New York Times: Trump Charges Could Speed Moves To Censure or Impeach Biden

Good morning.

As I have repeatedly told friends in recent months, we are long past the red pilling stage or the activism stage. You don’t need to “wake people up” or go out and engage in activism. Putting a target on your back in our political climate is dangerous. We are now in the mass radicalization phase where topics that used to be taboo (think of the Great Replacement or most recently White farmers in South Africa) suddenly sweep across wide swathes of the population and become the conventional wisdom.

Mainstream politics is toxic. Partisans are moving to opposing poles. The trend has its own irreversible momentum now. Whether it is riots, shootings, home invasions, censures, surveillance by intelligence agencies, impeachments, expulsions, cries to pack the Supreme Court, investigations like the 1/6 Committee, partisan prosecutions and so on, the underlying trend is the rapid disintegration of our political order and the collapse of its norms and institutions. Political instability is soaring.

New York Times:

When the House formally censured Representative Paul Gosar, Republican of Arizona, in November 2021, it was the first time in more than a decade that the punishment had been handed out on the floor. Less than two years elapsed before the next censure — and more attempts are on the way.

No president had been impeached for 130 years before Bill Clinton faced charges by the Republican-controlled House in 1998. Donald J. Trump was then impeached twice — doubling the number of presidential impeachments. Now, many Republicans are working to impeach President Biden.

Proposals to censure lawmakers and impeach members of the Biden administration are piling up quickly in the House in an illustration of how once-solemn acts are becoming almost routine as the two parties seize on these procedures as part of their political combat. And the trend is only likely to intensify given the enmity between Republicans and Democrats over a new federal indictment brought against Mr. Trump for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and the G.O.P.’s desire to even the score. …

How many people do you think have been radicalized in just the past few months by these indictments and arrests of Donald Trump? Why hand out fliers when Jack Smith is on television every day destroying the legitimacy of the justice system? We should get another indictment of Trump this week in Georgia.

New York Times:

Mr. Goldsmith served in the George W. Bush administration as an assistant attorney general and as special counsel to the general counsel of the Department of Defense.

It may be satisfying now to see Special Counsel Jack Smith indict former President Donald Trump for his reprehensible and possibly criminal actions in connection with the 2020 presidential election. But the prosecution, which might be justified, reflects a tragic choice that will compound the harms to the nation from Mr. Trump’s many transgressions.

Mr. Smith’s indictment outlines a factually compelling but far from legally airtight case against Mr. Trump. The case involves novel applications of three criminal laws and raises tricky issues of Mr. Trump’s intent, of his freedom speech and of the contours of presidential power. If the prosecution fails (especially if the trial concludes after a general election that Mr. Trump loses), it will be a historic disaster.

But even if the prosecution succeeds in convicting Mr. Trump, before or after the election, the costs to the legal and political systems will be large. …

These are all good points.

I can’t complain about any of this. I largely agree with this portrait of the federal bureaucracy, the criminal justice system, the intelligence community, the public schools, the media, the universities, corporations, the military, etc. I would also take a sledgehammer to all of these institutions.

New York Times:

Ron DeSantis says the military is more interested in global warming and “gender ideology” initiatives than in national security.

Tim Scott says the Justice Department “continues to hunt Republicans.”

Vivek Ramaswamy has vowed to “shut down the deep state,” borrowing former President Donald J. Trump’s conspiratorial shorthand for a federal bureaucracy he views as hostile.

As Mr. Trump escalates his attacks on American institutions, focusing his fire on the Justice Department as he faces new criminal charges, his competitors for the Republican nomination have followed his lead.

Several have adopted much of Mr. Trump’s rhetoric sowing broad suspicion about the courts, the F.B.I., the military and schools. As they vie for support in a primary dominated by Mr. Trump, they routinely blast these targets in ways that might have been considered extraordinary, not to mention unthinkably bad politics, just a few years ago.

Yet there is little doubt about the political incentives behind the statements. Polls show that Americans’ trust in their institutions has fallen to historical lows, with Republicans exhibiting more doubt across a broad swath of public life.

The proliferation of attacks has alarmed both Republicans and Democrats who worry about the long-term impact on American democracy. Public confidence in core institutions — from the justice system to voting systems — is fundamental to a durable democracy, particularly at a time of sharp political division …

If I could step into a time machine and return to the America of George W. Bush in 2004 or John McCain in 2008, I would be stunned to learn that this would be the consensus among Republicans in less than 20 years. Nearly everyone believes this except the 5% of voters who are supporting Mike Pence.