On moving on from what Trump has broken ...

by way of Jess Piper

Maybe I'm tempting fate by even thinking about this -- and most likely the state of the nation will get even worse before it gets better -- but I nonetheless thought these observations about what we the people might want from new rulers when the Trump regime falls would be worth passing along.

Journalist Brian Beutler opines: 

“Looking Forward” Is An Accountability Catastrophe

... Left to their own devices, people will forget. When Republicans fail, they put a lot of effort into hastening the process of forgetting, into turning everyone’s attention to whatever’s going wrong right now. The perverse thing is that Democrats also seek to hasten the process of forgetting.

Their model of politics tells them holding the center is everything (it’s definitely important) and that this is accomplished, at all times, by meeting or at least speaking to the immediate needs of whoever happens to inhabit the center. If you’re “looking backwards” you aren’t focused on the future, and thus aren’t attending to the needs of regular people. Or at least they won’t perceive you to be focused on their needs. So Democrats “look forward.”

It’s why Barack Obama squelched investigation and prosecution of the Bush torture regime. It’s why he made preemptive concessions for bipartisan cooperation, and accepted that the buck stopped with him from day one, rather than remind people every day that his opposition in Congress comprised the very same people who wrecked the country. It’s why Joe Biden tried so hard to write Donald Trump out of the story of his presidency. This is catastrophic for political accountability. In a very obvious way, it helps Republicans rehabilitate themselves. ...

Yup. Those of us who've been around since Reagan (remember Iran-Contra?) and certainly since George W.'s wars, know the pattern.

Beutler goes on:

I cling to the blind hope that they’ve learned this lesson. That as Trump leads us into a dark era, and Democrats grok that their next turn in power will entail repairing a great deal of wreckage, they will realize they can’t repeat the same mistake. They may have to surrender Trump’s war in Iran for him, but they’d absolutely have to define it that way—and ideally do so while holding officers and civilian leaders who broke the law or committed war crimes accountable. Trump should get what he wants insofar as his name should be emblazoned on everything he broke in the world. And Republicans should get what they deserve, haunted by their complicity with Trump for the rest of their lives.

This is a slightly simplified version of the story. But one of the reasons FDR’s presidency was viewed as a success at the time, and why it had such long coattails for the Democratic Party, is that he didn’t behave the way today’s Democrats behave. He benefited from the fact that the depression began long before he took office, and Hoover bore clear responsibility for it. But FDR rejected Hoover’s efforts to get him to endorse a joint, bipartisan relief package before his term began. This made the lines of responsibility clear. Republicans were responsible for the Great Depression, Democrats were responsible for ending it. 

Joe Biden could have had something like that: Trump, responsible for COVID, and the economic collapse it precipitated, Biden, for restoring normalcy. But he couldn’t tell that story because he was determined not to say “the former guy’s” name.

... We can’t expect the public to remain grateful or bitter forever. But Americans are not amnesiacs. Ask typical swing voters for their impressions of Jimmy Carter, and while their responses wouldn’t be unanimous, they’d be much more heavily negative than positive—and they wouldn’t be able to say why. But I know why! It’s because that’s what Republicans wanted people to think, and so they said so, constantly, for decades.

Fortunately there are prominent Democrats and friends who are already revving up for accountability. Rep. Jamie Raskin has been through impeaching Trump once and he's not giving up, even if that mechanism does not provide a simple legal fix. We can count on AOC and Rep. Robert Garcia. In general, we're seeing a generational turnover among Dems in the House. About time. The older timers did their service, but taking back the country from MAGA, the tech bros, and the crooks needs younger, tougher Dem pols.

According to Beutler, whatever US government comes out of the GOP ruins could be both effective and smart.

... With a free hand to govern, Democrats should do things that are good, legal, and in the public interest—and that they have the competency to execute. DOGE showed that “just do[ing] things” can be a disaster, but speed was not the culprit per se. It was that the project was inherently malign, and corrupt—a bad idea that would’ve ended poorly no matter what, where the purpose of the speed was to break things before the law could catch up. 

Democrats could tear down the ballroom with that kind of speed and it would be fine; but it would be a bad idea to try to insure 40 million people overnight by declaring a national emergency, then daring the Supreme Court to overturn it, particularly given the option of passing a Medicare for All bill over the course of a few weeks.

So, clear the decks, be prepared to move fast, but don’t insist on speed when deliberation is important, and don’t refuse to choose battles out of stubbornness.

Political ingenuity has not been the Democrats forte for many years. If country is to make it out of the current disaster, Dems are going to have to be brave and supple. When we see a hint of this, let's get behind them and push ...