Comey’s role. (Trump has called behavior by a senior FBI investigator “treason.”)

The President has, to say the least, a personal interest in the outcome, making his intervention even more unacceptable. This politicization has spread to other parts of the Republican Party, threatening to derail both Senate and House investigations of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The President fired Comey because of Comey’s initial investigation of the Trump campaign’s possible collusion in Russian interference in the election. Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller’s appointment to continue the probe has led to concerns about Trump’s alleged use of his office to obstruct justice by firing Comey. Comey’s testimony will be essential in Mueller’s investigation, making the President’s push for Comey’s prosecution even more treacherous.

For the President to suggest legal action in a matter in which he is so intimately involved, crosses the line over his appropriate constitutional power.

A Washington Post editorial:
The president’s assault on a nonpartisan law enforcement agency and his insistence on prosecuting political opponents suggest he does not understand the differences between advanced democracies and authoritarian states.

In the United States, the government does not punish political adversaries through the legal system unless there is overwhelming evidence of criminal behavior. And even in these cases (eg Richard Nixon’s role in Watergate), politicians must be scrupulous in maintaining their non-partisanship.

President Trump’s impact on our democracy has been destructive. When he threatens political enemies with legal punishment or when he seeks to impact the behavior of law enforcement or the courts, he threatens the fragile web of tradition, law, and expectation that sustain our democracy.

Sunday, January 7, 2018

Truth and Democracy

In many of my posts so far, I’ve written about President Trump’s disdain for truth.  From his insistence that the crowds at his inauguration were bigger than Obama’s to his claim that the recent tax bill contained “huge” breaks for the working and middle class, the President repeatedly offers lies in the face of documented truth.  The New York Times recently listed 108 unequivocal lies in the President’s first eight months

These lies are each bad enough individually.  They create misunderstandings, enforce the prejudices of his base, deny inconvenient science, and so on.  It’s hard to know whether Trump is completely divorced from reality, incapable of determining the truth even for himself, simply pursuing agendas that would make no sense if one knew the truth, or, more likely, some shifting combination of all three.  The larger question, however, is: What happens to a country when there is no-agreed upon truth?  As William Raspberry has asked, “Can a democracy function without a commonly accepted chronicle of events and encyclopedia of knowledge?” 

Our democracy depends on our collective decision making in the face of multiple competing values and opinions. For instance, even if there were general recognition of the truth of climate change, there would still be irreconcilable differences in opinion about what should be done:
  • Do nothing and assume humanity will acclimate to the new reality?  
  • Do nothing and assume that future technology will solve the problem?  
  • Invest heavily in renewable sources of energy without government regulation of carbon emissions?  
  • Enforce government-mandated carbon pricing or emission limits?
In a pluralistic democracy these decisions require political wisdom, the ability to compromise, a modicum if trust in the wisdom of the whole and a willingness ultimately to accept even decisions you oppose. But what happens if there are no agreed-upon facts? What happens if there is no agreed-upon way to prove that global climate change is not just a liberal conspiracy perpetrated by a cabal of dishonest, self-interested scientists?

No, a democracy cannot function if we can’t agree on what constitutes truth or even on the possibility of determining the truth. Democracy cannot ultimately survive if the President can convince one-third of voters of “alternative facts” and hold democracy hostage to his version of the truth

So then the question becomes: Is American democracy strong enough to withstand a President with no regard for the truth, especially when no one from the ruling party is willing to hold him accountable, to insist on bringing the truth into debates about the most important topics confronting the government?

While the answer yet hangs in the balance, the recent elections in Virginia, Alabama, and New Jersey are hopeful signs. There is good reason for hope that this one man will not be allowed to destroy our most important national treasure.