AS THE WHISTLE BLOWS, DEMOCRACY FADES

The ultimate outcome of the Ukraine/whistleblower ordeal is less important than the broader message it portends. In other words, welcome to the tipping point in the unraveling of our democracy.   This is no longer about an unhinged president doctoring a weather map with his Sharpie.  This is about a concerted and rapidly escalating assault on the very democratic values that made America great.

In many ways, Trump’s flagrant flaunting of a whistle-blower statute to keep a report documenting his alleged misdeeds from a congressional committee is neither new nor surprising behavior. This is a guy who has never shown the slightest inclination to let a law, covenant or moral code interfere with his singular motivational force of self-interest.  

Yet, this aberrant behavior pattern is rapidly escalating, from the amusing to the abhorrent.  Back during the 2016 campaign, reporters profiling this unlikely candidate almost uniformly described him as someone who “defied conventions” (here, here and here).  How benign and understated that seems now. It’s like describing Jeffrey Dahmer’s epicurean tastes as defying convention.

As diabolical as Trump has been, there was once room for reasoned optimism regarding the long-term impact of his malignancy on the future of American governance.  After all, our democracy has survived brutal assaults over the past 200+ years.  Surely our system of checks and balances, along with the commitment and integrity of dedicated public servants, would help mitigate against serious damage inflicted by the Donald’s defying of conventions.  Well, that worked for a while. But most of the White House folks with even a modicum of integrity have been fired or quit.  And the checks and balances we learned about in grade school grind at a snail’s pace.

For all practical purposes, our democracy has ceased to function.  This isn’t just Trump’s fault, although he is clearly the triggerman, the guy who took a dysfunctional system and reduced it to the kind of shambles that would warm the heart of a narcissistic authoritarian.  The problem began more than a decade ago when politics became so divisive and polarized that Republican congressional leaders would rather pass no legislation than work with a black Democratic president.  That’s why the biggest problems facing the country – immigration, gun control, health care, climate change – have seen insufficient or no action in the past 20 years.

That opened the door for Donald J. Trump to get elected on the solemn assertion that “I alone” can fix America.  And it’s been downhill ever since.

Remember all that stuff about three “co-equal” branches of government serving as the cauldron of our democracy?  Well, what many of us didn’t learn back in those civics classes was that the system was predicated on at least a modicum of good faith.  It’s common for Congress and a president to be on different pages. What the founders didn’t contemplate was a Trumpian presidency insisting that, it alone, controls the entire book.

So now we have, yet again, an impasse crisis between the president and Congress.  The Trump-appointed inspector general for the intelligence community reviewed a whistleblower complaint supposedly involving, among other matters, a phone conversation Trump had with the new president of Ukraine. The IG found it to be credible and of “urgent concern,” terms of art in the law that requires such matters to be referred to the Intelligence committees of the House and Senate.  The Trump administration is refusing to comply with the statute.  

At the same time, the Donald, out of a mixture of arrogance and invincibility, has been somewhat transparent when it comes to corruption.  That leaves us with the ironic duality of a president openly defying the whistleblower law while tweeting out much of the content likely involved in the matter.  Trump has acknowledged asking the Ukrainian president to investigate alleged wrongdoing by Joe Biden’s son, and has also admitted sending his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, to push Ukraine officials to dig up dirt on Biden for use in the 2020 presidential election.  

Meanwhile, House Democrats continue to spar with each other over potential moves on the impeachment chess board, largely over Trump’s obstruction of justice during the investigation into Russia’s interference in 2016 election.  Their opponent, however, has moved on to get another country to interfere in the upcoming election.  None of those chess pieces are moving right now because Donald Trump has pulled the rug out on the very democratic processes they rely upon.

Despite the constitutional impeachment and oversight responsibilities assigned to Congress, Trump has thumbed his nose at every turn, denying information and testimony that the House and Senate are clearly entitled to.  From the president’s tax returns to Don McGahn’s testimony, to information about immigration policy, bank loans and scores of other subjects, the White House has refused to produce any of it.  The intransigence is totally without precedent.  The result has been litigation and appeals, that may well continue beyond the 2020 election.

But Trump’s ruination of democracy goes much further.  With help from the Supreme Court, he has taken money Congress appropriated for various military projects and deferred it to building part of his wall at the Mexican border, a project specifically rejected by Congress.  The Pentagon now wants more money appropriated to replace the funds diverted to the wall.  According to reporting by the New York Times, White House sources say the president has his eye on diverting any such new appropriation toward additional sections of his wall.  

Freedom House is an independent agency that, for the past 50 years, has ranked countries around the world on how democratic their governments are.  The United States had always been near the top of the chart. Since 2017, however, our ranking has steadily deteriorated due to Trump’s frequent attacks on norms and institutions and the wearing down of democratic checks and balances.  Freedom House now places the U.S. well below other large and long-standing democracies such as France, Germany and Brittan.

Standing alone, the Ukraine/whistleblower episode would be tragic enough.  But on the heels of effectively usurping Congress’s oversight and funding responsibilities, this emboldened, in-broad-daylight rush to get yet another country to interfere in our elections moves this crisis into a whole different realm. Donald Trump is not just a terrible president.  He is not just a threat to our democratic way of life.  He has already dismantled huge parts of our democracy.  With a second term, it is hard to see how we would ever get it back.