#Wishful thinking
Maybe NYT should wait for Bill Barr's report and Horowitz's report which my highlight corruption by Dem leaning officials.
If that does not happen, you can always count on Bernie/Warren to blow this up by promising free everything for illegals.
Dems should focus on sound policy and realistic promises and not rely on these impeachment hearings, just my 2 cents.
21
Republicans and the base may be in the know about something the rest of us cannot quite imagine. Maybe Vladimir, via his pal, is already running the show. Certainly they are all singing in perfect harmony from the same hymn book on the secret Ukraine server conspiracy theory. The Trumpsters and the GOP just want to be first to kiss Vlad's ring.
24
From Heraclitus (ἦθος ἀνθρώπῳ δαίμων) to Shakespeare's Cassius ('...not in our stars but in ourselves...'), Trump's impossibly stained soul affects and infects his every action and utterance, great or small.
But it has similarly infected a government 'of, by, and for the people', and I fear that our country's character may be its fate also. A man whose entry-point to presidential politics ('They're bringing crime. They're rapists') should have finished him off there and then got some 62 million votes.
The gnomic Heraclitus was no novelist; but he was no fool, either.
13
Where's the crime? I think readers may want to hold their tongues until the Horowitz and Durham reports are released.
6
I await the opportunity for the Republicans and the President's attorney's to mount a strong defense to the charges before the impeachment committee.
Oh wait! The hearings are over! The Republicans chose NOT to defend anything. They sought instead to attack the messenger, deflect, lie, and look quite stupid.
Maybe Trump will take a different tack during the Senate trial.
18
I am worried, very worried.Since Richard Nixon we have bred ignorance, reviled learning, broken unions, swept away the middle class, given corporations personhood and excess power, allowed gerrymandering to perfect itself, relaxed the separation of church and state and allowed the rise up of the christian taliban, broken the common good, and compromised our integrity as a country. If we don't stand up now, we can kiss our democratic republic good bye. Then again, I am afraid to stand up and protest, because someone could shoot me - even in California, because guns can move so easily from less restrictive states.
40
Dead Democracy Walking
9
I am 83, a retired Air Force colonel. Vietnam Nam vet, father of a daughter who is a retired Air Force colonel, and son who served 2 tours in Iraq as an Army captain, and is now an elected Democratic chief prosecutor in a Washington county. In my younger days, the country would be outraged at anyone who tried to trash American heroes like Senator McCain or LtCol Vindman. I am now sorry my father’s family chose the US over Canada when they emigrated from Scotland in 1912. I am also sorry that Lincoln didn’t support the secession of Dixie, with a “Good Riddance”.
69
If guilty, obfuscate.
When the needle of public opinion touches "Who cares",
declare your innocence, have lunch with Mitch McConnell.
7
Fantasy land, unfortunately.
I'm afraid the Dems will nominate Warren. Even Buttigieg looks like a loser to me (& not because he doesn't "engage" blacks but because *they* [many of them] don't engage with a gay-married man). Klobachar could win but she's way down in the polls. Biden?- maybe.
Tim Egan is probably one of those people who say "the American people are smart"--yet he notes that the 80,000 in the (so-called) heartland will outvote the millions on the coast.
To me, does not look good.
16
Bring It On, Blue Tsunami.
10
This is magical thinking.
10
This is all Russian payback for the dissolution of the USSR.
19
Centrist Democratic presidential candidates come across as just more lying politicians who promise but who never deliver. That's why Billary Clinton lost in November 2016.
Being a milquetoast, all-things-to-all people, "Kumbaya" candidate is not a winning strategy.
Nice try, though. I guess...
10
A road map without a driver.d
5
This is not how it works. Not even in the Catholic Church.
Vote for Bernie and/or Liz in 2020 and beyond.
Then try and sentence Trump and all his enablers to long jail terms.
Wake up Mr Egan. This type of sophomoric (high school not college) puts everyone to sleep.
Earn your pay.
11
I understand that this is the op ed section and there's no obligation to report "news" here, but good lord I do NOT need absurd fan-fiction from the New York Times. Save the victory lap for after the election (if we earn it; articles like these certainly don't help)
13
Yes, lets get back to the 'Obama coalition'....who, in the end, gave us....Trump.
9
Another pipe dream article.
A list of things that were going to save us from Trump....
The Steele Dossier
The Judith Stein recount
The Hamilton electors
The 25 amendment
Stormy Daniels and Mike Cohn
The Mueller investigation
Now it’s the Impeachment hearings!
13
Foolish and poorly written. Although the author and I despise Trump equally, this article is written as if it were a fairly tale. The Times can do much better.
10
from your keyboard to god's inbox
4
When it comes to things like affordable health care, support for the working class, education funding, etc. - Americans are not all that far apart. They are consistently to the left of so called moderate Democrats.
Forget attracting Fox-fed sheeple. They will never vote blue.
People want and need to be inspired to vote for someone with a vision of what America can become. Someone with integrity who will inspire young people and fence sitters to get in the game.
I support Elizabeth Warren, but will vote Democratic come 2020 because it’s the right thing to do.
We have settled for less since Reagan successfully convinced a nation that liberalism and (shudder) socialism are evil.
We need to rein in the oligarchic class with sweeping changes not seen since the early 20th century. The alternative is a hollowed out economy where the average person barely ekes out a living.
Incremental change has been the status quo for decades and we are losing ground.
I, for one, am sick of the status quo.
19
@ChristineMcM
“Putin is taking over America without firing a shot”
And the old Democrats in Congress (Pelosi, Schumer, Feinstein) HAVE DONE NOTHING to stop it — Democrats in Washington are letting this happen, by inaction or incompetence or slow brainpower or for other unknown reasons, we can’t be sure. Nonetheless, they’ve mishandled and failed to fight at every turn and at every corner. I blame them as much as Putin and Republicans for the demise of our democratic republic.
3
If you're telling me Amy Klobuchar is the Answer to Trump you need to get your head examined. The country told you last time a status quo centrist was not what they wanted. They wanted a populist and an actual populist will be the only one to beat a con man right wing "populist".
9
Mr. Egan seems to think that the current occupant of the White House will depart peacefully at Noon on January 20, 2021, if he is beaten at the polls next November 3rd. I don't believe that for a moment.
Instead, I can already hear the cries and see the tweets of "election fraud" even before the polls close on Election Day, backed loudly by State TV and our Leader's sycophants. As in 2016, our Thug-in-Chief will make no promise to abide by the tabulated results. Several of the challenges are likely to end up in the courts, with the result eventually to be decided and awarded by the 5 R's on the Supreme Court.
We're at risk of getting "four more years" whether we want them or not. Our best hope is health-related.
9
Actually, the 2020 election will be decided on Election Day, 2020, but I’ve enjoyed reading one of the first of 27,384 columns predicting an unimpeachable (sorry) outcome.
2
I'm not so confident. H. L. Mencken keeps intruding - " Nobody ever got rich by overestimating the intelligence of the American people".
3
Indeed! Amy Klobuchar. That’s the ticket.
3
Here is what it will take for a Democrat to win in 20. It’s not the way I’d wish it to be, but the candidate needs to have a combination of these qualities:
Famous, possibly from a realm outside politics, which is too suspect. Someone everyone recognizes and has a strong image (Tom Hanks is an example)
Tall
White
Christian
Male
Those seem to be the essentials for carrying enough rural districts to prevail in the Electoral College.
Non starters:
Jewish
Not white
Short
Unknown/limited preawareness
Female
Show me I’m wrong, America.
2
"Character is destiny."
Yup. I always knew such a man would end badly...just hope our country doesn't go down the tubes with him.
2
You'll forgive me if I don't stop working on my arrangements to leave the country if Donald Trump wins again.
7
Perhaps this is unfairly cynical, but too many Americans are intellectually lazy and have not followed, nor care to follow, the impeachment hearings. It is far easier to just watch Fox and be spoon fed the narrative that the corrupt Trump and his Republicans wish to impose. Mr. Egan, your opinion expressed here is wishful thinking. The Trump cult is blind to his treachery.
The Republicans have clearly shown that they do not care one wit for democracy, the Constitution, and American values, and they will stop at nothing to have their way. Besides the propaganda of Fox vomiting over the airwaves, they have the full set of resources of Vladimir Putin, the KGB, and Russia behind them to insure that they prevail.
8
from your lips to God's ears
1
That's what we all said the last time!
I loved the article - until I saw that it's worse than wishful thinking. It's smug and glosses over the 10,000 ways the plot can be re-written - to be more realistic!
I was one of many who thought that "You can grab them by ..." was "curtains" for a campaign that - in and of itself - forever banished the "light unto nations" that we certainly aspired to - many of us, much of the time.
But it didn't. I'm not going to go word-for-word with Mr. Egan, but remember this - more white women voted for Trump than for Hillary Clinton!
Yes, the witnesses were well-chosen & close to unflappable.
And yesterday's "righteous woman" TRIED - one hopes that she changed some voters' minds - to get us back to a world where facts win out over non-facts, i.e., LIES!
No way will Gordon S. bring Trump down, and I feel that Mr. Egan ought to know that.
As a snarky Republican on the committee put it late in the day - in effect - "Don't you DARE complain about any aspersions on your character... YOU, who needed 3 tries to figure out what you wanted the country to think was 'the truth.' "
It's a cardinal rule of criminal law that no matter how unappealing the defendant may be, when his accuser has no good answer to "And do you hope that your co-operation will result in your spending less time in jail?" ... the defendant has largely de-fanged whatever that individual alleged!
In short, this column is like New Year's Eve. Many will wish they could turn the clock back 12-18 hours @noon on 1/1/20.
1
WAKE UP AMERICA. The facts are crystal clear and enough points of truth have been disclosed to allow any American with working gray matter the ability to recognize that Trump is Putin's Puppet.
Putin and Russia have decided that the best way to take America down is to create a scenario that cultivates a Civil War in the U.S.
It's depressing enough to acknowledge and embrace that fact that Trump is controlled by the marionette Putin. But to witness the idiocy of Nunes and Jordan and all the spineless Republicans during the Impeachment Hearings is downright depressing. Don't be fooled. This battle isn't about conflicting views on Abortion, Health Care and Gun Rights. Many of our countries current leaders are intoxicated by and addicted to sociopathic ego and greed. Get off Twitter and get into the streets. Many, many U.S. Leaders need to be held accountable for their reprehensible actions and removed from office. WAKE UP AMERICA!
7
Metaphorically, Trump shot someone on Fifth Avenue and lost no support. The Trump Cult doesn't care. They are impervious to reason and to morality. The ONLY possible thing that could change their mind is if Trump's tax returns reveal something SO corrupt and heinous that even his zombie minions can't overlook it. But that's a high bar because his minions don't think very well and it will take something momentous for them to turn on their Dear Leader.
3
Hillary's 2016 road map led us to the disaster Trump. Most people who are not in the bubble of 24 cable news really could care less what Trump did in Ukraine.With Bloomberg and Patrick entry into an already crowed race Democrats have a road map going in 10 different directions. Trump's effort to take down the one person who he really knew was a threat is being cannibalized by his own party and that is Joe Biden. I would vote for a Parrot if I thought it could beat Trump.Biden is the one that has caused Trump all of his impeachment nightmares have we overlooked that? I am not offended by Biden's stuttering or his mistake in saying Carol Mosley Braun was the only black woman elected to the Senate. As in the blackface saga with the Virginia governor the media is making more of it than Black Folks.We have eleven months to come up with a plan to evict Trump and so far I don't see any winning hands. Do we want to beat Trump or save the world? Obama pointed it out last week but few were listening. Right now the only road map we have is taking us into a construction zone.We can only reinvent healthcare if we run the table in 2020.
5
' then I woke up.
And Trump was still President!'
November 10 2020
5
The outcome is Trump wins with more conspiracy theories from Russia. what happens after is the final civil war that ends the USA. Red States become Russian republics. Blue states become independent countries. Within 10 years we all die in nuclear war.
2
From his mouth to God's ear.
From your mouth to God's ear. My grandmother.
Only the mindless Trumpers don't seem to care and the surely aren't the majority.
I can not wait to gloat - - - When Trump wins!
5
Commentary like this re-enforces my perception that so many otherwise intelligent people are frogs being boiled alive slowly. Trump and minions have already taken down the democracy. Figure out what the Long Term Resistance looks like.
3
I pray for your conclusion - every day.
Mr. Egan, I applaud your optimism and hopes of the Democrats having "a road map for victory" but come on, "most Americans felt that Trump had committed an impeachable offense"? Really? It seems that more Democrats, not Americans, felt Trump had committed an impeachable offense.
To be honest, I was the only person I know who watched these hearings religiously. So many friends, co-workers, even my husband asked me how I could watch that every day, all day, it was going on. I asked them how could they not?
I kept thinking about the 1986 Chernobyl accident in Russia where that country's leaders denied and then lied to their own people and countries throughout the world about what happened and more importantly, the seriousness, harm and danger that accident caused.
For Russia to sucessfully pretend and generate false narratives about a life and death situation in their own back yard for years, why couldn't they be capable of spinning different lies about America and Ukraine to America and Ukraine?
Don't the Republicans realize they are being played and manipuated by the Russians, or worse yet, don't care as long as the Democrats get defeated.
I thought the impeachment hearings would be a major wakeup call for the country. It's sadly turning out to being the Democrats' worse unending nightmare.
6
If only this would be true.
Anyone who wants a change in Nov 2020 needs to make sure they vote, help with voter registration, help people get to the polls, or fill in an early ballot, and pay very particular attention to how voting is being done in their district. Have the polls been moved? Have the voter rolls been purged? Do they have enough ballots? Are the machines secure?
Please pay attention and do what you can. Sending a few bucks to a Dem candidate is good, particularly to one in a swing district, but don't let your attention waver in your own.
The voter turnout in 2016 was only 57%. I expect that this impeachment process will fire up all the Always Trumpers and they will vote.
Make sure you outnumber them. Wouldn't it be wonderful to have a turnout of 80%?
7
WHEN will we get past the nonsense that the presidential election is about appealing to the general populace of American voters?
Red voters in red states do not matter.
Blue voters in red states do not matter.
Red voters in blue states do not matter.
Blue voters in blue states do not matter.
The only voters who matter are swing voters in swing states, likely about 5% of the electorate. Find a Dem candidate who appeals to them and we may have a chance.
9
Superb analysis. But when the courts finally rule on Trump’s taxes and other offenses, we may not have to wait till Nov. of 2020 to be rid of this criminal.
1
The impeachment process needs to continue long enough to force every single republican running in every election at every level to explain supporting Trump. Not just to Fox & Friends but to skeptical voters, neutral media, and election opponents. Otherwise, swing voters will forget.
8
What is the one thing that it would take for an average Trump supporter to desert him? If somehow he was made to believe that Trump will be responsible for the supporter's taxes to increase, or, along those lines if on SS the benefit would be decreased. That's all most of them care about, not the federal debt, not social issues, not America's standing in the world, and definitely not the U.S. Constitution. That supporter would then ask who out there promises to decrease my taxes or leave SS alone.
7
@Richard Pontone
You say you’re a Democrat? Those are Republican talking points. The answers to your expensive retirement and expensive health care, prescriptions, dental, vision, nursing care etc do not exist in fragile private 401ks and the stock market, which is a billionaire playground. The answer is in responsible government social services and programs, unions and pensions, and universal healthcare.
12
If the 2016 election were held today and everyone voted the same way as they did on that day - Trump would lose Michigan (10,000 vote margin) and Wisconsin (22,000 vote margin) just based on the number of Trump voters who have died in the last 3 years.
More than 2/3 of Trump voters were over 50 and nation-wide thousands of these people die every single day. Over the course of 3 full years the number of deceased Trump voters minus the number of deceased Clinton voters exceeds the margin of victory.
So even if no Trump voter regrets his/her choice (and of course millions in the suburbs do regret that vote) Trump will still lose in 2016 based on nothing more than the passage of time.
Trump is toast and he knows it.
6
I am a loyal Democrat and would never vote for Trump, but if you have Democrats, that say "tax the rich", then you better watch out.
That is code words to tax anyone who has a couple of extra bucks in his or her bank accounts. I am talking not about millions of dollars but rather money in one's IRA or 401K accounts. I will pay the required taxes when I am legally required to take that money when I am supposed to. But, that money is my safety insurance for very high medical, dental, drug costs, nursing home or assistive care costs that may be needed by me.
I do not know if I need them until my doctors tell me if I have those medical conditions or surgeries. And of course, rent and home costs including property taxes figure into that as well.
Taxing the wealthy means taxing everyone else too, especially as the rich have loopholes to escape those taxes, just ask Trump who escaped paying federal, state and local income taxes for the past 30 years.
Trump has 42 percent support, and with a third party candidate, and we will have that, and with the above, some Democrats may stay home,
Trump can win re-election in 2020..
3
Well, how many people have millions in IRA funds or in 401k? To have 50 millions you have to put more than million every year in IRA. Considering the limits it is just impossible. So, don't tell me, when we tax 50 min and not it is will hit the retirement.
2
"Most Democrats came to see that it would do nothing for their cause to gain another million progressives on the coasts if they still lost 80,000 people in the old industrial heartland."
This was interesting until this rehashed so-called "centrist" Democratic fantasy. The way to beat Trump is not to fetishize the white working class part of the old Obama coalition. The way to win is to recognize that those folks are not coming back and to galvanize voters of color and young voters. Every single "swing" state was lost by a very small number of voters. The way to make up that small difference in these states is to look to the future, not the past, and find a Democrat who will infuse this election with energy and hope and real commitment to the America that, demographically, is only waiting to be rallied to the cause. Picking a nominee who is only devoted to attempting to rebuild something from the past just ensures that the essential structural problems that have gotten us into this mess will not be fundamentally changed. Ok. So Obama says we shouldn't be talking about "revolution." Whatever. Call it what you will, now is the time for a progressive answer to the disaster that the Reagan Revolution has been for this country.
9
How many op-eds in elite corporate newspapers will find a different way to say "don't go too far left"? I don't know the answer to that question, but I do know this. The real problem in this country is not Democrats, like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, going left. Rather, it's an extremist Republican Party going too far right. As AOC has said, Democrats going left are just returning to our roots. That's where we're going.
22
I wish I could share the happiness implicit in your fairy-tale ending, Mr. Egan. But I think at least as likely the following scenario...
Donald Trump is defeated by the slightest margins in November of 2020. He refuses to concede and urges his followers to take to the streets to defend him. They do so -- with a passion and with firearms. Violence escalates and several hundred people are killed, all to assuage the ego of Donald Trump. Military intervention is required to restore order, but violence continues to erupt as the social fabric of our nation is torn to shreds. By the time the inauguration of the new president takes place in January, Donald Trump has still not left the White House and a sizeable percentage of the Republican Party refuses to acknowledge the election of the new president or to work with the new administration.
I am not joking. Given where we are as a nation today, I think that scenario entirely plausible. We have, to our eternal shame, became a degraded and uncaring and deeply compromised society. God help us all.
9
Tim is fantasizing again. We tried it his way 4 years ago - allowed the 'donor class' to pick Clinton, a 'moderate'. Look what happened.
Winning 5,000 (it won't be 80,000) in a red state won't make up for losing tens of millions who are hungry for change. And we don't have to lose those red states, like Clinton did by not contesting them. Tim, and the donor class are dead wrong - we win by giving people a reason to vote. Republicans, Trump are not providing prosperity and security. They provide fear, uncertainty and demand unwavering allegiance to them, personally. Not the country.
We can do better. Show those voters wavering that a progressive platform provides for their economic prosperity and security. Demonstrate how protecting rights for all protects their rights too. And show them they don't have to choose between right and country.
7
"As any novelist could have predicted, character was destiny."
We as a nation cannot afford to take these colossal gambles any more - if we ever did. Whatever the resentments some of us feel, and I quite understand that some are heartbreakingly real, to be mesmerized by a rich, unscrupulous conman is not the answer.
5
I'll live with this fantasy through this weekend. Not one Republican will vote to impeach in the House and not one GOP Senator will vote to convict in the Senate. Even the retiring Congresspeople. Amash was an anomaly. In today's Washington Post reporting this comment popped, "Fitzpatrick’s comments follow similar ones by fellow moderate Republican Rep. Will Hurd (Tex.) on Thursday, when he said he had not yet heard “overwhelmingly clear and unambiguous” evidence that the president committed an impeachable offense.
With Fitzpatrick and Hurd stating they are unlikely to support impeaching Trump, it’s difficult to imagine any Republicans doing so."
I thought Will Hurd was a decent man with a sense of honor. Even he is afraid to antagonize his fellow Congresspeople, why? Job security. Even if he does not run again he might get into some lucrative lobbying firm or get a job with some GOP thinktank or some other partisan funded organization.
We need a Democrat controlled Senate and House with a big enough majority, subtracting the blue dogger DINO vote, to convict Trump.
8
@Gary Valan
Dems don't need republicans ,what dems need are a large turn out and the voters who picked trump on a whim and now regret it.Get those two and repubs are toast.
1
Dr. Fiona Hill 4 Prez.
Eloquent
Principled
Spine of steel
Extremely knowledgeable
And can singlehandedly shred not only Trump, but the whole GOP clowns.
Unfortunately, she ain't native-born.
13
Thank you, Timothy Egan. You've distilled it eloquently. I hope your hope comes true. This whole process had stirred up my brain; made me re-assess assumptions I've had. The worst of it is, it may make a majority of Americans believe there is no truth, it's what the loudest bunch says it is. I hope not (there's that word again). I think it's all we can do. I know my neighbors, family, the people I know, are good people. Why does that not translate to the body politic? (Thinking again...)
2
All I can do is vote and hope. That is why I read the headlines and the obits.
4
Yes the Democrats now have the road map but they don’t seem to know how to read it yet. They’ve seen that they can win in Kentucky and Louisiana, and they’re beginning to realize that “it would do nothing for their cause to gain another million progressives on the coasts if they still lost 80,000 people in the old industrial heartland.” But they don’t seem to be thinking about what this really means. I’d say that what it means is that Democrats should say, Number 1: let’s support a candidate who can win in the heartland, someone whom voters in middle America will really like! Everything else is Number 2 because if we don’t defeat Trump, it’s all over. The Democrats actually have such a candidate but it seems that they’re doing their best to ignore him. That candidate is Steve Bullock, the Governor of Montana. Once you start thinking about it, you realize that he’s the perfect Democratic candidate: he’s won three statewide elections in a very red state, he has an outstanding progressive record, and voters – especially those undecided and independent voters in red states – will really like him if they ever get a chance to see and hear him. Check out his website and you’ll see!
9
One wishes this will unfold as Mr. Egan fantasizes, but one fears the fantasy imputes far too much credit to voters, enough of whom for a variety of mundane reasons appear poised, with chilling ramifications, to reelect Trump. One continues to want to imagine that in the face of everything we now know, ethical lucidity will stir and destine the jettisoning of this clinical psychopath, but absolutely nothing truly encouraging, in reality, portends the materializing of this fantasy. Nothing yet, at least. Mass anesthetizing of our capacity for outrage makes it more likely than not that with every fresh, alarming transgression Trump survives he moves even more inexorably towards reelection.
4
Only a madman could have predicted we'd be in our present state.
As only a lunatic would have thought bin Ladin could actually bring down the Twin Towers. But here we are. Lunacy has prevailed and Trump sits in the Oval Office. And I have just read this column as once I watched, in real time, the second plane hit the second of the two people- filled structures. There's no escaping it, it's real.
I know it because, this morning I took my two dogs, Max and Murphy to the groomers, went to the gym,, took the 'boys', as I call them, back and fed them. And I just read this column. It's real, isn't it?
3
Sondland is not trustworthy. He is, obviously, a self-serving rat who would do anything to save his own skin.
If his testimony is to be believed, he was complicit in this, and just as liable to prosecution, and yet, he will not be prosecuted.
Why? The answer is obvious...he made a deal.
Squealers are never to be trusted.
(BTW, I know the difference between a squealer and a person pursuing justice.)
3
The real path to the victory that America needs is to follow the money. In our politics the money leads to the Republican party,
to Hillary and Bill Clinton, to Barack Obama, to the DNC, etc. Establishment politics caters to big corporate money every time and our only real chance at breaking free of this doomed system is to cleanse it of the deadly influence of money. We will only reach that goal if we step outside left/right binary politics and dedicate ourselves to the truth about life on Earth that no amount of money can buy.
146
Boy, I wish, hope, pray that you are correct. I have my favorite(s) in the Democratic group but I will vote for, support and donate to any of them who win the nomination.
We MUST get rid of the blight in our country. Beating Donald Trump by massive numbers and booting out most Republicans in the House and Senate is the first step. I nominate my Republican Congresswoman, Elise Stefanik, for the ash heap. She embarrassed our district by her performance in the investigation. It was nothing more than a performance- no basis in truth and certainly no pretense to find the truth.
There is a fantastic Democrat running against Stefanik in the NY21st. Tedra Cobb actually lives here, has a great record and cares about the things that affect us. She is also a delightful person I look forward to calling her my Representative.
3
In America the president has to face the people every four years. Impeachment is unlikely to result in removing the president from office, but the November 2020 election must occur. The Democrats have a choice. They can but their best foot forward by nominating a candidate who appeals to a broad cross-section of America. Or they can shoot themselves and the country in the foot by nominating a candidate who appeals to a small segment.
Progressives and die-hard liberals make up less than 30% of the country. Elizabeth Warren cannot win the Electoral College. There is no way. Donald Trump would win EASILY if they nominate Warren. She antagonizes too many important segments of the country by fighting with them! Banks, tech companies, energy companies, almost all corporations, etc.
Democrats should do the smart thing -- and the right thing -- by rallying around candidates who speak for all Democrats, not just those on the leftward side of the country.
2
Okay. Seventy one percent of Americans say that what Trump did with the Ukraine is a crime. Unless Russia helps by hacking our elections he’s out in 2020!
We don't even know the night that decided he 2016 loss and here's someone who knows the critical event that just happened that will determine November 2020.
Seems to me the Dems lost 2016 with Sanders put already away from action and Warren had long left the field to Clinton who was "inevitable."
I don't see Biden as the second coming of Obama; he has no ideas of his own and, despite his strong polling, donors are looking for another establishment figure.
I'm encouraged Warren knows to compromise on Sanders' rigid Medicare for All, but does not give up on going strong against corruption and big money. I think she'll find a way to unite us in the cause of economic fairness. Was it FDR who united the country in the Depression with "A Fair Shake." Warren shows every sign of being our FDR in our terrible times.
5
Let's HOPE you are right Timothy! Now we need a strong Democrat that can appeal to all (at least the majority of) Americans. We don't need a "Revolution" that Warren speaks about, because that's simply NOT appealing to voters, no matter how often Warren interrupts any of the other debaters on stage. We need to get this country back to its pre-Trump place of decency again. No more acting like a Putin (or Xi or Kim) puppet.
3
I saw Egan speak at the local bookseller here in Portland once, a few months before our last presidential election. When an audience member asked him what his thoughts were on the upcoming election, he brushed it off as downright laughable that Donald Trump could ever be voted into office. While I've read every one of Egan's books and admire him as a writer, I find the dismissiveness with which he assures a democratic victory in 2020 to be forgetful at best, dangerous at worst. Mr. Egan, please do not breed complacency in the voting electorate with statements such as, "the outcome on this election night was never in doubt." It wasn't in 2016, either, and we've been eating our words ever since.
12
I am a Democrat married to a Republican Fox “News” watcher. The impeachment hearings have not swayed his opinion one iota and he is a college-educated man. On the first day of the hearings, I believed that truth would win and Trump would be unmasked as the traitor he is. Despite Schiff’s AMAZING management of the hearings, everyday Republicans listen and believe the whole affair is a “misunderstanding” of an embattled President doing his best. This entire saga is beyond anything in a Tom Clancy novel, the details of which I could never follow. And I think that’s how most of the everyday Republicans feel: no time or interest in watching the actual hearings so they wait for the Fox spin and continue to believe that Trump is draining the swamp. Trump is what he’s always been: interested in lavish fawning, making a buck and hanging with beautiful women. A grifter for the 21st century. Can’t someone follow the money and find the compromat? Please, before it’s all too late.
514
You’re correct, Mary. There are many Republicans in my family, they are stubborn and loathe to admit they are and we’re wrong about Trump.
52
@Mary
I have almost the same problem. Republicans are not watching the impeachment and they are listening to a quick summary of reactions by Fox hosts.
The House should have held these hearings during primetime. Now they are done and few Americans have watched. A primetime wrap-up should state very clearly what the president did wrong and why it undermines our democracy.
49
@Mary
We would love to follow the money. Right now there is a battle going on in the courts over Trump's tax returns. We will only know the truth about the money if the courts agree to have them released. Until then, New York has the option of looking into his tax returns which would contain similar information. We can only wait for that day.
33
Timothy Egan,
The way that Democrats "win" is to do the right thing. Voters in the primary should vote for the candidate they prefer, not the candidate that elites who write for the NY Times tell them they must vote for to win.
Just a month ago nearly every single pundit from Fox News to the NY Times was insisting that the Democrats must not investigate Trump because that would be "unpopular" and those pundits just "knew" that popularity was what mattered.
Now, these same pundits conveniently forget how wrong they were.
The ONLY way for Democrats to win is to stick with doing what is right and stop listening to elites at the NY Times who insist that doing what is popular is more important.
This impeachment investigation is so clearly the right thing to do and yet no apologies yet from those pundits here at other places who insisted that Trump should be allowed to do whatever he wanted because investigating his wrongdoing would be 'unpopular".
Democrats, please keep doing what is moral and right, not what these elites keep telling you is "popular".
9
Since when is "I barely know the man" a defense?
8
Trump isn't going to be impeached because no Republican in the Senate will vote for impeachment. Even if they have four more years in their terms and nothing to fear from Trump’s desire for revenge, the Republican wall that Trump built will stand into his second term.
Without the Senate, there can be no impeachment and even if he is impeached and removed from office, there’s nothing to preventing from running again in 2020. Note: I can see nothing in the Twenty-second Amendment that would prevent his re-election, if someone knows differently please cite the source.
Now for all you folks that believe he will be voted out of office in a year, I have a disheartening factoid for you:
• There will be about 130 million votes cast in 2020
• Trump has a solid lock on some 30 million of those votes
• That leaves about 100 million voters who can swing either way.
• At a 60/40 split of the Democrats and Republicans not in the Trump block, Trump with his 30 million solid votes plus 40 million from the uncommitted voting population, that gives Trump a 10 million vote win. At 65/35 Trump settles the tie in Florida and still wins.
No one has ever come close to the margin of victory needed to beat Trump in 2020. Repeat NO ONE.
So, it matters not what you think about Trump, he is going to have four more years – God save America!
5
@William where do you get the 60/40 split between democrats and republicans when you just gave most of the republican votes to trump? where are the independents? you klnow the turnout is going to be a lot more than 130 mil.
1
Forget about having a liberal or a conservative in the White House, I’d be happy with an adult.
439
Trump rules by fear, just look at GOP elected officials. If people are afraid they will fall into line and vote for the devil they know rather than the one they don't. And if Trump doesn't win he will visit upon our nation a wrath few of us are prepared to weather. Most folks will acquiesce.
3
Well, in spite of this prediction, I am wondering what to pack into my survival kit (for emotional and psychological and physical needs) in anticipation of another trump term. I don't have faith, in gods or humans. If I have learned anything with these past 3 years, it's expect the worst, because it's worse than what I could even imagine. Pictures of the thugs surrounding trump and his goon guiliani are downright chilling to the bone. Not a sliver of goodness slips out of the crowd.
9
Have you ever considered running for President? It's not too late.
I'd like to sip on what Mr. Egan has been drinking. His hope sounds hallucinatory. Trump deserves to be impeached, but sadly, I've come to the conclusion that at least forty per cent of Americans have not read the Constitution and certainly don't understand it. They don't know nor care what laws Trump has violated. In four months time, after the Senate finds Trump innocent - we'll be at the starting line again.
5
@Rick Morris More than forty per cent of Americans have read and understand the Constitution. What you fail to grasp is Political Reality in the Twenty-First Century. To wit: If there is EITHER a poor economy OR a major war, Jesus Christ newly risen from the tomb would be immediately impeached, convicted and removed from office. Conversely, if the economy is good AND there are no major wars, Satan incarnate would be re-elected by a substantial margin.
What's missing here is Trump already saying he will give more "tax cuts" to the middle class before the end of 2019. He is literally bribing his base with taxpayer money, and the majority of that money comes from coastal, highly populated cities; the ones that will vote democrat. The farmers, the deep south and midwest middle class will get its extra $20 a week in tax cuts and swear Trump is the greatest president.
Why is no one talking about this?
11
At this point, victory is getting back to gridlock and vicious, no-holds-barred arguments on whether to slightly expand or slightly contract health care, the ability to get abortions, our present disparities in income and wealth, our levels of taxation, and our efforts on global warming.
Moderation means gridlock on big answers and, if we are smart and lucky, some nibbling at our problems around the edges. This will continue until we find ourselves spending more and more time and resources cleaning up after floods and fires and droughts, moving many of our cities to higher ground, and expelling people who sneak in from other places with similar problems and fewer resources to deal with them.
If this is victory, it is not enough.
2
As long as the Democrats keep telling themselves these fairy tales, they are going to keep losing. This is fantasy, not reality. Trump's poll numbers are improving, not getting worse. Independents are not behind the impeachment effort because the Democrats have failed to sell it as a return to sanity. They are trying to fry Trump on what amounts to a misdemeanor charge rather than the whole panoply of crimes he has committed while in office. I
Instead of a broad-based attack, they have chosen a very narrow battlefield where, in the end, it will amount to a matter of opinion.
We all know the impeachment effort is going to fail, and we all know that it has distracted the voters from the Democratic debates and from the election process.
That's what Trump wanted all along.
They have fixed voting machines, tampered with voter rolls, and if it turns out to be a close election, as it probably will, we will be treated to a whole new constitutional crisis when Trump declares that the election was rigged and refuses to step down.
2
Trump is a Soviet agent. Mr. Mueller proved that. Why hasn’t he been overthrown yet? Why are the Democrats protecting him. What does Putin have on Speaker Pelosi and Chairmen Schiff and Nadler.
3
The real question is how will all of this play in Trump Country.
1
Putin interfered in the 2016 election for the same reason he interferes everywhere: to polarize the country and upend the status quo. Chaos destabilizes a country and who better than Donald Trump to create chaos? Putin also realized that Trump is easy to manipulate but that's just icing on the cake.
7
Mr. Egan, I really enjoy reading your columns, so thanks. It's truly a toss-up as to who wins in 2020, but life will go on, the Trump era will eventually be in the rear-view mirror (at least by 2024) and hopefully we will have the pleasure of reading your work well beyond that.
3
All of these noble considerations of public service, decency and patriotism ignore one irreducible political fact in the swing states. Trump's rubber; Dems, glue.
1
Possibly, demanding a sham investigation of the Bidens and the assertion that it was Ukraine, not Russia that hacked the Democrats emails, was a cover story for cutting off the military assistance to Ukraine to please Putin. Trump knew that it was possible that the aid cutoff, as per Putin’s instructions, could be a problem if discovered.
The Republicans are mostly comfortable with defending Trump’s use off cutting of the military assistance to ostensibly investigate the Bidens and the allegation that that it was Ukraine, not Russia that hacked the Democrats emails. However, most Republican congress members would have a much harder time defending Trump’s use of cutting off military assistance to Ukraine to help Putin.
Apparently, the Republicans don't care that Trump is continuously lying about what his motives were and what he did. Is anyone so stupid to truly believe that Trump was only concerned with Ukrainian corruption in general, rather than having the Ukrainian victims of his extorsion announce that they were investigating the Bidens and whether it the not the Russians who hacked the Democrats in 2016. Trump only wanted the announcement of an investigation, not an actual investigation which would have concluded, as did every other such inquiry, that the Bidens did nothing wrong and it was the Russians who impacted the 2016 election.
6
Save this column. Print it out and put it on your wall. Next month, when the Senate holds the trial, be prepared for Schiff, "the whistleblower" and others to be dragged in for questioning and to be made to look like utter fools.
On election night, tune in to the various MSM outlets while they once again become completely deflated as the night wears on. Finally, Trump is declared the winner and the leftist tears are really flowing. Can't wait.
11
Mr. Egan:
As a novelist, I agree that character is destiny. But that's not only true of Trump. Where your analysis goes off the rails is when you embrace Obama's quote about the average American not wanting to tear down "the system."
President Obama's character is one of caution and a desire to reconcile deep differences, and that resulted in a destiny too -- specifically the endorsement of a status quo that is the reason we got Trump in the first place.
The animating character of the vast majority of the electorate -- on both sides -- is an inchoate rage at what "Washington" has done to them, which is to take away their power and their wealth so they could give it to corporations and the ultra rich.
For the passionately ignorant, Trump is their Molotov cocktail thrown into "the system." They turn out to vote. Progressives, denied a candidate worth voting for by the choice of yet another centrist/moderate, stay home.
The reason Democrats have done well in the midterms and the off-year elections is because they've run well to the left of where they were in 2016.
People are hungry for someone who will gut "the system" and restore New Deal values to our government. Another corporate-friendly, PAC-supported moderate is not the path to victory, it is virtually the only way Trump could win again, after the Senate exonerates him.
9
This made me cry. (Literally.)
1
The over representation of the right in the electoral college holds you hostage to "3rd way," non-angry-female and "electable" centrists. It's why you fear a bold progressive who has a vision and plan for taking our country forward. Sure I'll take that centrist over Trump but let's see if that person can make a dent in inequality and not bring back a populist in the following election cycle. If there really were one person, one vote, whoever wins the democratic primary will surely beat Trump just as he was beat in '16, whether that person is center left or left left.
But the system being what it is, Trump can still be re-elected after getting impeached and acquitted. A 2nd Trump term will make for interesting times and I wonder if he'll self-impeach then as he has now.
5
FDR, JFK, LBJ, all of whom imagined and campaigned on norm-altering egalitarian visions of society, managed to deal with the electoral college.
9
I do believe with all the smoking proof of malfeasance that lends a great deal of credibility to boat loads of circumstantial evidence of Trump’s lack of regard and qualifications for office, not to mention his unfitness, for Democrats to lose 2020 would be the very epitome of pulling defeat out of the jaws of victory. They just need to press the issue that Republicans have shown just how fragile our government is and Republicans are as equally unfit as Trump to be expected to recognize the problem is them and they need to go.
2
I read this with hope in my heart and dread in my head as I truly think we are more likely standing on the abyss and will be pushed over the cliff by the Republican cabal. I reflected on how many times we are asked to stare reality in the face and told to deny it is there. And with dismay, that it is so easy to tear something good apart, and how hard it is to be able to put it back again.
That’s what we’re facing, folks, dissolution, in the hands of deluded power hungry grifters who will stop at nothing to carry on. I can’t buy Tim’s optimistic scenario even though I personally know no one who believes the Republican mantra. It’s just that their mouthpiece is so loud, so repetitive, so reassuring, that their minions want to be part of it. The Dems better come up with something, fast!
4
Wishful thinking at its finest.
Never underestimate the Republican disregard for democracy and determination to disenfranchise voters who don't support them. The GOP long ago realized to win elections it doesn't need the support of 50% + 1 of the people, nor does it need the support of 50% + 1 of voters. All it needs are 50% + 1 of the votes that are COUNTED.
If the GOP can prevent and disqualify enough votes cast for its election opponents, it can win no matter how few votes its own candidates receive. Another benefit: the GOP no longer needs to bother with tempering an extreme position in order to gain more support (i.e. broaden the appeal of its message and thus win more votes, which was once how elections were won). That’s the GOP Playbook today.
“If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.” - David Frum
9
The Republican legislators' behavior in the current impeachment proceedings should not be compared to the Republican legislators of the Watergate Nixon era. Rather, a much better comparison is the similarity with the all-white jury that acquitted the killers of 14-year old Emmett Till in 1955 Mississippi. The killers made no attempt to conceal their identities from the multiple witnesses and the killers sold their story of exactly how they had lynched Emmett Till to Look Magazine for $40,000.
Trump famously said "I could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not lose any votes".
Whatever evidence and proof of criminal acts that Mueller or Schiff could have come up with, it is certain that such evidence and proof could not be as powerful an indication of wrongdoing as the evidence in the public record that Bret Kavanaugh was lying in the senate hearings relating to his confirmation as a Supreme Court Justice.
Once Ford’s account included three people she said were there AND his calendar had them all at Tim Gaudette’s house on July 1, 1982, AND Ford’s description of the interior of Gaudette’s house in Rockville, MD exactly matches that of the actual house, which still exists: the only way that Kavanaugh was not lying is either: Ford somehow obtained access to his 1982 diary/calendar, or Ford has a time machine or Ford stalked Kavanaugh in 1982 and planned for this if he was nominated to the Supreme Court..."
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4216597
9
Whoa, this is disturbing:
"The key, as extolled by the eventual winner, was to rebuild the Obama coalition."
It was Kamala Harris who first said that in this week's debate, if I recall correctly. And then Buttigieg (who reminds me of The Manchurian Candidate and Stepford Wives) repeated it.
I'm a fan of Egan's. So he's saying Harris will win? Or maybe Plastic Pete? Lord, I pray not.
1
Not sure hearings will make a difference. The Republicans are using hearings to continue hypernormalizing Trump's lawless behavior. People are getting numb. It may be working.
A more moderate democratic candidate would be wonderful. It just CAN'T be Joe Biden. Did the columnist watch debates!! Joe wants to "punch down" domestic abuse. Yes! He means. "Punch it down, punch it down"! Everyone laughs, but he still doesn't get it. He doesn't realize he's on the same stage as a black female senator when he refers to "the only black female senator" (Carol Mosley Braun).
He is not a viable candidate and may well be cognitively impaired. "Sleepy, slow" trump taunts ring very true (despite Trump's own obvious cognitive issues.
Give up a scenario we can believe. Please.
5
I have been voting Democratic/Independent for over 50 years, but this scenario is a dream. Corruption, power and MONEY have cost us our democracy. Money and empty lands have the power now, not the people. Ignorance and corruption, not the people, have the power now.
This piece is about what should happen, not what probably will happen.
America has lost its way and there may not be a road back, not in 2020, not in a very, very long time.
4
Imagine my surprise when Egan got to surprise reveal that moderation is the secret weapon that will win the day. Never saw that coming.
2
Why do so many Americans cling to the false narrative that the modern Republican Party has ever represented anything good or decent?
As someone who has lived through the Nixon Administration, and every conservative administration since, we have never been provided with anything short of white privilege, full scale corruption, blatant racism, and a complete failure to support the common good.
The only difference between the behavior on the part of Republicans during the Watergate scandal and the current lot of GOP maligners are the narcissistic excesses on full display thanks to the internet.
8
ahahahaha wow lol
trump is gonna win and y'all know it ;/
4
@Christian Smith You may be correct. But if you are, that is nothing to laugh about. It will be a very sad day for humanity.
1
It is a thought: what happens if the Dems win 4 or 5 or even 6 million more votes than Trump, but still lose the White House? At what point does respect for the system completely break down?
10
@Nullius It won't break down. This is a representative democracy, and the president is decided by the electoral college. If the dems can't win the south and the middle of the country, I don't care if all of Cali and NY vote for the dem, the rest of the country is sane. NY and Cali, not so much.
6
Dear Nullius.... a question we sane folks keep asking. The Electoral College is from a different world than exists today. But, while I think most people cannot support any argument against “one man, one vote”, the legal mechanism to amend our Constitution is ( intentionally) a very difficult task.
There is some hope in enough states agreeing to the “popular vote” pact.
1
@Ralphie
It has already broken down. But I am all for a peaceful 2 state "solution". I would happily move from Georgia to region governed by thought and compassion not by greed, violence and theology.
2
From your lips to God's ears, writer. But I am not nearly as hopeful.
3
EndoLphins are endorphins that leap with joy when you encounter some good thought.
Hats off to Egan.
I'm holding the thought!
"SHE" is going to WIN
Yeah, just like “she” was going to win last time.
2
Sondland is not trustworthy. He is, obviously, a self-serving rat who would do anything to save his own skin.
If his testimony is to be believed, he was complicit in this, and just as liable to prosecution, and yet, he will not be prosecuted.
Why? The answer is obvious...he made a deal.
Squealers are never to be trusted.
(BTW, I know the difference between a squealer and a person pursuing justice.)
1
But, you apparently don’t have a clue what this impeachment inquiry is about. It is about the Unconstitutional acts of the President of the United States. None of the underlings that have testified are impeachable.
3
I'm way more cynical about the current state of politics in our nation to believe this fantasy you are proposing Mr Eagan. I believe it will not be as easy to beat Trump at the ballot box because Trump fanatics will be motivated to fight the establishment if Democrats do impeach the president. If Democrats don't impeach, the Democratic base and sympathizers will feel demoralized. To add more uncertainty to our current state of politics, there's no clear front runner for the Democratic party. I pray to God that he leads this beautiful nation to more a stabled, clear, united vision for all Americans.
2
"The Day That Decided the 2020 Election"
Since most witnesses agreed there was no bribery and since the testimony was at most hearsay, you must mean that Trump now has a clear path to victory.
7
Only if we have a candidate who takes back Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. All three. Any candidate who has a policy, soundbite, bumper sticker that does not work in those three states dooms us to another four years of Trump. There are only three or four other states that are marginally important But not likely to shift from 2016.
Pay no attention to national polls. They are irrelevant. 
7
@Jan Houbolt
There is someone currently running for president who won the primary in two of those three states. His name is Bernie Sanders. But the NY Times won't talk about that. They are blinded by their zeal for a moderate, centrist, do-nothing candidate.
2
Funny how liberal contempt supposedly is a driving factor influencing the way rural Americans vote, and yet the so-called liberals are promoting fact-based narratives that show some respect for the intelligence of all voters. Meanwhile, the GOP is targeting their own constituents with a massive disinformation campaign. Liberal contempt indeed. Welcome to 1984.
9
Articulate and persuasive. Only one problem: the absence of a compelling candidate. Even if Trump were to be imprisoned, I'm not sure any of the current Democratic candidates could defeat whoever the Republicans select.
4
@Paying Attention As a life long registered Independent who voted for Obama twice I am still amazed that the so-called 'Experts' haven't figured out why Trump won in 2016, and why he is not only likely to be re-elected in 2020 but why the Impeachment Hearings will help him win. First a substantial portion of Trump 'voters' as opposed to Trump 'supporters' voted for him because they hate Washington. Second, Impeachment Hearings and Trial (with almost no chance of conviction), coming with less than a year until Election Day is enraging the Washington haters to an even greater extent. To wit: You're putting the country through this to try to get rid of Trump with less than a year left in his term? A more realistic title for Mr. Egan's article would be 'The Week That Guaranteed Trump's Re-election'.
6
And November 20th was Joe Biden's birthday. Nice present - even if he isn't the one who takes over in January 2021.
@Voter
His birthday??!! Oh, no! That means he's a year older than we thought he was!
1
The predictit.org hasn't budged an inch. Trump has a 42% chance of winning the election.
3
@Jack512
And what did they put his chances at 4 years ago? I'll bet it was single digits.
4
There are several good candidates (and I'll vote for the Democratic nominee whoever it is), but the one most likely to win, and govern well is Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar. Only one person on the stage Wednesday night has won a statewide general election in a competitive state (twice).
The electoral votes of California, New York, Massachusetts, and Vermont are not in doubt. States such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota are. Klobuchar's the one sure bet to carry those states (Booker would be an ideal running mate).
Before anyone complains "she's not progressive enough", read her website: https://medium.com/@AmyforAmerica/amys-first-100-days-b7adf9f91262
10
@Baxter Jones
Klobuchar has very little support among Democratic voters. She's still in single digits. Doesn't that tell you anything?
The only candidate who can make the claim that he can take those states is Bernie Sanders, who won the Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota primaries in 2016. For everyone else, it's wishful thinking.
3
@J.C.
Amy's in single digits among DEMOCRATS!
Bernie won those states' DEMOCRAT primaries! As you point out. He has never actually "taken" those states.
Amy has won consistently among the general electorate, not just Dems.
That should tell you something.
3
Just because you want something to be true doesn't mean it is!
5
In a conversation with two friends who normally vote Democratic as I do I asked whether any candidate excited them and we all said the same name, John Kasich. For those who say he is not a Democrat or Independent I say Bernie is not a Democrat and Trump is not a Republican.
3
@PeggysmomiI
Millions people who value choice and access to comprehensive reproductive healthcare would have a very hard time voting for former governor Kasich. Women's rights are precarious enough as it is.
2
If Democrats want to win next November, the quicker they move on from feckless fantasies like this column, the better.
The idea that the political landscape shifted dramatically that day is laughable. Check out RealClearPolitics - Trump's approval numbers are up four percent since the hearings began.
I live in ultra-liberal Montgomery County Md. I work in Washington, D.C. at a left-leaning non-profit. I have dozens of friends and co-workers, a vast majority of whom would love to see Donald Trump vanish like the Wicked Witch of the West doused by a mop bucket.
About five percent of them could name Ambassador Sondland today. Of those, at least half caught the fleeting references to his concession to Republicans that all he said was a "presumption," and wrote him off as someone spreading hearsay evidence to whoever was asking the questions.
More significantly, even many liberal friends of mine are uneasy about this whole process. They don't like the idea of a president chosen or removed by politicians. They embrace the notion of actual elections.
It is way past time to move past the idea that some magical process will remove Trump. It is time to focus on actually coming up with some ideas that will appeal to real-world voters with bankrupting them and coalesce around a candidate living in reality rather that the land where we can afford a $20 trillion Green New Deal and a $40 trillion Medicare for All fantasy.
11
@Philboyd
If you want to see people bankrupted, we only need to do nothing and stay on the course that moderates want to keep us on.
Medical costs are already the largest cause of bankruptcies in this country and climate change will one day soon be the cause of financial havoc.
That's no fantasy. That's reality.
1
@J.C. Reality is that the vast majority of 40-70 year old Middle Class white voters in the states that switched to elect Trump are going to vote in their own self-interest. With a red-hot economy, terrific performance in their 401(k)s, better job prospects than in 15 years, that is NOT going to be someone who promises to bleed them white with taxes, poses an existential threat to their retirement savings, and promises to take away health care that they worked hard for and feel safe and happy with. If you honestly believe that definition fits Warren or Sanders, then follow them down the rabbit hole to Wonderland and wake up on election day 2020 shocked and sick yet again.
4
Minor technical details include that RCP ain’t mich good for tracking polls, as all they do is aggregate good and stupid together, and their own polling is generally pretty unreliable.
Biden will not beat Trump. Many progressives have made this point. Only a progressive will get my vote. I am not the only one.
5
This is the problem. If a Dem Snowflake does not get all of his wishlist, he will stay home.
Guarantee you that Trump is re elected in 2020, by hook or by crook(s). The 2016 election was ‘rigged’ as even Trump himself claimed. There no reason there aren’t more, better means to make sure Trump is re elected. It’s a sad sad thing.
2
Thanks to Mr. Egan's column, a piece of the puzzle I'd been missing fell into place. Impeachment for Bill Clinton happened late in his second term, near-impeachment for Nixon in his second term. Neither was up for re-election. This will be historic, Trump will be the first seeking re-election after being impeached. It may just be the stain Mr. Egan thinks it will be. At least, it will be a badge of dishonor that will be hammered again and again, not least to drive Democratic turnout for both presidential and Senate races.
4
@William
The ONLY motivation the NY Times has had for the past three years, since President Trump got elected, is to undermine a presidency.
They are angry because they didn't have the influence they thought they had, and they couldn't get their candidate elected.
They want that imaginary power back, but they are going to fail again. After all this is said and done, the President will probably be elected to a second term.
Pathetic how the Times will work to undermine their own country, just to get their way. Well, in a democracy you don't always get your way, and they can't live with that.
4
@Greg
Re Nixon: I think it's important to remember that he resigned when it was clear he would have lost a Senate trial. Republican leaders let him know he lacked enough support in the party to brazen it out. We don't have Republicans like that in today's Congress.
2
Is the idea here is that Democrats must nominate Joe Biden instead of Elizabeth Warren?
Bad idea.
You base your opinion on a misunderstanding of Warren (far left, extremist, etc) that I hope she's able to straighten out as the campaign proceeds and the misguided notion that progressive policies don't align with working and middle class Americans' interests.
True, Democrats won't win by alienating those Conservative voters not in thrall to Trump, but does that mean Democrats should nominate a weak candidate?
4
This is really funny. Nobody cares.
6
@Adam I care. So do most of the people I know.
1
In November 2020, the electorate will be the ultimate appeals court...supremer than supreme. And on that day, every Republican who looked the other way should be thrown to the dustbin of history.
3
This column is fiction disguised as opinion.
One could write the complete opposite utilizing Sondland's testimony of his September 9th conversation with the President: "And it was a very short, abrupt conversation. He was not in a good mood. And he just said, 'I want nothing. I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo. Tell Zelensky to do the right thing,'"
7
I fear that the Republican Party will look at this and wisely switch candidates to a more likable individual for election purposes who will keep Republican polices in place without the day to day drama-queen that is today’s President. Virtually any Republican who can articulate a more “gentile” way of moving the Republican agenda without the extreme language and questionable appointments will have the advantage over the existing democratic field. Someone who can articulate a clear immigration policy without the loathing that is so clearly deliberate as well as a foreign policy not influenced by his friends in Moscow would stand a very good chance.
But I’m not seeing this happening as a reality - way too much kool-aid being served.
1
The Republican Party sold its soul to the devil to gain the political power it wanted. From Nixon's White Southern Strategy to Reagan's economic policies to Bush 43 ill thought out excursion into Iraq, Trump is the culmination of a systematic forty year + goal of over turning the New Deal and Great Society social and economic progress. Every nation has its dark undercurrent where bigotry, small mindeness and cruelty exsist. Some elected officals try to transcend this and bring out the best . Others such as Trump do not . They use whatever it will take to become elected no matter what the cost will be to thier country. Trump is one such individual. His soul is corrupt , his mind small and his wrath towards his perceived slights raging out of control.
He therefore attracts others like him which add to the damage he has already inflicted upon us.
The next president will have to do more than formulate policies to help bring about more social and economic justice. The damage Trump has done to the very fabric of the give & take of domestic DC politics and his Putin obessed ego driven foreign policy will take Herculean efforts to reverse. At this time the US is falling into third world status
and falling fast. The next POTUS has to be able to lead and begin the long hard slog to pull us out of our decline. The Republican Party is dead. Trump's tenure is beyond slavation. He cannot for the sake of our nation and the world be re-elected.
8
To those panicking and full of despair.
Stop it, please.
We are stronger than this.
To paraphrase Paul Newman, in The Verdict,
"If you're going to try our case, don't lose it for us".
5
I'm saddened to say I am more cynical than Mr. Egan. Unless we put forth the effort to get out the vote, and get out only the Democrat vote, Trump will win again. Trump doesn't play fair, and it's time to fight fire with fire.
5
Ah the sanctimonious Center.
The working class in the midwest want 1 reverse the Great Inflection Point of 1972.
Scroll down to graph #2 and See it here: bit.ly/EPI-study
From 1945 to 1972 GNP went up 100% & the median (meaning everyone’s) wage in lockstep with it.
Since 72 GNP has gone up another 150% but the median wage has been flat (47+ years). Since some wages have gone up (tech/health) & some in unions have floated (7%) we know the vast majority of workers have endured 47+ years of declining expectations in an economy that’s grown 150%.
That’s one heck of an Inflection point.
It’s gotten us an opioid crisis, protofascism & Trump.
Hillary proved the opposite was true in 2016. Had she picked the Democratic socialist (progressive) for her VP she’d have won. Apparently the sanctimonious center rather Trump win than give progressives a seat at the table, even if that seats a nothing burger like the VP seat.
The Sanctimonious Center is not the solution. It’s the problem.
7
Please. I heard a Republican this morning on NPR again pushing the Ukraine in 2016 false narrative. Thankfully, the NPR fellow confronted this guy and nailed him, frankly, on the facts. But he continued to push his narrative and refusal to accept the facts we have all witnessed.
I just really want just one heroic Republican to admit to the facts. And will someone please ask those jokers who pretend up is down and black is white are they willing to not punish the President? Are they saying this behavior is ok? SO if Warren or Biden ask the UK for political help, that's ok? Are we now saying that we accept this wrong behavior?
Because someone needs to tell them that not convicting the President is telling everyone we approve of this as a country. Saying this is not impeachable conduct is saying it is right. Don't say it's wrong unless you are willing to punish it severely to prevent it from happening again. Behavior repeats if unpunished.
Nixon was pardoned. That is when all of this started. He got away with it. Then Reagan tried and got away with it. Even HW Bush pardoned some of those involved in Iran/Contra. And now Trump of course became President so he could enact tax legislation favorable to his businesses, and so he could grift/steal from the public in every way he could do so without being punished. This is just one more thing. We have told the world that it's ok for our Presidents to act with impunity because we let them do it.
8
Humorous and heart warming - no need to go see the new Mr Rogers movie! Unfortunately the ending goes from wishful thinking to a fairy tale very quickly.
Understandably Trump times are hard on everyone, and there’s a need for escape into stories, but unfortunately fairy tales won’t beat Trump, strong ideas and good policies will.
Still there’s time before reality sinks in to play fantasy coalition. For example the “Obama coalition” might include the likes of Santa Claus who would swoop in from the north pole to fix our climate crisis and finally bring winter back to NYC. Next you could nominate the tooth fairy to fix our financial and housing crisis. Captain America will bring peace in the Middle East by just making public appearances and handing out action figures. This arrangement would be great for Disney too, just imagine the theme park possibilities!
2
I'm sorry, but Joe Biden is as much a risk as any of the progressives. The Democrats need enthusiasm, and Biden is likely to kill it.
Since the disaster in Iraq, Democrats have not succeeded in electing anyone that supported it--Clinton and Kerry voted to authorize that war. Add to that Biden's support of bankruptcy reform, the crime bill, and his statements about busing and you have a pretty good formula for splintering the Democratic coalition.
Plus--I'm a boomer too (a late boomer, if you will), so I'm sorry to say this, but I think it's time for boomers to step aside and let a new generation step in. After 4 boomer presidents in a row, X'er's, the 'bust generation,' deserve their chance.
I'm not a moderate, but there are moderates I can enthusiastically support. Klobachar (another late boomer), for one. Or Booker. Or Buttigieg.
1
I would love to support them when they were able to articulate their proposal in such details as they requested from Warren. Let's start with definition of public option. How much it will cost and who will be qualified. How much the healthcare will cost under their plans? And I mean the whole healthcare not only parts that paid by the Government. Because if it is not the Government who paid for it, it is us. And don't care how you call it tax or premiums and deductibles, it all comes from my pocket. I wish genX were more transparent, unfortunately this bunch looks very much as old politicians - offer a lot of slogans and not much of substance.
Or you could take 20 seconds and look this stuff up, which I just did. Not hard to find, you know—and neither is, unfortunately, plenty of evidence that the more-leftish among us never bothered to find out what Hillary Clinton actually stood for in 2016.
And we all flew happily away in our jet cars.
4
I'd love to share Timothy Egan's lovely vision of a Democratic victory in 2020. But the fact is, it doesn't matter who the Democrats nominate, because there will be election meddling by Russia and perhaps other countries. Why. Is. No-one. Writing. About. This? Mueller spoke about it a few months ago. Fiona Hill referenced it yesterday during her Impeachment hearing testimony. NYT: Why not write an article or series of articles about this serious issue with suggestions for election tampering mitigation--such as urging every state government to mandate paper ballots. We know the Trump administration only welcomes Russian tampering with our electoral process. How about a prominent editorial, featured on the front page? Our democracy hangs in the balance. Seriously--am I the only reader concerned about this?
8
A read that gives a moment of hope.
2
We need a decent, business savvy, honest, man with international experience to win the nomination … and that man is Michael Bloomberg.
1
First, let's understand that what's happening in this country is the result of white people becoming a majority minority. There are many who simply can't accept this, even though no amount of Trumpist racism will stem that tide.
Add to this those who support Trump, because they believe he protects Israel and Obama didn't.
Now add the haves and have nots who want to have: They only see dollar signs.
What all these have in common with their cheerless leader is a complete lack of empathy -- for minorities, for immigrants, for the vulnerable.
But the wheel turns. As Macron said, no one is forever. The day will come when these people will be out of favor and power and they will look for a sympathetic ear.
They won't get it from me. -- thegamesmenplay.com
3
Gore Vidal used to describe our country as "The United States of Amnesia." Mr. Egan, I hope your analysis is right and that Trump gets the heave-ho one way or another, but I'm not betting on it.
2
Maybe now is the moment to raise up the never-Trumpers for clear-eyed contrast to the sycophants who have been braying his "defense." Since Trump himself seems to feel that calling someone a never-Trumper is the most vile of insults, a way back into the fold of the once-deceived, twice-shy and once-again sane would be to look at who fills the ranks of never Trumpers and see if that is such a bad company to be in.
From your fingertips to you-know-who's ears. Imagining a citizenry and senators who use rational thinking, logic and hold ethical, moral values? We'll see. I hope so.
"Because the winner took these lessons to heart, because there was no denying the facts of Trump’s deep corruption and dereliction of duty, because every midnight of the American soul has been followed by a dawn, the outcome on this election night was never in doubt."
From your lips tp gods ears!
By now nothing is more crystal clear than the fact that we don't know how many trump trogs are out there hiding under their rocks waiting to emerge.
The American underbelly has a vast source of bacteria ready to spread depending on how much garbage it has to feed on.
The Senate Republicans should hold a conference and decide Trump must go. If not they will lose not only the White House but the Senate and more seats in the House. The GOP is and has become irrelevant due to their support of this corrupt White House
2
The Republicans understand that it is about WISCONSIN's 10 electoral votes (and the 16 next door in Michigan) and the Democrats had better focus here if they want to win. It doesn't matter who you like unless you can convince these folks. If you can't convince the rust belt, the Dems may be in trouble in PA and even VA. Unless the Democrats are certain they can win Florida, they better get their act together and focus on LAKE MICHIGAN (DNC PLEASE BUY UNLIMITED TICKETS FOR ALL THE CANDIDATES ON THE 2 HOUR CAR FERRY RIDE between Milwaukee and Muskegon). They can easily win if they redirect their energies here (with a close runner up to Atlanta, GA where the correct VP choice could influence sufficient people to put Georgia in play while enhancing North Carolina and Florida turnout... although still probably better off with a VP candidate from Minnesota or Indiana (which the Republicans also understood and helped them enormously as can be seen in Pence travel schedule leading up to the 2016 election at http://www.p2016.org/trump/pencecal0816.html) with visits to Iowa and PA and OH). A LITTLE LOGIC PLEASE.
5
@BB
Guess who won the 2016 Democratic primaries in MI, WI, IN, and MN? Hint: it wasn't Hillary Clinton.
Let's start there.
1
Lindsay Graham announced that he will investigate the Joe Biden and son in connection to corruption with Burisma and Ukraine. Is it possible, albeit nearly too alarming to consider, that he and his Republican colleagues are all under the sway of Putin/Russian? How can they listen to the plain evidence of Trump's extortion of Ukraine's president and not know that two plus two is four? Something stinks.
7
Two political observations that should enter the common lexicon of political aphorisms, one stated by you, Mr. Egan, and the other by Senator Amy Klobuchar:
[Of the impeachment hearings], “[T]here were more smoking guns than you would find after a hunting trip with Dick Cheney.”
and,
“If you think a woman can’t beat Donald Trump, Nancy Pelosi does it every single day.”
Well said, both of you.
4
Wishful thinking. What’s probably going to happen: AG Barr will rain indictments down upon all the unsuspecting RussiaGate-UkraineGate actors who’re praying that the impeachment hearings will serve just long enough to distract both the Republicans and the American citizenry from their malfeasance. Timing is everything.
Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.
1
Ambassador Sondland testified there was a quid pro quo attached to the phone call and White House meeting, but he also testified there was no quid pro quo attached to Ukrainian.
But Sondland wavered in his testimony. When Rep. Mike Turner asked Sondland: "No one on this planet told you that this aid was tied to investigations. Yes or no?” Sondland answered: “Yes.” Sondland went on to explain: “The way it was expressed to me was that the Ukrainians had a long history of committing to things privately and then never following through, so President Trump, presumably—again communicated through Mr. Giuliani—wanted the Ukrainians on record publicly that they were going to do these investigations. That’s the reason that was given to me.”
Giuliani says he did not give Sondland reason to presume there was a quid pro quo.
Will the articles of impeachment read: "Ambassador Gordon Sondland presumes there was a quid pro quo."
2
Bill, you know as well as I do that that ain’t all Sundlund said, not by a long shot, and that a crooked demand for graft is what Trump’s done all his life.
Stirring words. A hopeful prediction that sanity, honesty and decency will prevail. If only we don't hope for too much. If only we're only mildly idealistic. If only we're willing to leave behind a few million unfortunates at the bottom, and not disturb a few dozen extremely fortunate at the top. Is insisting on decent education and medical care for all a call to "completely tear down the system?" Is yearning for jobs that don't leave you impoverished too radical? Most American voters would say no. They see healthcare, education and living wage as rights, not privileges. Most political elites are too cautious to embrace those simple progressive ideals. But we have two candidates who do not shrink from the obvious solutions to our problems. Bernie Sanders has led the way, Elizabeth Warren has mapped out the steps to get there. Either one, or both, offer a constructive answer to Trump the Destroyer. They can win, and when they do, their victory will mean something.
3
This is a very well written and insightful piece, with the very interesting technique of leaving out mention of exactly who that winning candidate will be from a 'legion of decency'. I hope the current voters who have identified with the Republican Party would realize that the GOP under Trump does is not the GOP that they aligned with, they can't get rid of the thug, but they sure can 'vote with their feet' and be Independents if it is socially difficult for them to join the Democrats. Independents, and Democrats, welcome fellow citizens who have thoughtful conservative values and want to escape the corrupting hands of Trump.
1
May it be so
Trump's only hope is that the dam will hold. Voters have 11 months to ponder the nightmare he has visited on our Country. And the dam will not hold. Donald Trump will be sacked by the voters because his Presidency is sordid and ugly. But a bit more thought, and we Americans will think long and hard between now and November, reveals the deceitful narcissism of Donald Trump's belief that only he has the courage to some terrible truth that we will all come to realize is giant malignant lie. Even Fox news will not stop the dam from breaking.
1
I don't know if it was said in the comments already but we don't win a Purple Hearts in the military. You are awarded it.
4
So be it!
From your keyboard to God's email.
2
Amen.
My mouth hung open in a gape worthy of Edvard Munch's The Scream, both for Sonland and for Fional Hill's testimony - Everyone was in the loop! The entire administration knew!!
Bolton told Fiona Hill to go tell the lawyer he wasn't a part of the 'drug deal' that Sonland and Mulvaney were cooking up!!! Omg.
Fiona Hill slaps down the senators that they are playing into Russia's hands and the next day Lindsey Graham announces an investigation of Biden and Burisma. People are wearing tee-shirts "I'd rather be Russian than a Democrat?" Adam Schiff is my Congressman and I stand behind almost 100% of what he says and does, but when I look at him I see how uphill this is. We were a giant, lumbering along half asleep, and Russia tripped us. Now we are flat on our faces, a society destroyed (as per Stephen Colbert) by weed and Netflix. What can save us except for prayer and revolution?
4
It certainly won’t be prayer. We need reality, not fantasy.
Thank you, thank you for using the word “sociopath.” From the start, from the Republican nomination, indeed from the Roy Cohn-enabled genesis of Trump as a public figure, this has been true: Donald Trump is a sociopath. It’s time to stop pussyfooting around and for your columnist colleagues and the Democrats to follow your lead, and to repeat the term repeatedly.
5
The fault here is the assumption that real people are as obsessed with these hearings as NYT. No one cares.
117
@Michael Livingston’s
No the fault is your assumption that people who truly care about this country and its institutions (read: yourself and people like you) are not following these hearings.
133
@Michael Livingston’s WRONG. I care - bigly.
118
Mr. Livingston,
Watched bits and pieces of the hearings and watched "real" people share their stories. How they came to be citizens of the United States. What drew them into their careers of civil service. How they react under intimation. I was moved and encouraged by watching these real/ordinary people - men and women acting like caring adults. They care, as do I.
147
From your keyboard to God's eyes.
Why not just say it outright. There's not a candidate on the stage yet with enough "charisma" or the "it factor" that wins popularity contests, which is essentially what the presidency is. Stacey Abrams of Georgia has it and there are probably others who haven't stepped up. Their policies and plans, left or center, don't make as much difference as charisma. Bill Clinton had loads of it. Obama had plenty, too. Biden has a good bit, which is why Trump sold out America and Ukraine to take him down but he's from the past in his thinking and his moment, like Obama's, has passed. Democratic Party leadership should have actively recruited a charismatic candidate of middle age. Is it too late?
2
This is the problem - too many people voting based solely on name recognition and personality. You don’t need a president with charisma, you need a president who is competent and ethical. And a decent education system that includes history and civics for all students, so that the population stops treating politics like a reality tv show.
2
Thank you Tim.
Republicans are on a path to demonstrate to millions upon millions of young children that crime DOES pay.
1
Even if the Democrats win the White House and the Senate and keep the House, there will be much work to do. The devils of white supremacy, fascism, xenophobia, and other like things have been let loose since 2016 and the United States is once again a house divided against itself.
There must be a reckoning for those who broke their oaths. This must never be allowed to be thought of as business as usual.
1
My long time Republican friends can't stand Trump and are using words to describe him that the Times won't print.
1
If only.
Osteoporosis: a disease in which bone weakening increases the risk of a broken bone. Bones may weaken to such a degree that a break may occur with minor stress or spontaneously.
We are far beyond "minor stress" on our body politic.
Why have so many Americans accepted/endorsed this horror?
Trump does 3 things:
1 . What benefits him personally.
2. What benefits Putin.
3. Indulges his whims.
All these things have harmed us -- hollowed us out. We feel constantly on the verge of fracture. Our allies - the British, the Kurds - understand we can't be trusted; we're capable of lethal betrayal. On a whim. Or because it's what Putin wants.
Trump has secret meetings/calls w/ Putin without accountability. Trump endorses a child molester Senate candidate. Trump threatens his cabinet officers. Trump tries to take health insurance from millions. Trump wants to withdraw from NATO, withdraws from the climate accord, ends the Iran nuclear deal. Trump fell in love w/ Kim who plays him like a fiddle. Trump puts miscreants on our courts. Trump pardons war criminals. Trump's sympathetic to Nazis. Trump's advisor is a white supremacist. Trump smears Barack Obama, F.B.I. agents, war heroes.
Would that it were a bad dream or the election is indeed preordained to right this ship.
We can't count on it.
We can only commit to fighting him.
Believing this will be easy is wrong.
How long was the Third Reich? 1933-1945.
Don't foolishly get ahead of ourselves.
1
Impeachment, imspeechment. Get the immigration/asylum issue off the table or this circus will go on forever. The Democrats couldn't see a civil war happening, even if it hit them on the heads.
2
So, once the election is won, who physically removes Trump from office when he declares “fake news”, and “presidential harrasment”?
Maybe Netanyahu can tell us?
3
I have friends in the Democratic "base" and they are just a immune from disagreeable reality as the Tumpers are. The have a vision. Their hearts are pure and their motives noble. Their opponent is so god-awful that only no person with a shred of decency or morality would ever vote for him. And so they blithely dismiss the need to win the support of those who don't share their vision.
To them, anyone who is not a Democrat is a Republican, and therefore beyond persuasion, and they will not lift a finger to "appease" them. They want Medicare for All, they want to Soak the Rich, and they want both NOW. And let's go after guns and fossil fuels while we're at it.
They will not listen to Obama. He is yesterday's news. Remember, he actually tried to negotiate with the GOP enemy! They want no more of that!
And, I fear, they are going to get DT re-elected.
3
I think the logic is flawed here. In the ‘old days’ there were three media choices (CBS, NBC and ABC). They all pretty much reported the news. There would be an occasional commentary by Harry Reasner or Walter Cronkite but they were clearly identified as such. The Country pretty much heard the same news delivered pretty much the same way. Today, there are lots of sources but they all slant the news a particular way and it’s impossible to separate the news from the commentary. Half the Country watches Fox and hears things one way; the other half watch a combination of CNN, MSNBC and ABC and hears things completely opposite. The events that are unfolding in the impeachment inquiry are being delivered in such a way as to support already existing beliefs. No one is being convinced to view things differently. In fact, many are simply tuning out. This event will not have an impact on the 2020 election. The only thing that will is the candidate that the Democrats eventually select. Everything up until then is just the same noise we hVe been hearing since the day after Trumps election.
3
The “ average american “ cited in the article is , obviously ,the crux of the problem .
The 2020 presidential election is far from decided.
It does not depend on TV ratings, it depends on the electoral college, which means swing voters in swing states such as Michigan.
Sondland was colorful in style, will be renowed for use of colorful rhetoric, especially with an even-more-thusly-inclined donee-president, and is also colorful in shading the truth (not pathologically like his ultimate boss, yet opportunistically), featuring many creative versions of "I don't recall (except that I recall instructions to not take the 5th if at all possible). His testimony represents one of a number of minor turning points. It is far from conclusive and further from a "smoking gun." Smoke is indeed present, in abundance, but not from a "gun" of clear unambigous evidence.
1
The point about 80,000 voters in the heartland carrying more weight than a million voters on the coasts reminds me: we need to make a much bigger deal of disproportionate representation in the electoral college and senate. This Californian feels like a hostage to much smaller states that surely need us a lot more than we need them. I'm fed up. If this death grip doesn't let up I think we need to start looking at ways to operate more independently as a California Republic.
10
@Bleu Falcon
Have you been to the sanctuary city of San Francisco lately to witness the so-called ‘progressive’ policies in action? Job opportunities abound for city employees whose job it is to collect human waste (yes, THAT human waste) off the city streets. The homeless and ‘undocumented’ have rights too, ya know.
Lovely...
4
@Susanna no doubt, we have some serious issues to work out. I don't expect much help from the feds. We're better off focusing inward on housing and income inequality than worrying about how to work around the feds on issues like climate where we do have consensus and are trying to lead the way more productively.
From your mouth to God's ears, Timothy Egan.
1
The best sign I have heard came from a repairman who said he voted for Trump last time, but now realizes he is a fraud and unhinged. May there be many more like him! And may the Republican Party of Putin reap the disgrace it so richly deserves.
11
From your mouth to God’s ear.
3
And then we all awoke to jack boots marching in the streets of the US.
4
The President thinks that he is above the law. The Attorney General and the Republicans facilitates his notion. A lie repeated ad nauseam on Fox News is seen as the truth by his base.
My thanks to our career service men and woman of the State Dept and the NSC for courageously coming forward and standing their ground.
This week we heard from the Republicans on the Intelligence Committee that the Russian meddling in our 2016 elections was a hoax. That our President was working hard to root out corruption in this ONE company in Ukraine called Burisma. What we ask, was all Ukrainian corruption concentrated in Burisma? That he never told Rudy or Ambassador Sondland to investigate the Bidens. Oh it’s in the transcript you say? Well ... he had to do that before he could give the newly elected Ukrainian President our hard earned tax dollars as security aid. Yes, he is looking out for you and me. Trump couldn’t just meet with Zelensky at the Oval Office before he was thoroughly vetted. We learned that there was no Quid Pro Quo. After all, the aid, which was on hold was finally released wasn’t it? And the Ukrainians didn’t even know about it, so no harm done. Certainly no Quid Pro Quo. The President still says so, never mind that Sondland flipped.
By the way, I have a bridge to sell in Brooklyn. Any takers? I am asking you, yes you Nunes, Ratcliffe, Stepanik, Turner, Conway and all the other sycophants. Did I forget Jordan? BTW how did he get on there?
4
If trump gets reelected - it will totally destroy once and for all the myth of american greatness. In fact it will brand this country as the biggest bunch of losers of all time - because of the missed opportunities - and the devolution into a VAST criminal enterprise.
6
Can we secede from republicans? May be give them the bottom of the barrel southern states (except Texas and California) and let them have at it with DJT as their defacto King for eternity. It does not seem possible that these people and their votes would ever act in the interest of the United States. As Schiff said, "We are better than this."
4
You would have to build a wall to keep me out. I’m a Democrat from SC.
Team Pete!
2
From your mouth to God's ear...
mr egan has more faith in his fellow americans than i do.
tens of millions have no problem with a lying, coarse, vulgar, ignorant buffoon--and those are his strong points.
56 years ago today that JFK was assassinated.
ends up he wasn't a saint, but what a difference compared to the monster in chief.
7
This is another outrageous attempt to undermine the Democratic left.
1
@Cassandra
It's the stock in trade of the pundit class. The echo chamber is loud and powerful. None dare step outside of it lest they put their cushy livelihood at stake or stop getting invited to elite cocktail parties.
Better just to go along with the conventional wisdom. It doesn't matter if you're totally wrong, it only matters that you're as wrong as all of the other pundits. It allows one to join in the chorus of things like "NO ONE saw a Trump victory coming in 2016." It also saves one from the tiring effort of using one's brain.
2
Once upon a time....
2
I vomit. This column is an example of pundits telling the American people what they should want, never mind that progressive programs poll in high numbers, Never mind that the system is rigged against regular people to favor the wealthy. Never mind that it was the Obama regime that brought us Trump, with the help of elite Hillary, her entitlement and scorn for rust states. Will you elites never stop trying to run this country and the rest of us with your self serving propaganda. Perhaps I am not sufficiently sympathetic to your elite needs. STATUS QUO! You all shout and promote. Sure it works well for you guys but horribly for the rest of us. Cenk of TYT, running for the House in California's 25th district and a huge progressive, Cenk says that DC and main stream media live in a bubble that is practically impossible to penetrate, that you guys have no clue how the rest of us live. And that you think you are being nice. Please wake up. Getting health care for all is not tearing down the country since over 70 percent of Americans really want it, ditto for The New Green Deal and getting money out of politics and free state college and forgiving the unfair student loans and a livable minimum wage and affordable housing, getting money out of politics, more unions. All these things will built up the country. Going with a moderate is going with a corrupt candidate and will tear down the country further. There is a group of billionaires who agree, listen to them.
6
Al Franken takes a photo of a fully dressed woman sleeping on her back and resigns, meanwhile the president conspires with the Russians to subvert our electoral process and what?
20
Nice fantasy but republicans live by fear, hate and ignorance and Trump feeds it to them every day. This crowd could care less about the Ukraine.
4
thanks for giving president Obama the respect he deserves
5
And Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is planning to finally formally move into occupy the Oval Office of the White House.
While his Siberian pet puppet still spends a third of his time vacationing and playing golf on Trump Organization properties and 2/3rds of his time tweeting and speaking nicknames and slurs while watching Fox News.
Melania can remain as Third Wife and First Mannequin. Along with Ivanka Trump staying on as 1st daughter of 1st foreign wife and Jared Kushner sticking around too.
Sean Hannity will become the official Minister of Propaganda.
But Ben Carson has got to go. Unless he want to be ' promoted ' to become Chief White House Butler?
You can't beat an incumbent white 70+ year old somebody with a trio of white 70 + year male old one and two- time losers and a female professor. Nor is the 37 year old gay married mayor of the 4th largest city in Mike Pence's Indiana a threat.
Plus emboldened by his hacking and meddling without any consequences success Czar Putin was even more devastatingly effective in 2020.
Nothing but collusion equals make Russia great again.
4
"Democrats have a road map for victory"
But it ain't Biden: his poll numbers have plummeted. Democrats smelled a rat when the Burisma Corruption Scandal surfaced.
Go Warren!
2
Purely hypothetical fiction. Since we're being hypothetical how about this question?...
If former Presidents Bush, Jr or Obama, just after their first election wins, each were caught paying hush money for an affair with a porn star, were caught in their first year, would they have been impeached?
It’s amazing, Hill, Vindman, Sondland, and Yovanovitch all born in countries who’s parents fled to get away from persecution and to live in the freedoms of the US, they are the true patriots of the Republic such a shame the Republicans don’t see it that way.
2
Let’s hope!
Trump is a criminal. The whistleblower stopped a crime in progress.
If We the People vote for Trump and his GOP enablers, we will deserve the horror that is now and that will continue. VOTE BLUE NO MATTER WHO!!
3
Predictions like this are silly in light of all the last minute intangibles that affected the last election. Seeing that 40 percent of the people are impervious to a corrupt, ignorant, lying charlatan makes me reluctant to predict anything.
1
I hope you're rught, Tim Egan.
All this just to push down progressives and praise Biden? Ok...
1
The hearings were full of incredible and damning moments.
I fear it will change nothing, short of someone like Bolton, Pompeo, and Mulvaney being placed under oath, and all the documents and communications being released.
Elections are likely the only path to redemption.
We are living in an altered world, manipulated by two masterful and monstrous conmen. Trump and Putin.
With Trump being played by Putin as if he were one of the great Stradivarius Violins.
For me talking to someone who believes the Trump lies and deceit and ignores facts, is the equivalent of attempting to have a rational conversation with a flat earth believer.
Perhaps, enough of those who took a chance on this monster will be swayed, perhaps he can be forced out with a resounding defeat.
Perhaps, the Dems can hold the house and take the senate.
One thing is certain the future of the country hangs in the balance.
2
The only priority for the Democrats in 2020 is beating Trump, not healthcare, the economy, foreign affairs or anything else, your Republic as known for 250 years is at risk...the Democrats have to have a standard bearer who can win over moderate Republicans and independents, Joe Biden is that man any concerns about his age could be alleviated by picking someone like Amy Klobuchar as his running mate...she is a moderate centrist who would appeal to the same Republicans and independents as Biden...Warren and Sanders will not beat Trup.
1
Tim was this an article on hope for America or just you disguising your right of center political agenda. The Obama presidency ended. It is now history. Just what are the " popular plans to elevate average Americans" you allude to. Who are the Marxist that you refer to? Joe Biden, please, did you watch the last debate. Other than attaching himself repeatedly to Obama's coattails the man has nothing meaningful to advance "to elevate average Americans". This sounds so like that that other despicable movement MAGA.
2
The key to this election is the Millennials, of all races, ethnicities, classes, education levels, geographic origins, urban, rural and suburban. If they are inspired to come out and vote next year, Trump will be toast. If they don't, kiss the "Obama coalition" goodbye.
The polls are all weighted by the pollsters varied guesses about how many of them will turn out, but nobody knows. Most pollsters, based on past experience, are guessing we will see relatively low turnout, which is one reason Biden, the current choice of many cautious Boomers of all races, seems to be ahead.
But 2020 is much more likely to break historical patterns than follow them. With the right candidate, one who can inspire the Millennials, along with the many others who tend not to vote, the Democrats can win. But if they pick the wrong candidate, one who can't inspire them to register and vote, they will blow this election just as Clinton blew 2016.
It's too soon to tell who the right candidate is, but it certainly is not Joe Biden. He hasn't been able to inspire anyone, even donors. Even the desperate centrists and billionaires are looking elsewhere.
Meanwhile Biden shows no awareness of the issues of particular importance to Millenials. What's his compelling and inspiring position on college tuition? College debt? Child care? Parental leave? Abortion? Endless war? Climate change? Marijuana legalization? Inauthentic, unconvincing and uninspiring won't cut it in this "OK,Boomer" election.
1
hopeful piece, Frank.
Your mouth (keyboard) to God's ear.
1
The best part of Sondland’s testimony was his and his lawyers imploring Rep. Schiff to wrap it up quickly so he could get to his plane back to Brussels. You Know, to play ambassador on our dime.
2
@db2 I thought that was a bit optimistic on Sondland's part, i.e., that he would still have the job by the time he reached Brussels.
1
@CM I guess he wants to get the most use out of the upgrades we paid for. Or, he had guests coming.
We need a 3 year old in the room. They would know that holding this President responsible for lying and endangering our country is the right thing to do. Let's stop strategizing and getting complicated on a simple matter. Dishonesty has no place in the White House.
You wish, Mr. Egan.
2
How dare!!! the GOP stand behind the use my tax dollars to bribe a source so they could potentially be selected, again! It's theft.
3
From your mouth (in this case, your pen) to God’s ears.
Absolutely right. Now sell this to the affluent white leftists that support Warren and Bernie. Trump represents a threat to vulnerable Americans that rich white purist leftists will never understand. If Trump is re-elected they will be just as white and just as rich as before. Vulnerable Americans will be in deeper danger.
1
OK, Boomer.
1
“Here, Right Matters”, should become the rallying cry of the Democrats. Lt. Col. Vindman said it all.
2
Timothy,
From your mouth to God's ear!
what's the Yiddish?
from your mouth to God's ear
As with any rusty object, one neglected by complacency, we need to clear the rust, no matter how hard we need to scrape. We then can refinish it and make it new and vibrant again.
From your pen to God's ears. God help America.
"The Day That Decided the 2020 Election"
You wish, so so so hard ...
The theater you talk about will stop soon and then the business as usual, nail biter in 2020. You surely recognize that, or chose not to, a condition known as liberal blindness?
2
@ss As a life long registered Independent who voted for Obama twice I am still amazed that the so-called 'Experts' haven't figured out why Trump won in 2016, and why he is not only likely to be re-elected in 2020 but why the Impeachment Hearings will help him win. First a substantial portion of Trump 'voters' as opposed to Trump 'supporters' voted for him because they hate Washington. Second, Impeachment Hearings and Trial (with almost no chance of conviction), coming with less than a year until Election Day is enraging the Washington haters to an even greater extent. To wit: You're putting the country through this to try to get rid of Trump with less than a year left in his term? A more realistic title for Mr. Egan's article would be 'The Week That Guaranteed Trump's Re-election'.
5
Mr. Egan:
To paraphrase: From your mouth to the electorate's ear.
These NYT neoliberal pundits will do anything to destroy the progressive movement and its candidates. Numbers don't matter. Thought doesn't matter. Logic doesn't matter. That a centrist got trounced in the electoral college last time doesn't matter.
Nothing matters to them but continuing to embrace this neoliberal fundamentalism that has been the Democratic Party since the late 70s, and for certain since the Clintons took over.
Some are no doubt even being uncynically honest about it. Perhaps even Egan here. Professional-class types literally think themsleves superior, so how could they, the Winners, have ever analyzed wrong or even, god forbid, operate under untenable biases?
It's all OK: Russia did all the bad stuff. Neoliberal Democrats? They're like unto gods, and your role, NYT Reader, is to spectate upon their superiority via the propaganda spooled out endlessly by the usual suspects. You get to feel like you're In On It, standing with the Powerful Who Know, when you read Egan or Friedman, et al.
It's a con job, but it's their job: manipulating you into following them. They even call it "thought leadership." Proudly; right out in the open.
*Your* job is to deny reality and turn on the dime they drop. This was and is what "democracy" means to such people, from Walter Lippmann to right now.
And that's why you haven't seen one positive article about Sanders' policies (let alone Sanders himself) since this started. More like ignoring with dismissals.
Ask why.
3
What would Thomas Jefferson say?
1
Only one question Mr. Egan; what does your sister think?
Sad.
2
The DNC should consider the following 30 second presidential election ad…
1. Opens with Trump’s October 2019 endorsement of Gordon Sondland, “He’s a great American.”
2. Followed by the November 20th hearing statement by Ambassador Gordon Sondland, “We followed the president’s orders,” “Everyone was in the loop.” “It was no secret.”
3. Trump replies matter-of-factly, “I barely know the man.”
4. Then the closing statement with Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman’s statement… “Here, right matters.”
2
It’s hard to be hopeful of Trump’s removal. After the House impeaches it goes to a Republican controlled Senate, with a Republican USSC political hack judge presiding over the “ trial “. The Senators are already running to Trump, asking him if they want to clear him quickly or take some time doing it, for a appearance of fairness.
Essentially, when the impeachment gets to the Senate, Trump will own all of the players, the umpires and also call the balls and strikes . The Senate trial farce will look like the Kavanaugh Appointment inquiry.
The majority of critical thinking Americans will be left with another totally rigged election, complete with outside interference and the bogus electoral system.
The sociopathic Trump will run as a impeached president, because his illness does not recognize shame.
2
This is a lovely fairy tale. Oh how I wish it came true. The morally bankrupt and bigoted genie that is the true and insidious nature of many is out of the bottle and he ain’t going back any time soon.
2
So many negative, or hope-less comments. C'mon people! Make America great again. Clean out the rot in November. You can do it.
@VP
No. We can't actually. Voter suppression. Gerrymandering. And 40% of Americans getting the hate-mongering strongman they want.
You, like most of the left, have lost your mind. Nothing of great interest happened on nov 20, or any other day of these idiotic hearings. This impeachment inquiry is nothing more than the left amped up on steroids throwing things against the wall and hoping something will stick. But let's be very clear:
-- the president is in charge of foreign policy, not the lifers who inhabit the state dept
-- they serve at his pleasure
-- presidents have routinely dangled baubles in front of the leaders of other countries in clear quid pro quos -- follow our rules or no goodies
-- there would be no issue with Ukraine at all if Joe and Hunter Biden had not been engaged in behavior that at best put Joe Biden in a conflict of interest situation - or it was straight up corruption
-- Pres Obama and his minions screamed about Russian interference in our elections in order to shift the blame for losing from the ever inept HRC to a "foreign entity" and used that approach to try and destroy the duly elected president of the U.S.
I could go on. All that's happened in these hearings is that the dems (particularly Adam Schiff) look more foolish than even I thought possible. What a pompous empty suit.
But go on and dream, when you're feeling blue. Dream, it's the thing to do (thanks Johnny Mercer)
4
From Egan’s lips to the centrist choir’s ears.
1
To some extent I agree with President Obama. For example, a very good public option to private health insurance would cause the latter to wither away. No need to ban private insurance. But getting a good public option would be a challenge. Look at Medicare. Thanks to lobbyists, it’s got enough holes in it to sink the Titanic, to the everlasting joy of private medigap insurers.
1
Nice to dream occasionally instead of facing nightmares. However, the nightmare of note is the dream of the GOP.
1
Ah, Mr. Egan, in this piece I think you have out-Pollyannaed Pollyana.
6
Leaving the current economic neo liberal regime in place, which is what any moderate would do, guarantees a swift return to destructive Republican rule. Not sure why elites like you don’t get that. Check out Elizabeth Warren connecting with blacks and whites in a packed ATLANTA venue last night and tell me she’s a “coastal” candidate.
4
I think we are in a very dangerous place. This op-ed spells out how many of us would like the 2020 election to end. I live in southwest Ohio--Jim Jordan and Mike Turner country. I would invite Mr. Egan to visit this area and talk to the rabid Trump supporters who live in this fourth of Ohio. Many are evangelicals with the criminalization of abortion and homosexuality on their minds and in their hearts. They want America to become a theocracy where the Christian religion controls all laws, actions, and values. Many are also uncloseted racists. This area of Ohio still has active KKK and other white supremacy groups operating in the open with no condemnation or challenge or any kind. It is not uncommon to pass flag poles flying American flags with Trump flags and sometimes Nazi swastika flags as well. In my county, Democrats cannot even manage to put a candidate on the general election ballot for any city, county, or state legislative office. So, although I enjoyed reading your column, it does not represent any semblance of the facts of political life where I live my life every day. I imagine it is the same for millions of other Democrats like myself. It is like living in a foreign country where I don't speak the language and am not part of the culture. It can be very lonely.
20
@Meg THANK YOU FOR SHARING THIS AS SO MANY PEOPLE JUST DON'T GET IT...STILL !
4
I'm touched by Mr. Egan's simple faith.
But I'm convinced that most Trump supporters don't care about his disgusting politics or his disgusting history or his disgusting personal and business behavior.
Various portions of his "base" are motiviated by various priorities, but as long as he keeps bashing non-white people, and appointing anti-abortion judges, and giving nice wet tax kisses to the rich, he can satisfy all of these, and they'll all stick with him. Indeed, their very identities are tied up in his politics.
If the Trump campaign can get enough other mouth-breathers to the polls, or if enough Democrats stay home because of similar one-issue obsessions or their party didn't nominate their "ideal" candidate, Trump can still win.
With the help, most likely, just as did before, of an anti-democratic Electoral College overweighted toward his base.
3
I agree with most of this article. yet, the progressive policies being pushed are the necessary ones to lead to a better country for us to live in. Liberals should not have to give up their souls in order to protect republicans from their candidate. A wiser move should be to declare these policies as long term goals that we will hope to bring all Americans to support, but until we have that support, here are the incremental fixes we will implement.
2
If your home is on fire you have one imperative: call the fire department to put the fire out immediately. Your only goal is to extinguish the fire. You don't pause call a contractor and get a quote on a kitchen upgrade, you don't ponder new window treatments, or stop to plan a new sun room. I am as mystified by the Democratic Party's response to this national emergency as I am by the Republican's, but at least the Republican Party's response makes sense given their corrupt goals and quest for power. The Democrats should have singular goal: removing Trump from power, everything else can wait. The Democrats need to focus all their messaging on the existential threat Trump represents. I am an independent and will vote for any alternative to Trump, but the vast majority of independents do not pay close attention to politics so long as their 401K continues to grow. If Democrats are going to defeat Trump they must successfully raise the alarm among centrist, independent voters and so far they failing miserably.
2
@Ken
The surest way to defeat in 2020 is for the platform of the Democratic nominee to be "I'm not Trump. Vote for me".
Everyone knows who Trump is. Now they need to know what the Democrats are going to do for them. If the answer is "very little," kiss it goodbye.
2
@J.C.
I think you are right - I'm just in panic mode these days.
1
Sadly, in a post-truth world where the fractured electorate lives in delusional hard-shell bubbles, and the largest fraction of the population is content to be altogether ignorant...the sociopath wins.
1
I mean this sincerely...from your mouth to God's ear.
1
Why can't we have the ticket-and not just the presidential nominee-unite the party? The Democratic Party hosts a broad spectrum of policy views: how can a single individual possibly satisfy everyone? No one can. With such a strong field this year, I would be delighted to see a ticket combining 2 of the candidates currently running. I am on the very left of the party, but I'd support a ticket that offers both a progressive and a moderate. This would send a message too about the element of compromise that is the sine qua non of our democratic system and which the Republicans have so totally obliterated from their approach. At their peril. I hope.
7
The Democratic Party lost in 2016 due to the sort of premature over-confidence expressed in this op-ed and it may very well happen again. Democrats will impeach Trump in the House and Republicans will exonerate him in the Senate. That is a given.And if all that happens as quickly as both parties are predicting, then this impeachment will have very little effect on the election.
In this digital-social media age, a majority of Americans seem to have completely lost the ability of converting short term memory into long term. So I do not share Egan's confidence.
6
Fantasy or not, none of this scenario is new. Will it happen this way? Odds are high that it will not. Four years ago, HRC was a shoo-in to be elected President, and political insiders were laughing at Trump's campaign antics. (He didn't stand a chance against the strongest Republican primary field ever presented.) In the general even Trump was surprised that he had "won." In fact, he didn't win, HRC (the most qualified) was rejected due to her (greater) character flaws.
The prognosticators should be humble, because if anything is clear, it is that the American people as a collective care about much more than the most recent headline or any particular policy. They'd like a president of whom they can be proud. Despite the policy messes, evident psychological disorder, ethical lapses, and the parade of prevarications, Trump could win a second term because the contest will be him against one other person. The MAGA movement is genuine and will outlast Trump, who tapped its energy but is ill-suited (for abundant reasons) to lead it. Will a Democrat take that lead?
2
In other news, trump's administration is creating a "plan" for the CA homeless population, which he has characterized as "embarrassing for OUR country." He is particularly focused on the 44,000 counted homeless people in LA. NYT Readers, CA has a population of 40,000,000. That 44,000 number is not even 1/2 of 1% of our state's population. And trump has shown no empathy or concern about the causes and symptoms for homeless people in general. So what is motivating this assertion of federal power? I'd like to see Tim ( a great writer) focus on issues like this instead of the fantasy football of November 2020 outcomes. With trump (and the GOP enablers) nothing is ever simple. He already went after middle class Californians with the removal of our SALT deductions during the 2017 tax cut for the wealthy and corporations. What's he doing to us now? And why?
4
This is the kind of op-ed that could easily have been written in the run up to the 2016 election, declaring that any one of the umpteen-thousand things Trump did to categorically disqualify himself from the Presidency were the day that would be remembered forever as the one that sealed Hillary Clinton's victory. I'm sorry, but I wish no one had wrote this and I wish the Times hadn't published it. Trump's approval rating has remained steady throughout impeachment, and after surging for a while, support for impeachment has been ticking down these past couple of weeks. Trump hasn't been defeated until he's been defeated, and it's writing like this that encourages voters to be complacent and not vote.
2
The real rhetorical function of this piece is to further intimidate the progressive wing of the party into compliance. He’s using the impeachment hearings as yet another opportunity to punch left. Predictable, yes, but no less shameful.
1
May it go from your lips to God’s ears, as the Yiddish saying goes.
2
I have one message to Americans: the future of America as well as the planet depends how we respond to the threat of climate change.
And we know that the current resident of the Oval Office (I will not dignify him with the word "president") thinks climate change is a Chinese hoax.
That is all you need to know.
5
"Constitutional equivalent of the DEATH PENALTY? Are you kidding? I would love it to be the death penalty, but throwing him out of office will ensure that he walks free, getting away with all the crimes he's committed while in office. He will walk into his new offices, for his new "news channel," and begin production of "The Apprentice--White House," the very next day. And, he will take all the $millions he has pilfered from our treasury with him. IF ONLY it would be the death penalty,m since he is a traitor to his country. This will be no punishment for him. Keeping him in office will be the death penalty for this democracy. He's the Machine Gun Kelly of politicians, and there are some confused Americans who regard him as a hero, FOR the crimes he's committed. I'm counting on the SDNY to take care of him, and his crime family. I can dream, can't I?
2
I'm a Democrat who not only voted for Obama but worked to get him elected so enough of the elder statesmen nonsense. This is no time to take a middle road. To proceed cautiously...which is what Obama always did, gets us no where. We need to save the planet, the economy has to work for everyone, we need to fight the corruption that is everywhere in our government. People need security, healthcare, jobs that pay liveable wages and all kids need access to an excellent public education. I'm tired of moderate Democrats and the media painting Warren as some left wing nut. She has fought for the middle class her whole life. We would be in good hands with Liz.
3
Timothy,
From your computer to God's ears.
3
I hope Mr. Egan is right. The alternative is re-election of Putin's Poodle backed by a Republican Party doing the work of the FSB.
4
I wish I could be as optimistic.
Republicans in congress don't fear the truth, they fear Trump and his cult. Their entire base is in thrall to an orange lunatic and they see no forward but to hang on as tight as they possibly can.
Look no further than the disgraceful display during Dr. Fiona Hill's testimony yesterday. Three republican 'representatives' used their time to spew toxic conspiratorial garbage in defense of their 'president' with zero questions for the witness. They knew that any question they asked would only blow up in their face. These cowards left the room after essentially defecating on the constitution of the united states.
In right wing conspiracy media, these men are held up as heroes fighting a deep state coup. When you have to smear dedicated professionals like Fiona Hill or decorated combat veterans like Lt.Col. Vindman, perhaps you should examine your objectives.
The republican party and the american conservative movement have been living on borrowed time since 2008. Their embrace of Trumpism has only accelerated their decline.
To those conservatives who dislike trump but remain conservative, and hope for a return to 'normalcy' after his departure: how do you imagine that to be possible? The GOP showed itself to be completely craven under Obama -- their behavior under Trump is criminal. In what universe can Devin Nunes ever have credibility?
2
Fair and balanced. Well done.
2
I disagree, Mr. Egan. After everything we have endured, it takes no further showing to prove that the Republicans are unworthy to govern us or that Trump is a disgraceful representative of their faction.
Nor will any proof persuade the base to abandon their leader.
It is folly to think that one final proof will somehow make the case to them. If it hasn't been made by now, it can't made.
And that is our problem -- a large, angry minority misrules us all. They are impervious to reason. They lack empathy or sense. They are dangerous and ruthless. When Trump is gone, they will find someone as bad or worse. That is a much worse problem than having an obviously corrupt, ill-informed man serve as President for another year.
1
This article is a fantasy. Trump may be impeached along party lines, but not removed by the Senate. I predict 2 Republicans or less will vote for removal. Here, right apparently does not matter. They know it is wrong, but the GOP does not care. Shameful.
1
Hey what an inspiring article—oh, it turned into another plea for centrism. Never mind.
4
Interesting that the only candidate Timothy Egan mentions by name — Sen. Amy Klobuchar — is the one candidate who probably has the best chance to beat Donald Trump.
Democrats: we just need to nominate someone — preferably from the midwest — who is a moderate and reasonable next
to Trump, but is tough enough to ignore his bullying. Sen. Klobuchar is “Minnesota nice” and a former prosecutor. She’s got a great sense of humor. That’s good enough for me.
5
If progressives will only cast a vote against Trump for one of their own then they will have earned their fate of another 4 years of the world’s most dangerous man.
2
From your lips to the nations ears and heart.
3
The establishment is so frightened of real progressive change and diminishing the wealth , income and power of the 1% that they will use any method to try to restore the 2016 status quo which worked so well for them. Here, they conflate 2 entirely different and contradictory ideas. Impeach Trump and nominate a "moderate".
The election of Trump clearly demonstrated that the era of the "moderate" is over. The electorate said that it would rather have a racist, misogynist, lying, incompetent in the White House than put up with another 4 years of the death of a thousand cuts by the "moderate " establishment of both parties. The era of transferring the wealth and income and power of the middle class to the 1% is over; Trump's billionaire tax cut was its last gasp.
1
As an adolescent in the thirties hearing Father Coughlin's anti=semitic rants frightening my father who had escaped the pogroms in the Ukraine I worried about our country. Then, enlisting after WW2, after FDR's "Day of Infamy" speech I
felt pride and thought --the good will win out--However, barely a decade later came the lies of McCarthy--and again the worry. But "have you no shame?" won the day and again I was encouraged.
Now, however, with the demise of the GOP, and almost half our nation, like ignorant sheep supporting a dangerously deranged
man, I fear not only for our county but for the planet.
2
From your lips to God’s ears!
1
Maybe it helps Egan feel better, but wow. The chasm between this hopeful view of America and the reality on the ground where Trump's approval ratings hardly move is painful.
Be ready to be very disappointed in November, 2020. The country is lost. It is in huge swaths brainwashed by a 24/7 propaganda machine in bed with the State that would make Big Brother envious. It is filled with people who voted for a known criminal, sexual predator, liar, conman, and plutocrat against their own interests and who have only tripled down as each abomination spews forth from the now forever stained Oval Office.
There might be defeat of Trump in 2020, but it will be narrow if it happens, and it will be in the backdrop of a malignancy spreading across the country and fed with steroids and growth hormone by dark money forces domestic and foreign who have not the slightest interest in what's best for America or the American people.
3
This is how Democrats and, moreover, democracy is doomed. Do not waste a thought or even a second over this piece.
2
From your keypad to God’s ear.
1
Re: Christine McM: I remember saying to my friends when Vladamir Putin engineered his takeover, "Watch out for him. He is as bad as Khadaffi!"
Is that is what is called foreshadowing in literature?
1
From your mouth (or laptop) to God’s ears.
Oh wait; we’ve been told that God put Trump in office and is doing His divine work. So much for the dream.
I hope it goes this way. I think the reality is that most people get their news from Fox and Facebook and Republicans back their man even when he shoots America on 5th Avenue.
2
I love Elizabeth Warren (and Bernie too) but am increasingly concerned that only a moderate can beat Trump. Especially after reading Thomas Edsall's Opinion piece "The Danger of Elizabeth Warren" 2 days ago.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/20/opinion/elizabeth-warren-2020.html
If he's right, that leaves the top 2 moderates in a good position. But Biden is showing his age, and Buttigieg needs some seasoning. I would prefer Mayor Pete, but he will not get anywhere near the support from. African-Americans that Biden has.
That leaves Joe Biden as last person standing and the Democratic nominee. Trump will eat him up like a chew toy and spit him out. Joe won't know what hit him.
Maybe Deval Patrick will pull enough of the black vote from Biden to let Mike Bloomberg slip in as the great Democratic hope.
Yeesh. I'm still voting for Warren, because she would make the best president, and just might be smart enough to beat Trump.
2
Good piece. The only thing I would quibble with is it is the corrupt republican party that birthed the corrupt djt, not visa versa.
2
Testimony given before the House committee in the last four days has revealed that the President if is a traitor.
It's been 56 years since President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. I saw him once walking outside the White House when I was a child. I worked in Robert Kennedy's presidential campaign when I was in high school.
I wonder what John and Robert Kennedy would think if they were here now and could see what has become of the country they loved - a country now beholden to Russia, which threatened us with nuclear war in the greatest national security crisis of JFK's presidency. If they could see what William Barr has done to the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice....
1
"Character was destiny?"
No, Mr. Egan: Character disorder was destiny.
1
Let's hope Mr. Egan isn't just whistling past the graveyard. I fear he may be.
I hope you’re right, I hope you’re right, I hope you’re right.
1
No. Sorry.
The day that the 2020 election was decided, was September 9, 2016.
That was the day that Hillary Clinton uttered these words:
"You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? "
And that, as they say, was that.
It decided the 2016 election, and it decided the 2020 election.
Why ?
Because the Democrats have done nothing to rebut that statement since then, and in fact have reinforced it with a continuing parade of elitist leftists.
There is no room for normal people in the world of the Democratic Party of today. Only loyalist ideologues.
Everyone not fully buying into the collectivist progressive worldview is just as deplorable today - if not more - than they were then.
4
And who was President on that most crucial night? Mayor Pete Buttigieg!
The America where “right matters” long ago tired of the corruption of the “center”, sorry. The Obama-Biden coalition lost the last general because it ran on pablum rather than policy. Don’t make the same error again.
'Character is destiny'
'nuf said.
I hope that Trump and his handlers get voted out 2020, and that their departure is followed by vast amounts of reform legislation. But I don't have a crystal ball, and neither does Mr. Egan.
Imaginary predictions of the future are a form of cheap rhetoric, replacing serious analysis of a situation. Back in 2015 the Democrats predicted that the Republicans would quash the Trump campaign so that they wouldn't look like idiots. Didn't happen. In the late 1990s the late critic Harold Bloom predicted that Harry Potter would be forgotten in 10 years. Didn't happen. Back when the cold war ended some expert predicted that it was the "end of history" and that relations between nations would be more civilized. Didn't happen. There is no crystal ball.
1
Hope seems rather a bully in the context an entire Party has inflicted on the nation since the nomination of Merrick Garland was so gleefully rebuffed. Now let these sadists treasure their expulsion.
Mr. Egan, from your lips to God's ears.
Dream on. Should be is not shall be, and over in the other bubble the Republican Senate is preparing to run what will surely be a long, narrative-seizing trial that will threaten to drive us all insane and culminate in endlessly discussed 'Trump Acquitted!' headlines.
Add the 41% of voters who unshakably approve of Trump to the many undecideds who aren't really paying much attention to politics at all and will blow with the wind, toss in the electoral college, heavy gerrymandering, + whatever Russia and the very estimable right wing smear machine cooks up, and the situation is far from settled.
It's a terrible mistake for Dems to be cutting the hearings so short. Amnesia sets in very quickly in America these days. Once you've managed to own the narrative you need to hold onto it for as long as possible. Republicans and Trump know a *lot* about how to do that. Media is not really our friend - it's an all-encompassing click machine. Remember Hillary's emails? They'll find something.
2
The only casualty of this impeachment theatre is Joseph Biden. What Donald Trump did not achieve by "quid pro quo", that is broadcasting in the media Biden's son's dodgy ethical behavior, was achieved by a Democrat-run impeachment process. Congratulations, President Trump.
I think that Biden will win with a woman as vice-president. If its Trump, America is doomed as well as the world. The End
Do you imagine the 2020 election will be fair? Do you imagine Moscow with the connivance of the GOP will not use all its dirty tricks against a Democratic “moderate”?
So while Democrats are trying to be so careful and picky about which candidate we each choose to go up against Trump and is absolutely right on all the issues, is best able unite rather than divide the country the GOP wrecked, and displays the very best character, decency, and intelligence to govern, the Republicans will choose and vote for any person the party selects, no matter how dishonest, corrupt, craven, stupid, and cruel?
There must be a reason why the voters in one party are so careful, and if their party's candidate is not plus perfect and doesn't check all the boxes on each issue, may refuse to vote.
Meanwhile, the voters in the other party will vote for, and may even prefer, the one candidate to Make America Worse domestically and globally, run the government into the ground, prefer lies to truth, and insult our allies while cozying up to the world's worst dictators.
Please explain, because I can't
1
It was now clear beyond doubt; there were more smoking guns than you would find after a hunting trip with Dick Cheney.
I have not laughed so hard in a long time.
Oh, how I wish!
I wish the NYT would "open" an area for public OBSERVATION, not OPINION.
The former takes critical thinking, and our National Thought Process could use the exercise.
1) We have supplied $1.5 billion to Ukraine since 2014 and Putin siezing Crimea....sort of Mexico taking Texas.
In all these years, name each time that Legislative approved aid to Ukraine was stopped. How long?
2) Precisely WHO stopped the aid for 55 days this time? No...not guesses...the paperwork that shut it down. Who signed those?
3) Burisma. Biden. It seems to me that if you hold ALL branches of government, nothing can stop you from pursuit of this query. Republicans could flesh it out for over 2 years, but didn't.
Can't be too much there, there.
As Lindsay Graham would say "Elections have consequences".
3) Can we persuade Fiona Hill to run for President? She is awesome and her hands on the nuclear codes would be the safest hands at this point.
4) In Ukraine, the rogue operation was the REAL operation. When and where else are we employing such tactics globally or internally....under the guise of bypassing the Deep State?
Finally, as the President stood on the lawn with 1st grade notes listing
"I want nothing I want nothing", my mind drifted to the movie, The Untouchables with Kevin Costner as Elliot Ness ,FBI, and Al Capone screaming
"YOU GOT NOTHING
YOU GOT NOTHING".
Uh, they "GOT" his tax returns and ended his grip of evil.
'Sanity prevailed', my foot!
And yet, Donald Trump's poll numbers drop only slightly. I think he's actually going to have to shoot someone on Fifth Ave to move them.
The cult of Trump includes most America's fundamentalist Christians. They now fail to do their part in America’s “Social Compact". A democracy requires citizens capable of making good, well informed decisions Their minds are warped by Bible based lies. They are sick with religiosity. They live in the make believe because they are greedy, materialistic cowards, like their leader. The pain of secular reality is to much and they ca not accept the finality of death. They are Bible based materialist who want it all. They want to live forever and be winged angels walking on streets of gold. They want the best room in their father's mansion. Religiosity corrodes their mind, impairing ability to attain the rational, depriving them of moral humanism. They are the chosen ones, released from the obligations of being a competent American citizens willing to protect the constitution. They are superstitious fools. They are a disgrace to all who have fought for our freedoms and liberties. The fundamentalist’s mind is corroded by the same greed as is their leaders. Yes, it is a cult, a very sick one that now threatens all America. I hope they understand that regular Americans, the ones not sickened with greed the ones not afraid to die, will fight to the death for their country.
This column deserves the Pulitzer Prize for wishful thinking. It could work out this way. Hope it does.
Thanks. I needed a good laugh this morning.
1
I hope and pray that you are right.
This is the kind of balm that can reinforce the spines of Democrats and all who seek truth and decency for the next 12 months.
The only reason the Republicans want the whistleblower's identity revealed is so that they can unleash their mobs of followers upon that person and his or her family to obtain revenge. It is despicable.
1
I’m afraid that Trump’s Base is so fond of his lies that they will shrug off his bribery of Ukraine..
I hope you are correct in this. Trump's base - some 33 percent of voters - will stick with him. Almost all Democrats - another 33 percent or so - will vote against him. It's up to the independents. If the economy stays strong and the Democrats nominate a far left candidate who wants to remake the economy and the health care system, many will vote for the devil they know and l would bet on Trump being re-elected.
2
Surprisingly (at least to me who knew little about him beforehand) it was Tom Steyer during the debate who hit the nail on the head:
All the talk about winning the Trump voters over pales in comparison to simply getting more people to the polls. The 2018 midterms were won on major get-out-the-vote efforts.
Over 130,000 Puerto Ricans have moved to Florida since the hurricane. They do not like Trump and they have never had the chance to vote for a president before. That alone could tip the scale in Florida.
2
Not being a diplomat or deep state or anyway connected to Gov't dealings I fail to understand how can diplomacy not be "quid pro quo"... If it was that simple why we needed diplomats to begin with... Diplomacy is quintessentially a smaller quid for maximum quo... and then settle somewhere where no need to use swords or missiles to enforce your quid... And it is even more quintessential in cases of military aid... where we help one of the beligerents in a conflict - our ally against our foe... if and only if it suits or quid and assures that our ally's quo is always aligned with it. And as we know, there are side issues to be had with this aid... like demand to fire a prosecutor, as Mr. Biden boasted in video... or demand for investigation as Trump demanded of the same nation for our military quid...
I'm far from the idea that Democrats are naive bunch about how diplomacy works... and neither are most of normal people in this country who have no ideological blinders. The issue isn't a bribe or even corruption but rather hypocrisy... And unfortunately Democrats, following Schiff's obvious personal vendetta, aren't on the right side of it...
1
Yet another attempt to promote Biden over Warren and Sanders. Go ahead, put another bought-and-paid for establishment (conservative) democrat forward. Talk about your path to re-electing Trump. I will not be voting for Biden.
I would rather fight the civil war in a few years against the Trumpists than accept another take-it-or-leave it from oligarchs.
A consummation devoutly to be wished. Trouble is, the great majority of our fellow citizens has no idea about what's going on, what this impeachment stuff is all about, or why anybody's "wasting their time" with it. All they know is that they're scared of just about everything, including their shadows, and have no desire to see the boat rocked further. They will vote for the Devil they know, even though he be the real one.
1
The thing that’s nuts about this piece, and the whole Wall St. fat cat party line proffered by the Times, the Post, and the rest of corporate media which calls for a “moderate” candidate as the Dems’ only hope to win the Rust Belt, and thus beat Trump, is the incontrovertible fact that exit polls proved that in 2016 Bernie was the strong favorite of the Rust Belt OVER Trump, who only played a Bernie lite rebel against elites on TV. It was choosing a Wall St. moderate named Hillary over the much more popular in the Rust Belt Sanders which threw the election to Trump. I thought the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. But, of course, Wall St. care less if picking a Dem moderate loses the election again. They’ll do fine under Trump. All they care about is keeping an economic progressive off the Dem ticket, especially since he might well win.
1
The Cavanaugh hearings ended with every supposed victim's reputation in complete ruins.
Now the impeachment hearimngs have ended befor anyone's bulging eyes actually provided any entertainment but knowin that the who exercise had failed.
The gleeful Trump haters of both political sides are, I'm sure, boarding jets to get to Vegas to cash their opinions in and buy that island they've been looking at.
But every witness either laid no glove at all on the Prez or ruined their personal credibility with harsh political bias - and that little extra won't disappear when this American Presidnt leaves the front pages.
Meanwhile Trump's support with Republican voters has collapsed to - oops, 94%.
That wasn't 94% in 2016. Hello, California's dozens of Electors!
2
No one has found that quid pro quo that Schiff has lied about. Who was bribed? Apparently no one.
2
It's still a long way to next November, Timothy. And the combination of the right-wing Propaganda Machine, unlimited campaign cash from newly emboldened billionaires, and the Democrat's capacity for terrible decisions can keep Trump and his gangsters in power. Revisit where things are next May.
1
I love this fantasy, but it is about as likely to unfold as the rapture of 2012. Don’t believe the polls. This is the most wildly popular President since Reagan. Even the New York Times can’t stop writing about him and showing photo ops of him. He will win the election by a far more decisive vote than in 2016. Even the people who hate this guy, actually love him.
Far from being decisive against the Man in Office, Sondland expressly stated he had no direct instruction that aid to Ukraine should be linked to an investigation of the Bidens. His testimony doesn’t touch the Man. Meanwhile, the impeachment is doing more than Russia on Facebook in 2016 to get out the Republican vote. They will now flock to the polls to save their savior.
Unless he makes some major major mistake, a second term is assured. Not a single Democratic candidate has a shadow of a chance.
Nevertheless , we must not be apathetic. We will lose, but the more we fight now, the better it will be against Pence Rubio or Cruz in 2024.
If I’m wrong, I’ll never be happier to be wrong in my life.
2
I normally love Egan's work, but this fanciful piece seems diluted and vague. We are in a war against corruption and tyranny, and nothing matters but firing the next mortar at the filthy, orange target. Moderation and contemplation--those were luxuries of the past. We need to get this man out of office, and even that is not enough. For Trump to survive his atrocities in any degree will set a dismal precedent and invite repetition at some point in the future. Trump mandates prison, for himself and his cronies. If any lesser outcome occurs, the problem will persist.
1
Thank you, Timothy Egan! You’re article has lifted my spirit! I’m clinging to hope. We all know that Mitch McConnell will not allow a Senate trial, and this will be the final nail on the GOP coffin. America will then see that Republicans are not about to uphold our Constitution nor our laws. Okay, fine. This TRUTH will make excellent political ads for the Democrats!
Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina was correct, “If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed....and we will deserve it.”
Independents, Never-Trump-Republicans and Democrats will join together in 2020 and oust the GOP out of office!
I believe we get the government we deserve. Our history of how we treated Natives in the beginning and those arriving later is full of tragic, shameful events. And, we repeat this history everyday. I wish we deserved better.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/01/joe-biden-stutter-profile/602401/
If Joe Biden were to follow up this article in the Atlantic with a frank discussion of the possible cause of his stumbling and bumbling, perhaps most of the questions of his age and mental acuity would be washed away. He could be describing an American success story of overcoming a challenge at a young age. Most of us had something we had to deal with and would relate to him very well...
And Joe would be that president Tim Egan speaks of.
This is wonderfully optimistic interpretation of what has transpired in the past few days, in Washington and in Atlanta. We can only hope your instincts are correct.
1
Why do so many people believe Trump will disappear if he is defeated at the polls in 2020? He will never shut up. He has a large, loyal following, and he will still be eligible for a second term in 2024.
2
Hype. The latest revelations are always earth-shaking - for the media and other insiders. In fact, no one will remember November 20 by December 20, let alone a year from now.
As for the election, while pundits love definitive predictions, which they can brag about when they turn out to be right and ignore when they turn out to be wrong, the outcome is not obvious.
In retrospect the best prediction for 2016 would have been "too close to call" (not very satisfying for self-promoting pundits). As of now it is probably also the best for 2020.
1
Sondland's public testimony is no gold standard of candor. Apparently, he had not been so forthright in his closed testimony. Soon after which Roger Stone was found guilty of 7 charges the most important of which was lying to congress. Roger faces 50 years of imprisonment and that got Sondland's attention and his memory substantially improved. He would not fall on his sword for Trump.
1
Call me delusional -- and events since November 2016 have been enough to cause insanity -- but I'd love for Adam Schiff to run for president.
Maybe though, like Adlai Stevenson, Schiff is too intellectual for America. A nation that distrusts educated people as "elites" -- a nation with 63 million citizens who voted for Donald Trump -- might not take to a man like Representative Schiff. He is Trump's polar opposite. In the impeachment hearings, Adam Schiff showed himself to be calm, reasoned, and ethical, at least in my eyes.
To me, the bravest thing he did while in charge was to keep his cool while being bayed and snarled at by Trump's attack dogs (I'm looking at you, Jordan, Nunes, and Stefanik).
2
Egan is not interested in defeating Donald Trump. He is interested in defeating Donald Trump AND Bernie Sanders AND Elizabeth Warren. He joins the corrupt Democratic party leadership in spreading the falsehood that Sanders and Warren are "radicals" too extreme to win -- despite the empirical evidence of Sanders' success in 2016 in appealing to voterrs and mobilizing new voters. This calumny is exacerbated by the lie that Biden is the "most electable" even though he has already demonstrated in previous runs for the presidency that he is NOT electable.
2
Would that it were true. However, Trump's approval ratings have been going up during the public hearings.
1
It's disheartening to realize that unless Democrats inspire whole new factions of voters to the polls in great numbers, Trump may still win the election.
I grew up thinking our democracy was not so fragile. Or so fickle.
3
My heart got happy reading this! Shoulders lifted, spirits high.
From your pen to Gods ears...especially after what we have seen and heard this week.
3
Exactly what I just said to my husband! From his pen to God’s ears! We must work tirelessly to get the vote out.
Please never repeat the hideous and beyond-entitled lie that "impeachment is the Constitutional equivalent of the death penalty".
Impeachment is the Constitutional equivalent of firing someone who only expects to have their job for a few years anyway. It is not ending a life or even a career. Impeached officials are not left wondering how to feed the kids or pay rent.
If the vice president would not carry on policy similarly, the president is either out on his own mental island and for that reason needs to go, or he picked the wrong VP.
The idea that one person's job and ego outweigh what is best for billions of people should be so laughable it warrants no discussion, but here it is given life anew. People hesitate to impeach a thug with immense wealth and power but rally to shut down every coal power plant as fast as possible? What about the thousands of people who are not rich who depend on the plant? That there seem to be people ok with the latter but who are hesitant with the former is baffling.
The president's feelings do not matter - federal politics is a high stakes game meant for people who can handle losing. It is a gangster move to claim injury or insult (often phrased as "disrespect") to delegitimize or discourage opposition. Giving in to such sentiments just empowers wrongdoers.
4
If victory is the only goal then we're as bad as the Republicans. We also need to change our society for the better and not accept a mere return to the status quo that everyone is so dissatisfied with. Democrats are well intended but fall short when they meet opposition from money and power. That is what must change.
Actually, the only goal of the impeachment inquiry is to present the evidence of bribery and high crimes and misdemeanors to America. BUT, the goal of every Democrat, Independent and Never-Trumper in 2020 is to oust each and every Republican and their leader!
It's worth checking what Obama ran on in 2008 vs. what the Dems have to offer currently. In 2008, a vibrant, articulate man in his late 40s gave out a message of hope. Hope that as a nation, we can overcome the systemic issues barring us from having an inadequate health insurance system, broad access to education and ending wars rather than beginning them. He gained a huge following across a very broad spectrum of the people because of it.
Not to get into an argument on how well he actually followed up on these promises. But who among the current candidates exudes a similar feel? To me: no one. And that's scary.
3
We're never going back to the Clinton/Obama era, the Democratic Party is undergoing a transformation of it's own...or more accurately, a return to it's historical mandate of fighting for those left behind by this economy.
5
Agree. Pres. Obama did fight like heck to move us forward, had it not been for voter apathy in 2010 midterms he would have done so much more to move the U.S. into a better future.
Mr. Trump is accumulating too much heavy baggage, and eventually the Republicans will ask him not to run in 2020. My prediction (you heard it here first) is that our next president will be John Kasich. Can any of the Democratic contenders beat Mr. Kasich in a head-to-head matchup?
But Democrats already tried a - what you call centrist, actually a corporatist war-monger in 2016. That led many to refrain from voting. So Let's nominate a progressive this time. Perhaps if Bernie had run last time, we would have avoided the Trump disaster.
3
Calling Hillary Clinton a “corporate warmonger,” is idiotic. What’s much worse, it’s a way of doing what Trump and Trumpists do: throw giant, sweeping accusations, so nobody can see what’s actually going on.
It’s also a way of staying in Bubbleland, where apparently you’re encouraged to mistake what oughta be true with what is. What is true is this: this is a capitalist society. We oughta have laws against some of the insanely-paid lecturing our politicians do, but we don’t—and such laws are very likely un-Constitutional, and can’t apply when somebody’s not in office. And hate to break it, but campaigns cost bank..which is why St. Bernie always took NRA money. He had to.
And Marx had a pretty good point about the bourgeoisie, especially the rich ones...like Elizabeth Warren, who’s great in many ways, but who IS wealthy, and who was a Republican most of her life. Wanna know who wasn’t either? Joe Biden, who comes with his own set of baggage.
Give it a rest, okay? Let’s stop being so prissy, let’s stop being so hand-washy, and let’s stop blaming the media for everythingin terms a lot like Trump’s.
Back in the day you could discredit a politician by saying "soandso and his commie freinds". But today the opposite version "T... and his fascist freinds" wouldn't work as well, would it.
1
You will find this article in Webster’s dictionary under facetious.
2
Dare to dream.
1
Dream on, sir.
2
Yeah!*
*Only if the voting machines are secured, voter rolls aren't purged of minority voters, ample polling locations are open reasonable hours, and oh yeah, Trump doesn't start war solely for his political benefit.
Otherwise, yeah!
1
Still bangin’ that “make sad angry white people happy” drum? Thanks but no thanks.
2
The New York Times, once the bastion of journalism.
Now brought down to carrying the pompons for the Democratic Party.
What’s worse, you got delusional, and started to believe your lies and alternate reality.
This whole circus in DC has made Trump a martyr. His people know the entire establishment and the media are out to get him, a representative for the little people. Here is the secret state, Washington and the media witch hunting their guy.
You made him a people’s hero. And in the meantime you exposed Biden to ridicule and contempt, as the circus is about Trump investigating Biden for corruption, what’s worse you keep saying Biden did nothing wrong, but he promises not to do it again.
Keep listening to your echo, keep believing.
You do that.
5
One can always dream.
What will finally sink The Malignancy and Republicans are thier ties and loyalty to Russia.
2
We could re-title this piece "Timothy Egan in Slumberland."
2
We'll see. This country elected Donald Trump president. That's like failing your national IQ test. What makes anybody think people are going to catch on now?
1
Timothy, you're so naive. I once was, too.
To believe in the effectiveness of Sondland's admission, “We followed the president’s orders,” he said. “Everyone was in the loop. It was no secret.” is wishful thinking.
Rather, I'd recall H. L. Mencken from the mid-20th century, "As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
3
We start need a flesh and blood candidate
From your mouth to God’s ears!
How does a cult get rid of its cult leader? Never. They all go down together.
Here’s a Quid pro quo.
If, and only IF the whistle blower could have ALL the anonymity and protections in the world, I’d say...
Let the whistle blower testify before Congress in a closed door hearing....in exchange for....
....The bigot in the whiteHouse coming before the same closed door committee, and testifying UNDER OATH.
That’s a quid pro quo for the books!!!
1
Let’s face it, they can’t win , the numbers just aren’t there, so they cheat. They claw, they bite, they kick, they punch below the belt, and they lie lie lie lie di die die lie. We have to figure out how to counter THAT!!!!!
1
Yet another NY Times piece that fails to understand that the takeover is too far gone for electoral politics to be the solution. Look--would reason undo a Hitler (sorry to mention the name!) or a Franco? Would anyone say "well, we'll vote THEM out?" No. This is jus silly.
The game has changed. The rulebook torn up. The longer we pretend that we'll solve this happily with a vote, the longer things rot.
2
Someday the Trump base, now a cult, will wake up. That will probably come when the Trump recession caused by his foolish trade war begins, maybe when he actually shoots someone, maybe when the compromat which the Russians have on him is revealed in the light of day. Who knows when, but it will come. And when it does, the Trump base will be horrified at seeing some of their own in old films of those rallies where he is singing lock her up or making fun of people will disabilities or his many cruel attacks on vulnerable human beings. How do I know this? I am old and have known many Germans who supported Hitler and now when they see his raving at those rallies he gave, they are embarrassed and ashamedly wonder how they could have ever been so stupid.
5
The Republicans will rally round the sociopath only to be embarrassed again by his actions. They will regret it "biggly."
1
Right, that’s what’s gonna save us: the zombie Obama coalition. Utterly delusional.
3
Dream on.
Women.
We need you.
Nancy Pelosi
Fiona Hill
Marie Yovanovitch
Thank you
4
FWOMP
Florida
Wisconsin
Ohio
Michigan
Pennsylvania
Dems need to tattoo this on their inner eyelids.
3
This article refers to the "Cult of Trump". Yet my comment yesterday that provided a definition of "cult" and suggesting that the Republican party had become a "cult" was deemed not fit to print. Will this comment suffer the same fate?
Oh how insufferable. The answer Is Amy Klobuchar? A serial staff abuser and Republican lite?
1
In your dreams
1
Democrats simply aren't racist enough for the people who fear for the white race.
Let's talk about what's REALLY going on.
I've thought for a long time that a Steve Bullock, who won as a Democrat in deep red Montana while Trump was on the ballot, would beat Trump in 2020. No, at less than 1% in the polls he doesn't have much of a chance. But he or Bennett is exactly the kind of candidate you are suggesting in this article. And the main reason I am comfortable with Bullock is that the noise , chaos and anxiety of Trump seems to subside when I see him. That's enough for me.
1
The Democratic candidates should pay attention to what happens in the UK election. While the UK and US have many differences, the Brexit vote and the Trump election happened relatively close to each other which makes me think there has been some convergence in voters’ risk appetite and desire for change. The success of the Labour Party in the UK may mean that a large swathe of voters want the kind of sweeping change that would dismantle the Reagan-Thatcher framework that has underpinned our economies for the last 35 years. Otherwise, it may be a sign that Obama is right and that most of the silent majority want to hang on to the small gains made in the recovery since the GFC.
Dude, stop writing these fiction columns. 1) They're stupid for a paper that's supposed to report on fact and have opinions about what's happening. 2) You're going to jinx us!
5
@Jenna Agree! Not that I superstitious or anything like that...
The impeachment circus has only strengthened support for Trump. Dems have squandered their obsession with the guy on hoax after hoax, and not many are listening anymore. Schiff's closing remarks before the gavel, as he stared into the camera for the rubes back home, were priceless -- if you were as smart as a lawyer, folks, you'd really get this but you're not and I'm really upset now. And the timing must have been arranged by a deep state republican. Thanksgiving? Christmas? New Year's? Relaxing times with nothing else to do but watch TV? No wonder there's growing pressure to go ahead and have that Senate trial. The other side will control that show and the parade of witnesses will suck all the oxygen out of February and March while the Dems have another unwatched twenty-five person beauty pageant debate. Colossal blunders. And Trump takes 2020. And the next hoax, no doubt dealing with a Trump hotel on Mars, will get worse ratings than Saturday morning gabfests. Three years, the Dems have had, to capture our interest on real issues like climate change and gun control and economic parity and the genuine improvement of minority lives. What a squander, and what a swan song.
5
The goal of NYT columnists seems to be making sure that if the Democrats win next year, Americans will wake up on the morning after the election only to learn that their new boss is the same as their old boss. In other words what Mr. Egan wants is for Americans to put back behind the wheel the same Wall Street-friendly types who drove us into the ditch in the first place.
Contrary to Mr. Egan's insistence based on what I've read, seen, and heard, it seems the residents of Iowa and other Midwestern states are more favorably inclined towards the progressive messages of both senators Sanders and Warren, the two people Mr. Egan insists Democrats should never nominate, than he cares to admit.
I used to find Mr. Egan's columns refreshing and insightful. No longer. He has become yet another of those at the NYT who see the Trump presidency, not as emblematic of deeper problems but an anomaly that can be made right by putting the "right people" back in charge, those whose idea of change is simply tweaking things at the margins in order to ensure their social position is maintained.
Mr. Egan is a man with considerable gifts. Perhaps it's time he put those talents to better use by employing them to build bridges between the various regions of the country by explaining why progressive change is in the best interests of all of us regardless of where we happen to live.
2
I will be honest: I was nowhere nearly as impressed with Mr. Sondland as I was with several other witnesses, such as Ms. Hill. But you are exactly right; it was Sondland who broke the dam. The floodwaters came rushing through. This was not a scheme concocted from the bottom up but from the top down. Everyone knew. In fact it seems that in one way or another, everyone was involved. The three Amigos are Pence, Pompeo, and Trump.
I was reminded by my brother that Wed Nov 20, was also Bobby Kennedy’s birthday. On a Wednesday as it happen, Nov 20, so many years ago, his brother Jack stopped by to wish him a happy birthday before boarding his flight for Dallas. We all know how that ended on Friday Nov 22.
I don’t know why I connect these two events in my thinking. The tragic and cruel death of one of the great presidents in American history, and the loss of our national innocence; with the full public exposure of the sheer corruption of surely the worst American ever to step foot in the Oval Office.
Something changed on November 22, 1963; we lost something truly important about our national character.
I hope something changes now. I hope we can regain a vision: “ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”
1
Mr. Egan, While you remain one of my favorite writers, your opinion of the outcome of the next presidential election appears to be far too sanguine. Once the grand buffoon is acquitted by the Senate, he will return with greater mendacity and a more intense desire to win reelection, without fear of reprisal or reprimand. His name calling, lies, distractions, distortions, and false accusations, with assistance from social media and foreign governments (remember Fiona Hill’s admonition of new Russian interference) with unconditional support from a thoughtless base, might propel him to a second term, much to the delight of Republican house and senate members. We do not yet know that a new morning will dawn in America in November 2020. I hope you are right and I am to pessimistic. Nonetheless, thank you for your thoughtful and excellent writing.
1
Democrats should run on vanquishing not only trump's blatant corruption but the corruption of the entire republican party.
Wanting to throw the other party out of office is a powerful motivating force as we all saw back in 2008. I predict we will see another 2008 Democratic tsunami sweeping the GOP from power across the board.
1
To save this Nation from further descent into fascism will take a collective effort from all of US who have eyes to see and ears to hear.
It will take a more courageous press than we have seen in a few decades; the both-sides-ism that has plagued our debates has got to stop. republicans have been lying to the Nation for a lot longer than t rump has been center stage and it is time for the 4th Estate to call them out on their lies.
It will take courage from the leftist progressives to unite behind a moderate if a moderate gets the nomination; and it will take courage from the moderate wing if We the People vote for a Green New Deal.
The center has not held; it has moved so far to the right Franklin Delano Roosevelt would be called a communist by the so called pundits on the right. (Oops, he was called a communist back in his own day by those same sorts.)
I keep hearing that it is extreme to offer the hope of health insurance for All, but I don't hear from the same people why it is not extreme to run on taking away health care from millions. That is the republican plan, remember.
If We the People don't want a democracy we are going to lose it. Vote like your life and the lives of your children depend on it. They do.
1
It is as though the USA is in a sinkhole. The impeachment inquiry, so far, has been a better lesson about corruption in government, led by the president of the USA, himself, than any of the government courses that I took at the university. To wit, the president's party still strongly supports him and will begin a new inquiry based on a conspiracy theory, which was thoroughly and chillingly debunked during the impeachment inquiry. Truth evaporates in the minds of Trump's base and does not prick the consciences of his Republican Party cohorts. Withal, this Opinion columnist, Egan, declares that the truth spoken by the inquiry's fact witnesses and the words of Barack Obama, imploring us to settle for moderation in our next democratic candidate for presidency, spell defeat for Trump in 2020. Obama is the leader that thrust Hillary Clinton forward for the 2016 election and 'truth' these days seems to have lost its meaning. Can a message such as Lincoln's, “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth” be delivered and supported by the people today? An economy serving all Americans and a culture with respect for others may take more than moderation as this country has fallen so far below that standard.
I hope you are right, Tim, or we will have destroyed in four years what took more than 200 to build.
1
Most of the candidates are taking entirely the wrong approach. Americans don't want to hear about radical change right now. The goal in 2020 is to unseat as many Republicans as possible, and that should not be hard with the mountain of material they have provided with their words and actions.
The main radical change that ordinary Americans see is the effect of changing climate, and economic disparity, which includes access to affordable healthcare and housing.
Democrats, focus on unseating Republicans, becoming an engaged leader in world climate actions, and creating and rebuilding a job-creating infrastructure that pays a decent wage. That is not radical - it's addressing the needs of the many, not the few.
And keep the message simple.
2
It's so obvious that Mr. Egan keeps his eloquent writing eye astutely on things political these days. Not only does he poetically describe the ugly damage of this presidency and the man who holds it, but he reminds this nation that there are forces at work still greater than that which we've been subjected to since 20 January 2017.
Yes, I think Mr. Egan is absolutely spot on about the winner in 2020--American politics has now gone through a formidable growth period and the Democrats will prove to be its able representative.
Well Mr. Egan you do have a future as a writer of fantasy books when you finish your gig as an opinion writer. This would all be very nice except for the facts that only a small number of people watched the hearings, the Republicans are gearing up for their own hearings about the Bidens that will just further confuse the low information voters who will decide the election and further inflame the rabid reactionaries who will vote in greater numbers than ever because impeachment and other attacks on Trump will only increase their resentments and feelings of victimization, the Democrats will remain bitterly divided regardless of who they nominate and a significant percentage (and it does not have to be a very large one in a what will be a very close election) will not vote for the nominee because he or she is either insufficiently or excessively 'radical,' and even if Trump loses a close election he is likely to refuse to accept the result and refuse to leave office. In other words, dream on. It's gonna get a lot worse before the dawn of your new morning, and pretending that it isn't only makes us ill prepared to face the harsh reality of the next twelve months.
1
In the past 4 years, starting with the comment about McCain, I've heard countless times that this time Trump had finally gone too far. And he always remained.
"How the Insufferably Woke Help Trump," the title of a recent column of yours, has not changed in the past two weeks. Unless or until the progressives, realize they are about 20% of the voters, and it's their way or the highway, and the purists in the other groups who think their agenda is the most important thing that matters, we will be on a long road to Nowheresville.
You stop a car in full reverse by first hitting the brakes, not by shifting it into drive and hitting the accelerator. First things first. Get rid of Trump. And then engage brain before writing legislation. You have 2 years to fix everything before the voters blame you for the mess the country is in. Happened after Bush. Will happen after Trump.
2
Ezra Klein wrote this week about America's epistemic crisis, where our two political two sides cannot agree on a common truth from which decisions and actions can be taken. He states that Republicans cannot accept objective truths, such as those we have heard in the impeachment hearings, because to them those truths are an existential threat. The only truth to the Republicans in Washington, and many of their voters, is that liberals are seeking to destroy their country/identity/way of life/heritage. Facts inconsistent with this fundamental truth must be ignored or explained away. That Trump is a crook is obvious to almost all, but to many it does not matter.
Mr. Egan's vision might be plausible in an earlier era, but it isn't now. The Watergate experience would suggest that Trump should be waving goodbye from the steps of Air Force One any day now. But of course those were simpler times before social media, Fox News, Newt Gingrich and his demagogic progeny.
Instead of hoping for a rebuilt Obama coalition, or believing that all of our electoral anxieties would vanish if we simply nominated a more "moderate" candidate, I would like to hear the strategy for overcoming the epistemic crisis and all of the structural elements that support it, and that are undermining democracy from inside and out.
Being right, good, reasonable, and smart is insufficient. I don't know the answer, but I do know that unless we truly acknowledge the nature of the obstacles, we are doomed.
3
This is impeachment divide is completely explicable. "“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
Upton Sinclair
1
Were it only so, Mr. Egan.
Americans, it is said, are a resilient people. Perhaps that is true, but the table is rigged, and many are bereft of hope. They fear that our country has fallen into the clutches of a ruthless, immoral band of political thugs, more interested in their own power than in the cherished American ideals they only cynically pretend to revere. Those people are bending rules, installing miscreants in positions of authority, and turning their backs on Main Street Americans.
Abraham Lincoln famously questioned in his Gettysburg Address whether our "government of the People, by the People, for the People can long endure."
Americans would do well to think about that before they cast their ballots next November. Never before his own time has Lincoln's question been more apropos, and that's not "fake news."
1
"He’d run a fraudulent university, a dubious charity and bragged of cheating on prior wives; no surprise that he directed a foreign policy obsessed with a scheme to extort a fragile ally. As any novelist could have predicted, character was destiny."
This is Trump in a nutshell and with a prayer, he will soon be just a very thick chapter in the history of these United States. If we have a new President on Jan. 20th, 2021, our democracy will survive. If not, I shudder to think of our fate.
2
Toujours l'espoir.
When that night comes on Election Day in 2020, I trust that the Republicans and Mr. Trump will be forever banished from our lives. But, like the ever-popular zombies of contemporary fiction and movies, that may not come to pass.
1
Donald Trump has already beaten one "militant centrist." Why would he not beat another? Democratic moderates tell us that the white working class voted for Trump because of their anger over the economic status quo. Why would they vote for a Democrat who wants a somewhat more liberal version of the status quo and who will likely appoint the usual Wall Street gang to top economic positions? Why wouldn't someone advocating for more thorough change have a better chance?
4
Mr. Egan, I will print out your article, frame it, and display it on my writing desk to keep at bay the disheartenment I have felt. There's a hopeful warmth in your words, a shield against the blizzard of lies. Thank you!
1
The saying about winning by hook or crook describes Trump's victory. The fact that he is so disturbed by the popular vote going to Hillary and the constant drumbeat of revelations about the Russians, the six or so compadres of Trump from Cohen, Manafort, Gates, Flynn et al currently serving time are part of the picture no one likes. Yet in spite of this, Trump has managed to evoke the deep vitriol in those for whom things have not turned out and he has become their hero, not the Democrats. Combine fat cats and angry white men and it's a troubling 2020 election. Trump is what one sees when looking at the totality of the country, as tho with the eyes of an internist looking at the x-rays, a psychiatrist reading the words and watching the press "briefings", the budget, the corruption and crude and rude behavior all coalesced in the person known as Donald Trump and his effect on our current divided country.
1
Why don't Democrats put some laser focus on how they can take back the Senate? That way, even if, god forbid, Trump were to somehow get reelected, a Democratic senate would allow the Democrats and the people to take control back.
Unfortunately there's still a long way to go before November 2020, and I'm afraid that the Russian disinformation campaigns are not only being successful, but are being fully embraced by millions of people who can't handle reality and must live in a bubble of imaginary reality.
Ultimately, we have to remember that Trump is just one, dysfunctional, criminal man that our government should have been able to rid. History will heap more scorn on the Republican Party than Trump, and rightly so. They are bringing down the country and they are quite happy about it.
1
This constant push for centrism by NY Times columnists and TV pundits comes with so many inconsistencies and fallacies that it almost feels like they're all on the Koch Bros. payroll.
1. Obama backed the loser in 2016.
2. Let's be honest: his message is directed at assuaging high-dollar donors that the Democratic party will not be making any changes that they won't like. That's the class he is part of now. He's completely out of touch with average Americans.
3. The industrial Midwest is NOT a hotbed of center-right Democratic conservatism. Bernie Sanders did better here in 2016 than he did on the coasts. I don't know if he'd be president now, but he would have beat Trump in those swing state Hillary Clinton lost. How do you just ignore that?
4. Trump won on a populist message of draining the Washington swamp and bringing lost jobs back. In some ways, his message was further left than HRC's.
5. We have gay marriage and legal pot across the country, two things that would have seemed impossible even 10 years ago. Public healthcare and low-to-free college tuition are now popular ideas among the public. And yet, there is this persistent narrative among pundits that this is a center or center-right country that would never vote for a "socialist".
This propaganda campaign by out-of-touch insider pundits needs to stop. If the Russians are smart, they'll realize they don't even have to show up in 2020 to get the result they want. Everything is being taken care of.
8
From your mouth to God's ear. I'm not as sanguine as the writer. Give the nomination to a moderate Democrat who campaigns on fixing Obamacare, raising the minimum wage , getting big money out of politics and other kitchen table issues and the left's version of the Tea Party, the Sanders-Warren Jill Stein voters, will sit home and we will have four more years of Trump. They would rather have the four more years than replace Trump with a moderate
1
@Bob
You must be joking. Moderates aren't running on getting the big money out of politics because they ARE the big money in politics. They're the ones meeting with wealthy donors. They're the ones taking the corporate bribe money. They're the ones who are careful not to propose anything the rich and powerful wouldn't like, even if it would benefit you and me.
Tim Egan conveniently forgot to mention that the Obama quotes in this piece are taken from a closed door meeting with wealthy elite campaign donors.
Sorry, but I'm not voting for yet another corrupt, more-of-the-same candidate. This has to end. If that's too much "purity" for you, maybe you need to read up on what the Democratic Party is supposed to stand for. It sure ain't what they've been feeding us.
The kitchen table issues are people going bankrupt because they can't pay for life-saving medical care. It's people losing their homes because of unregulated bankers and their corrupt cronies in Washington. It's people being priced out of higher education. It's stagnant wages for the past 40 years while the stock market booms.
Anyone who is on board with keeping all of the corruption and agony in place needs to reflect on what kind of country they want America to be and start demanding better.
Mr. Egan, your sunny outlook is sweet, if not refreshing. I certainly hope your optimism is justified, but I think it's more like expecting to find a real live pony under the tree on Christmas morning.
1
As much as I admire Obama, I do not agree with him when he characterized current Dem candidates as proposing to "...completely tear down the system and remake it." Which candidates are saying that? Is that Obama's take on Medicare for all? Because our medical system is already torn down and needs a total makeover. The myth of the average American voter's (uninformed) opinion fails to acknowledge the facts of the absolute crises we face in so many areas: health care, climate, rapacious capitalism leading to unstable inequities. We have allowed our nation to be run by the GOP which has become the party of bald faced liars, science deniers, and defenders of corruption. It's time we gave the fundamental truths espoused by progressives: social justice, making the obvious changes necessary to save our. Culture, the Green New Deal a shot. Compromise won't help us now. It's too late.
2
This late-50's retired white male Never-Trumping conservaliberalitarian pragmatist will raise my hand for Senator Klobuchar.
If my choice is between any of the other Dems with their pie-in-the sky plans and identity politics the deplorable Trump ... I'll probably just stay home.
I don't vote "against" candidates ... I vote "for" them.
1
@FedUp
You should work on fixing your own party instead of demanding that Democrats become a "conservaliberalitarian" party just because you, and other Republicans, don't like Trump. If you expect that to happen, that sounds like some pie-in-the-sky thinking to me.
We didn't make your mess and we're not going to help you clean it up.
Remember that obama focused on himself and let the down ticket matters deteriorate. That is his legacy and he should now shut up except to support Democratic candidates.
3
Sure, let's reset the clock to those glorious Obama years when Wall Street looted the country and nobody went to jail. When millions of homes were foreclosed upon and our "revered leader" compensated their owners with an insulting pittance. When his tiresome, soaring rhetoric channeled Teddy Roosevelt, but where he governed to the right of Richard Nixon. Pining for the end of Trump does not mean pining for an Obama redux. The problems that existed in 20012 have gotten that much worse. Even in 2016, many voters saw that Clinton's "incrementalism", was just corporate America's way of slow-walking any meaningful change. Obama 2.0? No thanks!
8
Let's save this column and re-read it the day after the 2020 election.
I'm a liberal Democrat who has faithfully voted for my nominee, including years when I had to hold my nose and vote for George McGovern, Carter, Mondale, Dukakis and on and on. Boring white men.
But the Democrats will not win in 2020. This column is as good an example of any for why.
1
I’m not optimistic either. I pray and hope Republicans will see the light as to how corrupt the Trump Administration truly is. However, Fox News, Twitter, Facebook, Russia, and too much money is their side to change their loyalty to Trump.
Mary Ernst - Snohomish, Wa.
1
The assertion that Sondland’s testimony will have any measurable effect on the 2020 election is SHOCKINGLY NAIVE.
2
Perhaps Mr. Egan has never faced a massive medical bill generated by greedy profiteers. I have. I will be voting for Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren.
1
Sounds like a pretty fair re-calibration by the American people of a political attempt with Trump that has, from the very beginning, backfired. Never mind that some of us growing up in the 80s knew what type of person this man was/is.
However, given everything that we know over the past, say, 5 years, I don't believe that logic and common sense exists in enough of a mass in this country to right the ship. Until the Gen Z-ers are old enough to vote, and more importantly SHOW UP and actually vote, and not in presidential elections only, local races as well, until then we are doomed to live in this obfuscated time of lies and deep fakes coming out of the White House.
1
I hope that you are right, Tim. Victory for the Democrats probably lies somewhere near the center--illegal crossings still illegal, healthcare for Americans before illegals, government loans for college, not free college, and Medicare for those who want to buy in at a low price.
2
The 2008 and 2016 elections proved that Americans want change. The 2020 election will be not be won by Slow Joe!
3
We need a candidate who not only campaigns for but also, on election, acts boldly to move Congress to do the will of the people (as seen in every opinion poll): get rid of every form of political corruption, get a decent health care system, ban assault weapons and require background checks. Etc. We don't need namby-pamby 11 percent pseudo reforms.
2
1. So the first amendment does not protect yelling “fire” in a crowded theater, presumably because it places people at risk. Is there a substantial difference with intentionally spreading misinformation about our own government? Why should this be protected?
2. Republicans also keep saying that there was Ukraine meddling in our elections while those in charge of addressing this know this is a falsehood. They are spreading enemies’ propaganda to the public. Is this not treason?
3. By claiming item 2, aren’t they also saying that the witnesses are lying under oath? Is this not libel?
4
Best post of the week. Thank you
As we wonder how prominent Republicans who are seemingly educated, experienced and intelligent, yet follow trump; it is because cheating is okay, if it wins elections for their party.
However, do they really want 4 more years of chaos, scandals and putin's agenda?
1
I wish the Biden campaign would stress the obvious. Joe would be a huge chill pill. That's what America and the world needs right now. I know what the progressives want. I want, eventually, the same things, but the national polarization is too intense. If Biden is the the nominee, not only would we take the presidency, by landslide as you say, but the House, the Senate, the girl, the gold watch and everything. I hope the dems don't shoot themselves in the foot.
This article, like the DNC, is out of touch. The party keeps imagining white aspiring middle class voters in the "heartland" as their ideal voter, meaning white people. As long as the party maintains this normative whiteness, as well as plays it safe by enabling the most dangerous aspects of unregulated capitalism that threatens all live on this planet, you will never win the black vote, the progressive vote, and that of environmentalists. With so much at stake, including a livable planet and a changing national demographic, is this really the best we can do?
2
The Republican Party is rotting. It didn't start with Trump, but Trump is the overt manifestation & culmination of the rot.
Some Republican politicians are like Trump & Giuliani with no working conscience, so they feel no shame or guilt about doing wrong & doing harm.
But other GOP politicians still have a conscience and know they are lying to protect Trump. Reporters say they speak with GOP politicians who are upset about what Trump does, but won't go public--often saying they must represent Trump's base or else! Romney stepped out of the pack to criticize Trump, and wham! He won't be doing that again. Why?
Part of it is follow the money. Who are the GOP's biggest donors, and what are they paying their vetted politicians to do? Profiteer, pollute, plunder, lie and propagandize for more power.
Internally, it is a group effect--the power of the group over individuals in the group. The Republican Party is authoritarian not democratic, and its group dynamics are more like those of terrorist organizations than voluntary organizations in a civil society.
GOP Party leaders govern by fear, threat, intimidation, and coercion. And the group's worst punishment is not against outsiders but against any group members who refuse to conform to nefarious group norms or betray the group in even small ways. Pelosi is a strong leader who governs through respect. Compare her style with Mitch McConnell's.
2020 is Dictatorship vs. Democracy. I am not optimistic. Why? Democracy takes work!
1
Excellent column! A word (or a few) to the wise is sufficient. Democrats, are you listening?
I just can't get that image of Amy Klobachar on an airplane eating salad with a comb while she barks at an aide for forgetting to bring the proper utensils.
"Please, please, Democrats, don't tax rich people, not that much." That's about all I get from this fantasy.
Mr. Egan, I enjoyed reading your speculative piece. And even if it all becomes reality, I shudder to think of the aftermath.
Let's not forget that Trump is not the only reason for the divide we see in our nation, but rather a symptom of the deep hatred, racism and xenophobia that seethes in a sizable and significant proportion of our voting population.
And that's where I worry. Even when Trump gets voted out of office (and he will not leave willingly or quietly), his loyal Trumpsters will be restive and possibly violently so.
1
The Mueller Report twisted and maligned by Barr, especially obstruction, fell on deaf(is it really death) ears. The challenge is the Republican horde has put on the breast plates and prepared for war on the UKRAINE AFFAIR. Reason, logic, evidence, unfortunately vanish when others see the enemy at the gates.
Hysteria has over-taken the Republicans. After all is said, only a massive voter turnout will throw Trump and his enablers out.
VOTE
3
A lot of martyrdom on here. At a minimum you have a wounded president with a 40% approval rating. If there isn't a democratic president in 2021, it won't be because of the electoral college or Putin. Stop blaming everyone and everything else and pick a candidate to win.
I am praying that Egan's scenario does not turn out to be fiction.
1
Great essay, well done.
"It was, they say, Nov. 20, 2019, that ensured the outcome ..."
Huh? That day made a difference to whom? You, me, and anyone with a brain or a heart or a love of the Constitution. But that leaves out Fox-land, and the Trump echo chamber in Congress.
Today, they are still saying there was no Quid Pro Quo. There is no Republican willing to speak the truth. Any truth. As an example, ask any Fox watcher and they will tell you that the "Dems" are doing nothing but impeachment ....when of course they handed lots of great House-passed legislation over to the self-described "grim-reaper" Mitch McConnell. He's buried it all.
But Fox-America will never know that truth, or any truth about anything at this point. The path that students of authoritarianism warned us about is taking shape.
On Inauguration Day 2017, in response to crazy false claims about the crowd size, GOP Congressmen shrugged their shoulders and just said "that's Trump being Trump." Today, those same Congressmen would not dare utter such words, but instead shout a full aggressive defense of such lies and then attack and threaten the truth-tellers. We saw it the past two weeks. Their unanimous vengeful campaign to expose (and thus threaten) the now irrelevant whistleblower is evidence that they have all gone full John Gotti.
It's too late for your fantasy. Unless Trump loses two of his three enabler sponsors (McConnell, Murdoch, and Moscow) democracy in America, and perhaps the world is over.
3
Clinton benefited each time by Ross Perot running.
Bloomberg and Steyer should run together on a ticket - call it the Conservative Party, the Patriot Party, whatever.
Just spend $500 million each to dwarf Trump's war chest, and siphon off enough conservative votes in the swing states so that the Democratic nominee wins each and every one of them. This will be decided in the Electoral College, and this is exactly how to deny Trump WI, MI, OH and PA's electoral votes.
And please campaign by calling Trump's party the Traitor Party. Everyone is afraid to use this word, why? They are not Republicans anymore, because they do not believe in a free and independent Republic. They are spouting Kremlin lies and Putin talking points. They are the Traitor Party, and they should be addressed as such every day from now until Election Day.
2
Except half the country, Republicans and Moderates alike are scratching their heads and asking, "yes, he was immoral, yes it was unethical, but was it illegal?"
2
Know what I'm gonna do today? Finish pulling the tomato plants from the beds. Clean the leaves out of the gutter. Vacuum and pull the air mattress up from the basement for my nephews who will visit next week. Make a Spanish tortilla, because I can afford potatoes, onions and eggs. All the while waiting to hear back from two jobs I interviewed for last week and the gazillion others I've applied to.
Impeach or don't impeach, and I'll take any Dem on the stage with glee. But that's a year away. I've got a tiny life to live today.
2
It is now time for the Dems, whomever the nominee ultimately is, to fight fire with fire. But, instead of the lies and deception promulgated by the RepubliCONs, they can counter with clips of the testimony during the impeachment hearings. Roll the clips of Dr. Hill, Lt. Col. Vindman, Ms. Cooper, but most importantly, Gordon Sondland, a longtime Repub who declared that it was a "quid pro quo". Maybe, just maybe, the truth will ultimately overcome the constant and pervasive lies from the current administration.
1
Well written fiction! Will Americans vote in numbers to make it fact and history?
The day that will decide the 2020 election for president will be when a majority in the midwestern states that went for Trump in 2016 wake up and decide not to elect a Russian stooge as president.
2
New thoughts:
I now think that it's very important for the Dems to hold off on moving forward to voting on articles of impeachment, in light of the revelation of Nunes's connection with Lev Parnas. It's now looking like (according to Parnas's lawyer) that Parnas is going to flip, and spill the beans about both Nunes and Trump.
And perhaps this is part of what Bolton has recently but cryptically referred to as "the backstory."
Even if that doesn't occur explicitly, we all know that a constant drip-drip of insinuation matters more than actual truth. So let's milk this one for all it's worth.
All fine and dandy in theory, but won't the next election be as rigged as the last one? Wasn't that the point of impeachment? Will Barr replace Comey with a shocker 11 days out? Won't we be saturated with news of the impending death of the Dem candidate? Won't voter suppression stop even more voters? Won't Russian interference methods be even better this time? Trump is a big problem for us as well,please America,get your act together fast!
2
I have one hope, Mr. Egan; from your pen, to God's ears ....
1
I predict the bluest wave ever.
3
Please don't keep me in suspense. Did Senator Tammy Duckworth, the clearest antithesis to Trumpism, announce at the last minute and win by a landslide?r
1
You’re delusional.
Most Americans don’t share the media’s obsession with the cloak-and-dagger narrative of the impeachment proceedings.
Why?
Because they’re more concerned with bankruptcies from medical debt.
With gentrification pushing longtime residents out of their neighborhoods.
With working 2-3 jobs on starvation wages and trying to stay afloat.
With crumbling roads, bridges, subways.
With racist policies and police forces.
With their loved ones’ safety as they serve in endless, illegal wars.
And on and on.
You just don’t get it. You‘re shielded in your ivory tower, clinging to the same failed neoliberal policies and worldview as the other NYT columnists that brought us to this dark time in our country’s history.
The American people want real change.
4
From your lips to God's ear, Mr. Egan.
Now let's hope the Democrats don't nominate a candidate who will mess up that victory.
249
@Want2know And you don't know who that is - no one does. In 2020, the conventional wisdom was that Trump would lose.
People should do the right thing and let the chips fall where they may (except I think Trump supports are doing the wrong thing in supporting him, according to my moral standards). If the majority of the country, even the electoral college supports Trump after all this, so be it. The blue states can mitigate the damage to the extent they can and let the country suffer.
I think unless the country goes through another 2001-2008, it won't learn.
13
The phrase “mess up that victory” just OOZES with entitlement. It also makes no literal sense.
16
@Want2know
Like Hillary did? Blowing another 'sure thing"?
11
People wonder why Trump supporters still support him.
A part of the answer is because they live in a very different universe than we do.
Turn on Fox news every once in a while to see.
And that is all that these supporters see. That is truth and reality to them.
1
@Independent As a life long registered Independent who voted for Obama twice I am still amazed that the so-called 'Experts' haven't figured out why Trump won in 2016, and why he is not only likely to be re-elected in 2020 but why the Impeachment Hearings will help him win. First a substantial portion of Trump 'voters' as opposed to Trump 'supporters' voted for him because they hate Washington. Second, Impeachment Hearings and Trial (with almost no chance of conviction), coming with less than a year until Election Day is enraging the Washington haters to an even greater extent. To wit: You're putting the country through this to try to get rid of Trump with less than a year left in his term? A more realistic title for Mr. Egan's article would be 'The Week That Guaranteed Trump's Re-election'.
1
It is worth reading "A Warning" by Anonymous (a senior Trump administration official) if you haven't done so already. The continuing revelations about the Trump White House are absolutely frightening. A brief discussion about the fall of democracy in ancient Greece, along with its parallels to contemporary American society, should truly terrify all of us.
1
I enjoyed hearing Mr. Egan, storyteller supreme and consummate notetaker, visit Spokane earlier this month to discuss his book. But I was dismayed to see a sea of gray haired fans and not many millennials. We are a polarized nation of voters, many of whom who don't read, don't subscribe to newspapers, don't know history, don't follow world events, and couldn't find Ukraine on a map. Trump will be gone one day, thank god, but if he wins again what will be the cost to our constitution, our planet, our souls?
1
It is time for the Democratic candidates for President to take a pledge to speak ill of no Democrat - to say that Democrats care about income inequality, education, science, climate change, infrastructure, solvency of Social Security, public health, equal opportunity -- and that each candidate has some good ideas, and that all will, if elected, work with their colleagues (including Republicans who have repented) to come up with realistic solutions. That no Democrat, if elected President, will abuse his/her power, and no Democratic Senator will tolerate corruption and abuse of power. That all will disclose their tax returns. That all will support policies that limit executive privileges and enforce the Emoluments Clause (and the rest of the Constitution). That people have legitimate differences of opinion about guns and abortion but both must remain legal, and differences about these issues are not a reason to neglect problems that threaten all Americans. That there is no litmus test for being a Democrat. That Democrats are the party of the people and the Constitution. That a more fair tax system is not socialism and will not discourage entrepreneurs - in fact, with less student debt and universal health coverage many more people would take the risk of starting a new business. Call out the Republicans for being silent about obvious corruption. Make clear that they, not the Democrats, are the party of identity politics and (right-wing) political correctness.
3
Not so fast....anybody notice that polling that shows independents turning strongly towards Trump and against impeachment?
In the lastest polls, Trump now leads all the Democratic front-runners in Wisconsin.
1
Nice fantasy. The main issue is the dissemination of information: who gets it, what does it say and how does it affect it's consumers. If most voters in swing states get their "news" from Fox and social media, we are doomed. The dissemination of false and misleading information must be reigned in, and the disseminators held accountable.
6
I don't put too much stock in the polls about the impeachment and Trump's removal from office.
In my view, for most ordinary folks, the impeachment process is almost irrelevant.
I believe most Americans have seen and heard enough to have made up their minds about Trump as president and as a human being. You either like and support him or you don't. The impeachment process may provide more or less evidence one way or another and reinforce prior held beliefs, but it's not likely to change many minds.
As Egan suggests, the election will seal Trump's fate.
However, as we learned in 2016, a candidate can have a massive popular vote margin and still loose.
The Democrats need to zero in on an electoral college strategy as well as a turnout strategy.
3
What I took from Obama's success at getting elected, and repeated failures to translate that success into support at the voting booth for his agenda is that we need a candidate who is both charismatic AND willing to advocate for the Democratic agenda. Who can level with the American people and say that we believe the path Republicans are leading us down is wrong, and we need to make a complete u-turn.
Charisma AND passion for the Democratic agenda.
2
You could not be more wrong, Mr. Egan.
You assume that truth, honesty, decency, regard for the rule of law, and the obligation of every citizen to educate herself or himself about the state of the country and the world, matter to Trump supporters. This assumption is provably false. I would not be surprised if they are passing on this lesson to their children.
2
Mr. Egan: you are living in a fantasy world. Indeed, I wish the world you depict were the one we actually live in, but alas it isn't.
Mr. Trump's character, inclinations, personality, and style were all on full transparent display prior to the election of 2016. We elected him. I realize it wasn't a majority of us, but it was enough. The real world of U.S. voters is the one we should be thinking about, not Egan's fantasy world.
Explaining to folks how awful Trump is will not be effective -- they already knew it and voted for him anyway. No, the only effective strategy will be to convince people why they should care.
The impeachment Democrats spent all their energy on trying to expose how awful Trump is, but that was a misguided effort if their goal is to get rid of him. They need to spend more energy on convincing people that Trump's awfulness is hurting them. Otherwise, it will be 4 more years.
1
I WISH THIS WRITER IS RIGHT, but THAT IS NOT THE CRUCIAL QUESTION. Impeachment might not matter. There may be too many voters who do not believe the president is above the law. Trump and the Republicans have put out alternative facts that too many voters believe, and given the electoral college, they may reelect him. They have managed to turn the core principles of our democracy into a partisan issue - Democrats want to preserve them, Republicans support the authoritarian state Trump is trying to establish. Obama had faith that Americans would not elect Trump; Trump responded that he knew America better than Obama. Trump was right. We'd better snap to the possibility that he is still right - he and his tribe are "all in" on that bet, and will continue to be. It never should have been that way. The foundations of our democracy were once a nonpartisan issue, taught in every civics course (the erosion of civics education is a cause of our current plight). No longer - it is up for grabs in the 2020 election. If we understand that, and how dire our situation is, democracy MAY prevail in 2020. First, the Democrats need to avoid signing a suicide pact, and in order to do that, the candidates must realize what the only issue that can be resolved on 11/3/20 will be whether we have a democracy or whether we don't. The following article makes that clear. https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/21/opinions/impeachment-american-democracy-ben-ghiat/index.html
2
Mr. Egan underestimates the Democratic capacity for self-defeat in the face of overwhelming victory. The triumphalism of Inevitable Supremacy foretold the crushing defeat of Trump in 2016 at the hands of Hillary The Magnificent. Oops. The leftward lurch of Wealth Taxes and Green New Deals, spurred on by these heady days of GOP debasement, could very easily cause moderate voters to just stay home, resulting in a spectacular rout.
The Republicans are vile, that much is indisputable. But they do understand discipline of message and policy. The Democrats, not so much.
2
Awesome essay. Thank you, Mr. Egan.
1
Well that is quite ab satisfying scenario, and I believe the country could accept and live with it.
Two things though:
There is no guarantee about it being what the majority of voters really want, is the obvious one, despite how many times it’s said by influential people. .
Then there is the question of what it would be like for the millions of Americans who really need those huge structural changes certain candidates have addressed? In other words, what will be different beyond the obvious? Think of poor children for some perspective.
Endless speculation, bold proposals, stepping back to the safe zone, this is part of the Democrats’ MO, I’ve been with them for a long time. In the end, we’ll find out who will be the standard bearer. When we have her/him, no more infighting!
Trump must not have another term!
2
I hope Mr. Egan is right, but I am not optimistic. The castrati of the Senate will go along with Trump, and enable him to the extent possible. And the red state/red counties will choose their own demise rather than share their space with brown people who talk funny.
3
Doesn't it seem like maybe we don't live in a real democracy when someone can say that the opinions and votes of 80,000 people in the industrial heartland matter more than the votes of a million people who live on the coasts? Let sanity prevail - let's fix this system.
12
This just in: to do that, you have to get elected.
Nationally.
1
God, Mr. Egan, I hope with all my soul and marrow that you are right.
But even a miraculous surge of moral affirmation amongst our population, when they vote in November 2020, will not remedy secret, corrupt, backroom deals Trump makes with foreign powers for that election.
How is our poor, beleaguered country to ensure that electoral machine tampering and other malign acts have been prevented? Even more-than-justified, heartfelt moral outrage cannot stretch by itself to victory.
2
@CBK
Regardless of the rhetoric, don't be positive donald will even make the election. Don't be positive.
One can hope Mr. Egan, one can hope. Also on election day 2020 the modern Republican Party as we know it will cease to exist. trump is the distillation of what this party has evolved into over the last 40 years, he is just the tip of the iceberg. The whole thing has to go. I say good riddance.
3
I am old enough to remember when the Republican Party claimed that the loose morals of Democrats would destroy this country. Instead the death blow is being given by a man with no morals backed by the formerly pious. As Mr. Egan points out, we have one last chance at salvation. Unity of purpose is required.
3
@Padfoot
Americans bought their guns because of President Obama. They might need them for donald.
I'm not even convinced the "camps" on our southern boarder are being built for foreign invaders. I'm not even convinced the military style arming of our police forces are entirely to stop hostage takers.
But, for some reason, I've become quite cynical lately.
1
I hope you are right.
But I take issue with one comment you made: "A candidate who had gloated over chants of “lock her up” for an opponent who had used unsecured emails ...." It is my understanding that Hillary's server was never hacked. If that is true, her emails were, in fact, MORE secure than if she had been using the often hacked State Department Server.
Why do Democrats continue to allow the Republicans frame the questions?
1
Because that private server was stupid, at least borderline illegal, and was very probably installed to help get around FOIA demands.
And because whataboutism isn’t made one whit better by us being the good guys.
And yeah, I voted Hillary.
In summary, "please don't vote for Bernie or Warren." This author is living in a fantasy world. Impeachment will have a net zero direct impact on the election. Elections are almost completely partisan at this point and Trump is guaranteed a huge portion of the vote. Any one of the Democratic candidates will perform similarly in the general. The only meaningful effect of impeachment is that Trump will be utterly consumed with it until then and it will weaken his campaign message. In itself, it will do nothing to shift public opinion. People care about policies that affect their lives, not abstract political procedures. The only candidate with an advantage is the one who is seen as fighting against the status quo.
5
Try to hold out hope for the Senate. It's just too obvious this time around, and too fundamentally important to the Country.
2
Amen
1
I wish I could share your optimism, but I don't. This is the beginning of a long, dark time for the USA.
6
@al
We still have 4 weeks or so of hope. I'm going to take advantage of every single second.
It might just be the last time we have honest, genuine hope for this country for some time.
President Ivanka? I'm gone.
1
@al
I very regretfully concur with @al. The impeachment hearing testimony of patriotic federal officials - Taylor, Kent, Hill, Holmes, Cooper, and Vindman ... and Democrat House members on the committee - against the Trump administration's decadent corruption and indifferent destruction of our nation's principles gave momentary reason for hope. Until we blinked to remind ourselves that 46 percent in this country are ready to blindly re-elect a criminally crooked, white supremacist, xenophobic, nationalist, global alliance-destroying, narcissistic individual to continue poisoning the highest office in the land. We are indeed moving on a path toward a long, dark road for the United States that decent people never imagined.
",...character was destiny." We can only hope this is the case with our democracy if not we are failing as the democratic institution all others look toward. Thank goodness we got a tax break out of it.
1
Nice fairy tale, but I'm afraid it's too far fetched to be worthy of debate. We already know that Trump has not lost a single vote because of the impeachment process, and not a single Republican legislator has turned against him. Nor will they.
All Trump's handlers have to do is keep him scandal-free from impeachment acquittal to election day and he'll coast to a second term. If he does get himself in trouble again, he'll probably eke out a victory anyway.
2
This seems to assume that Trump won't win in 2020. Stop it! After 2016 I don't get why anyone would make this assumption. It's dangerous and naive, and with this attitude Trump will end up getting 4 more years and another supreme court pick.
6
"......if they backed popular plans to elevate average Americans."
Most americans, including most Republicans want Medicare for all. It is a very, very popular plan. Major modern wealthy countries all have it, including Russia and all of Europe. It gives a citizen great security that they can keep their health care and the health care of their children available, high quality and stable for a fair and reasonable cost. They can't do that now and the "incremental" steps some have proposed in the past won't work and haven't worked. One can sleep better, keep the family healthy and happy, move from one job to a better job, if one has a national health care problem.
You are bad mouthing medicare for all here and make a disastrous mistake.
9
@Frank Hi Frank, I don't think your country is ready for single payer healthcare. For some obscure reason many of your citizens are afraid of it. Having said that, what would be good for your country's (and the world's) health would be to get rid of Trump; he's a festering sore. Wait until Trumpism is a distant memory to look at socialized medicine; it's definitely the best way. However, you will have to switch all the workers in your huge healthcare insurance business to other jobs which will be a major issue. Good luck with it all.
2
Sigh.
No, “all major countries,” do NOT have Medicare for All. They just don’t, okay? They don’t.
Canada sort of does, but it’s a mixed system that doesn’t civer newrly as much as St. Bernie wants to.
England? NHS and mixed. It’s full-on socialized medicine. Docs and hospitals and nurses are government employees.
France, Germany, the Netherlands, the Scandinavian countries? Nope. If you were to describe their systems, they look a lot like an amped-up eraion of Obamacare.
In brief, they have UNIVERSAL health coverage, achieved in a lot of different ways, all more or less better than us.
And yeah, it does matter what the reality is.
1
You're teasing us! Please, oh, please tell us the end of the story of the 2020 election. Who wins?!! As a historically liberal Democrat (admittedly from one of the "coasts"), I am firmly in agreement with President Obama's urging to remain focused on moderation and rebuilding the coalition that elected him twice in resounding fashion.
Winning has never been more critical; we face a genuinely existential threat to our democracy and nothing less than America's role as the leader of the free world in this election is at stake.
I will support any Democratic nominee, but believe both Biden and Klobuchar are the most compelling heirs to the Obama legacy and are both highly likely to beat Trump.
5
It's one of life's curiosities that otherwise intelligent people, like this writer, naively believes his sense of moral outrage is shared by everyone else. A well-grounded empirical guess is that only a tiny percent of the American public watched the hearings, and that most polls show that a strong majority view it as a partisan exercise. What's more, Ukraine is far-away and there is a Byzantine quality to the narrative that is off-putting to many. The Jeremiads against Trump in the mainstream media are largely discounted because the press is understood by most Americans to be in league with the Democrats and some unnamed leftist clerisy. My guess is the sky-high stock market and data about rising incomes and low unemployment will prove far more convincing politically, as will the fact that even the "moderate" Democrats are far to the left of center. All of this may be a sad confession -- but it's a good deal closer to what's probable than the pious hopes of an immature idealist.
6
This piece brought tears to my eyes. I truly, deeply hope that you are right, Mr. Egan.
2
the author is way too optimistic. there is nothing that has happened in the last 3 years suggesting that new information about trump’s immorality and misdeeds will change anything in the political calculus.
8
I think most people with global experience/perspective recognized the danger of Trump early on. They know what demagoguery is and what slides into autocracy look like. Most countries have lived through some kind of period like that. Stability and freedoms are not to be taken for granted.
Americans have (had?) a giant blind spot here. I've concluded that the only way to learn it is unfortunately to through it. Maybe 2020 will give us a reprieve. But we've got a date with history. We will be Venezuela at some point.
5
@Sarah , Ironically the GOP has already stolen the Venezuela narrative, insisting that if the USA makes moves to raise the standard of living for all Americans, that the democrats will thus turn us into Venezuela. Just like during the Obama years they "warned" their tribe that we would become Greece. My comment amplifies the real problem: we already do not have a democracy which relies in part on an informed citizenry. Many of the GOP cult members just aren't very bright.
Egan writes “Every midnight of the American soul has been followed by a dawn”
A beautiful paean to American exceptionalism. But we are not immune from the horrors and brutalities of the human soul.
We have seen, clear as day, the dark side of the American soul, and it is as capable as any national soul of descending into violent madness.
America had a disease which threatens to destroy the very fabric of our society. Sweet words about the “American dawn” do not obscure the reality that this country is on the verge of destruction, sweeping away lives, institutions, and values,
Let’s face our diagnosis before waxing poetic about the nature of our soul. If we cannot treat the disease aggressively, our nation will die.
8
Democrats played it “safe” when they ran a moderate in 2016. Said “moderate” failed to win 80,000 votes in the Midwest for a multiplicity of reasons, including foreign meddling, gaslighting, fake ads telling Clinton voters they could vote by text.
The key is not kowtowing to 80,000 voters in the Midwest while risking the Democratic base. The key is to inspire as many new and discouraged citizens to the polls as can be found in these states.
A bland centralist candidate can only hurt turnout in this era of populism.
12
If the moderate case is true then dems have it backwards. Amy Klobochaur is their strongest, then Harris, then Booker much weaker, then Biden and Mayor Pete weakest.
I think the case for turnout and principle is stronger and a Bernie and Amy ticket would be best. Also if Amy signals more toward left she is stronger.
3
@Mark - Senator Klobuchar paired with a well respected Senator, Congressperson, or current/former Governor from the south. Perhaps somebody like Congressman Bobby Scott from Virginia? Klobuchar/Scott .... that's the ticket !!
"because every midnight of the American soul has been followed by a dawn" - well, maybe. When the Federal govt turned its back on America's freedmen in March of 1877, it took 87 years for it to pick up where it left off. In the interim was a tide of human suffering. In 1964, Goldwater's far-right won a divided Republican primary thanks to Rockefeller's adultery; then LBJ beat him soundly. 2020? The far-right IS the Republican party. When Trump loses there's not a Nixon on the horizon to pick up the pieces; just Ted Cruz - Trump's equal in awfulness but with a functioning cerebral cortex. When Presidential elections are won with <46% + 'swing states' it won't take much to elect a full-on Theocrat. So very sorry, but it can and will get much worse.
7
Joe Biden would be a weak and flawed candidate, the democrats must elect a candidate who is a contender with unbound energy and passion. Each generation is not motivated by past leaders that are not in sync with the present and their stock has depreciated. All over the world politicians are realizing, that voters are clamoring and demanding for more benefits from their governments and a more just economic class. Old age and mandatory retirement affects everyone and in politics leadership needs to be renewed. New faces must be allowed to surge and be endorsed by the establishment.
4
Over the past decade or so voting has moved from transactional (what will you do for me) to emotional (do I like how you make me feel about myself), for a good many Americans, especially those who are open to voting Republican.
Trump 100% occupies the emotional playing field. Anyone attracted by him is not going to be swayed by transactional arguments. That is without even considering the Democratic agenda - progressive or not - will be DOA with a Republican Senate.
This election needs to be fought on emotional terms by Democrats. Tell everyone that we are better than this. Give them an opportunity to jump on that optimistic view of themselves. Nobody really likes to think of themselves as deplorable. Wrap it up in American exceptionalism. Done.
1
Much as I would like to take Mr. Egan's reasoning to heart; I can't rest my faith of the outcome. Reasoned and logical, it is based on a faulty premise.
The overwhelming majority of Americans, including dedicated Ever-Trumpers, believe in honesty and fair-dealing. But from direct experience with long-time friends and family who will follow Trump anywhere, Donald J. Trump is supported, not because he is principled or honest or honors the Constitution, but because he IS Donald J. Trump
And that is powerful. Such a devoted cadre of acolytes will not forgive their representative who break with him. Any Republican who stands against him must be prepared for political martyrdom.
So, perhaps "2020 was decided" this past Wednesday. Or perhaps to paraphrase Mick Mulvaney "Yeah. It happens. Who cares?"
It is not Game Over. There is still much grinding work to be done to win this one.
6
Over 13,000 lies from Trump since his inauguration. Yet 35% or so of Americans still say Trump tells it like it is. In truth they mean he is brash, crass and boorish with no class and no principles. But they still like the guy! He gets almost nothing done, yet they still like the guy! He subverts U.S. foreign policy goals to help Russia, yet they still like the guy!
Educated suburban women rejected Trump's GOP in 2018 elections. For a Democrat to win as POTUS in 2020 that person must appeal to Blacks, Latinos, educated whites, progressives and moderates. Someone like Obama and Biden.
I thought Biden and Harris might do that. But Biden seems too old and confused too often. I hope Mayor Pete and Warren, Harris or Klobuchar will do. We need Dems smart enough to focus on swing states like Michigan, Penn, and Wisconsin to beat Trump. The electoral college rewards rural and moderate voters too much to risk far left policies.
I support the concept of Medicare for all as a long term goal, but allow it to be phased in over 5 to 10 years. Lets start with allowing those aged 55 to 65 to buy into Medicare with the amount employers are now paying for health insurance for their employees. Americans love the idea of choice if not the reality. Let the health insurers compete for out premium dollars the way they do for Medicare plans.
Trump deserves Impeachment, but it appears clear the Senate will not convict and remove Trump. Things could change but not likely.
5
@Michael
"We need Dems smart enough to focus on swing states like Michigan, Penn, and Wisconsin to beat Trump. The electoral college rewards rural and moderate voters too much to risk far left policies."
We keep hearing this from know-nothings on the coasts who either aren't aware or choose to ignore that Bernie Sanders won the Michigan and Wisconsin primaries in 2016. People in those states voted for change, and ultimately Trump offered more change than Hillary Clinton.
3
Mr. Egan: How I hope that you are correct. But I'm terribly afraid that the progressive wing of the party will never allow this scenario to happen. Instead of voting for the person who has the best chance of winning over the red states, they'll eviscerate Biden, subjecting all of us to four more years of the monster in the White House.
5
Too many Democrats leaders think that making significant progress once or twice in a generation will serve as justification for millions of disaffected Americans to vote for the Democratic candidate in 2020. The world is moving forward with breakneck speed to what end who knows but for sure promises not kept in the past will no longer be acceptable in the present and future. Sens. Harris and Booker made it perfectly clear in the last debate that African-American as well as other people of color will no longer put up with being patronized and the same goes for so many other people who have been on the outside looking in for year after year. So forget the Uncle this or Auntie that version for the next president and forget the soaring orator who's all talk and no action. Those days are over.
3
Ho hum, Joe Biden the next president? I think not. He will only continue the neo liberal path we've been on since Reagan. This is the time, not only for getting rid of Trump, but making a major shift in American economic policy to rebuild the middle class. Anything less is an abdication to the status quo and to a growing plutocracy. Vote progressive capitalist in 2020!
11
I would love so very much to embrace this article, but in 2016 I did not believe that Trump could even win 40% of the vote - let alone 46.2% by gaining the support of 63 million people. What he is was completely obvious in 2016 - obvious to his supporters as well as to the rest of us. I reject the idea that those 63 million people are living in some bubble in which facts and clear behavior don't apply. Their values simply are not my values. So, I hope this article is a good prediction of what is to come, but I can no longer just be a true believer in the goodness of the American electorate.
4
This sounds like a future I'd very much like to embrace.
3
Donald Trump has become a superhero to many otherwise decent people, who have pride and think well of themselves. They focus on what they see as Trump's better side, slaying bureaucratic dragons, something you might expect to see in a hyped up comic book. His fans wear their rose colored glasses, some apparently having enjoyed economic rewards attributed to Trump's advocacy of lower taxes for the privileged. Others vicariously enjoy his irreverence toward the government itself. He expresses Archie Bunker sentiments, which many of his supporters might be hesitant to repeat, but they don't have to,Trump willfully does this for them, even defying the institutions of justice, that are intended to protect our democracy. Unfortunately there are serious consequences, for following the antics of this enfant terrible', and we are left to pay for those.
2
@Eric S lack of reverence for all institutions has been increasing for many years. Have to say the institutions have brought much of it on themselves (church sex scandals, Watergate, Wall Street bailouts, elite Professors/Universities, etc.). Trust is hard to restore.
1
I fervently hope that Egan's correct.
However, I honestly feel that Russia has won this battle decisively, and that China will eventually win the overall war.
2
I thought this article was one of the best I've read. I read it slowly and soaked it in until the last part. Why are we so concerned with putting a woman in the Whitehouse. Gender doesn't matter. We need the best person, male or female, white or black or brown, gay or straight. Who cares, just vote, and voter for the person who assails the views you hold.
7
This might all matter if the democrats hadn't already put the country through a grueling and distracting 2-year investigation of Russian collusion, for which no evidence was found.
And if our intelligence bureaucrats hadn't engaged in a secret targeting mission to entrap the Trump campaign, even going as far as falsifying testimony and documents.
In other words, only in a vacuum (bubble?) would this be significant. Now it's just more of the same old, same old. And, unfortunately for democrats, Americans weren't born yesterday.
3
Do we really need another moderate Republican president after Clinton, Bush and Obama?
The Democratic failure to reverse Republican policy when in power has not only led us to vulture capitalism, but also to an unhinged Republican party which has no place to go.
Why is there no Republican proposal on Universal Healthcare? Think about how such a proposal would look different from Obamacare, which is entirely private insurance based. It wouldn't.
When Democrats propose to only ban assault weapons, the only thing Republicans can propose is no limitations at all.
Democrats should be promoting a European society: government based universal healthcare, permits for all guns, high quality public schools everywhere, etc.
On balance with Republican ideas, the US would find its natural position again in between Europe and the current vulture capitalism.
11
Egan’s column is an argument for Democrats to pick a moderate candidate. Like most of these arguments, it completely dodges the substantive policy positions of the candidates. Instead of addressing those positions, Egan worries himself over what middle Americans will prefer. One wonders how this election season would be different if folks like Egan actually addressed policy. In most cases, the “radical” candidates Sanders and Warren favor policies that will benefit middle American voters more than the “coastal elites,” while their moderate counterparts will be more likely to consolidate the money and power where it is, mostly on the coasts. If we focused on policy rather than on cultural anxiety, maybe this would be more clear.
15
You can win California by 10 votes or 10,000 votes; it makes no difference.
What Democrats are forgetting in their pre-election victory euphoria is just how far left their party has gone, and how much millions of Americans who might otherwise support them don't want what they have on offer. Mr. Trump is no peach, but he's been good for the economy. The Democrats won't be good for the economy, they intend to treat it like a milch-cow to fund a whole laundry-list of social spending schemes that most voters don't want. So, who vote for? Well, they might just decide that, warts and all, it's Mr. Trump. Democrats can't see this because when they look in the mirror they don't see their own warts, they see them as beauty marks.
13
This may be all true, which is very very sad. As long as the very rich continue take advantage of de-regulation and legal tax evasion, nothing will change. These "moderate" Americans will still be in the same boat, only in worse weather, and we'll all be in that sinking boat together.
9
The fact that the dems are giving up on the subpoena fight for Bolton and the others really takes the teeth out of the investigation. They should have just had oversight hearings to avoid the constraints of a time table for a trial before the election year. At the very least, they should continue the push for their testimony regardless. I fear that this will not end well for the dems.
2
Egan's opinion piece is based on the idea not DJT is enough. That idea is neither helpful for how this outcome can be achieved nor hopeful that the outcome is possible. Failing to gather the testimony of Pompeo, Pence, Mulvaney, and Guliani the House Intelligence Committee is effectively blocked at the door of the Oval Office. The FoxNews media machine continues to offer DJT unlimited access to disseminate his conspiracy theories and character assassinations. The ponderous Democratic nomination process offers no pathway for marginal DJT supporters to opt for even considering alternatives to DJT let alone vote for Democrats down ballot.
Dear Timothy,
"Sanity prevailed"?
As a long-term No Party Affiliation (NPA) registrant, I have long been amazed and dismayed at the ability of the Democratic Party to throw an election.
The current "top tier" seems poised for a repeat performance.
Those in the middle will decide the coming election. They want neither bomb-throwers (Warren, Sanders) nor the bombed out (Biden).
Experience, competence, and electability count. Amy Klobuchar deserves serious consideration. As do Booker and Buttigieg (maybe), both of whom are serious, decent, and centrist.
7
@Prisoner of Planet Moron
I've been backing Amy for America since she announced in blizzard. Unfortunately her announcement was immediately followed by a YUGE hit piece in this very paper, which must have had the article in the works for a while. Someone saw her as a threat and moved to counter her nascent campaign very immediately and publicly.
Thankfully, she's still in the running ! I hope Booker qualifies for the December debate as well.
Timothy Egan's hopeful prediction is based on two important "ifs." Trump will lose next year if 1) The impeachment hearings convince enough people that he is unfit for office and 2) The Democrats nominate a candidate closer to the center than some of the leading contenders. The Republicans have employed a strategy of deny, distort, and deflect. It just might work. It would be unwise to assume former Trump supporters and voters on the fence will feel the hearings have been the seminal event described by Mr. Egan. As for the Democratic candidate, it's too early to tell who will wind up at the top of the ticket. Elizabeth Warren, in my view, has a slim chance of convincing voters that lots of free stuff will come without a cost. And that's where Mayor Pete comes in.
2
@GWC
Don't put all your bets on Mr. Pete. The thought of two thirty-something males settled into the White House with possibly a surrogate-produced baby on the way (they have stated they want to start a family) is not going to sit well with quite a few voters, although certainly some will be enchanted by that very possibility.
What was once the Republican party has become a cult of personality. It explains why we see Trump's supporters unmoved by, if not disdainful of, reason or facts.
4
@David Forster I agree but add that Sanders supporters are also a cult of personality.
8
@david
Sanders supporters aren't backing his personality. They're backing him because he has been the only one speaking to the concerns of a large percentage of the American public who always end up on the losing end of the policies of both parties.
It's not about Bernie. It's about doing what's best for the country, not just what's best for the rich and powerful. The centrist are only offering more of the same status quo that has put people out of their jobs, out of their houses, out of the rewards of the rise in worker productivity, and out of hope.
2
This welcome fantasy hinges on two things: 1) A heroic turn to a pragmatic centrist who can win the battleground states (possible,) and 2) Fox News never existing. In a way it's an alternate history narrative, like Man in the High Castle.
Fox News may and probably will keep this from happening. I've said many times - Trump is not the problem, he's the symptom - Fox is the problem.
5
Can you see why it's hard to take moderates seriously when you can say phrases like " It would do nothing for their cause to gain another million progressives on the coasts if they still lost 80,000 people in the old industrial heartland" with no irony? With no recognition of how obviously corrupt that is in a country that claims to be a democracy? Not even the trademark "It's a broken system, but right now it's the one we have". No, you have swallowed the system hook, line and sinker, so much that you profess to share these insights as necessary wisdom to understanding how to win, with not even the lightest lip service to what a crime of representation it is.
13
@Grandtheatrix The Electoral College is the Constitution and the Rule of Law . Until it is changed it remains The Rule of Law. Be consistent on importance of following the Law— as our major complaint on Trump is disregard for Rule of Law. Go to work attempting to change it if so important to you.
1
We are fully aware of what’s going on. Please show us the solution.
@Ziggy The solution is the elimination of the Electoral College and instituting Ranked Choice Voting.
The President is a representative of all American Citizens, and as such should be elected by all American Citizens in a popular vote. Those in less populous states already have disproportionate representation in the Senate. To have disproportionate representation in the selection of the President takes it from "safeguarding minority rights" to "tyranny of the minority".
First-past-the-post tabulation creates 2 party systems. We will never have political plurality without changing that, and will become further and further polarized. Ranked Choice Voting allows people to vote their conscience without fear of throwing away their vote, allowing for the rise of significant third parties.
I truly hope the author is right, but at this point this is almost painful to read, because it seems out of reach. There is no unifying Democratic candidate who seems able to beat Trump, and we have a delusional Republican Party that refuses to see the facts right in front of their faces.
Mr. Egan, I really appreciate the pep talk, but I am in great despair for our country.
9
Americans have to come to grips with the fact that the Founders’ system no longer works. Presidential democracy is a bad system that almost always devolves into dictatorship. Parliamentary systems aren’t perfect but they are better and more resilient. A popularly elected parliament that controls both the executive and legislative power is more responsive to the people. And clear supremacy of the popularly elected parliament is a better system than America’s “balance” of competing powers where a rogue president who controls all the agencies and military can seize total power from a weak and compliant congress.
Americans are taught to revere their Constitution and believe there is no better system than that the Founders bequeathed them. They need to wake up. Their Constitution is deeply flawed and hopelessly dated. The only way to save their democracy is to rewrite their Constitution. If they fail to to that, their future will not be democratic.
11
What a strange essay, not really about Trump’s impeachment at all, but another call to Democrats to lose their nerve and play safe. It is a little sad also that Obama is ruining his own legacy of hope and belief.
15
One can only hope that a considerable percentage of the 60 million who voted for trump will change their minds for 2020. Why? Because they didn't really vote for him so much as against the Dems in 2016. They bought into a shiny package they didn't know the true contents of. Now they do and it's an ugly realization. In a way it parallels the Brexit dilemma: people voted for it in a referendum based upon a number of populist issues- currency, immigration, health care, etc. without looking into the weeds. Now they want another referendum because they had insufficient knowledge the first time around. I think 3 years of being fed the Trump soup has created indigestion for many many people. The nation needs cleansing, and a long hot public shower.
And then, licking wounds and holding hands, Onward.
3
Thanks for hope, Mr. Egan. After watching the House Republicans on the impeachment inquiry committee, we badly need more than hope for an outcome that proves Lt. Col. Vindman right, that "here, right matters".
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Republicans rest their case on the fantasies that it was really the Ukranians and not the Russians who interfered, and that there was no quid pro quo. Egan and many others apparently want to rely on the fantasy that the impeachment hearings are changing minds - which is not what the polls are showing. Let's hope that the 2020 campaign eventually gets onto the concrete issues, mainly economic, which swing voters really consider important. Independent voters are more numerous than either Republicans or Democrats and they are mostly looking for politicians who will do things that will actually make their lives better.
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Is there any reason you didn't want to wait for the Justice Department/FBI IG report? Horowitz's report will be out on December 9th. That might be a contributing factor to the 2020 election.
"But they had an elder statesman, revered the world over, the two-term former president."
Obama is hardly an elder statesman. His post presidency is about as effective as his presidency. Remember, this is the guy that helped Republicans gain 1100 elected offices during his tenure. He left a lot of vacancies in the judiciary. Sure, McConnell was not his friend, but, if Obama had offered more balanced judges, he might have left fewer vacancies.
I just don't agree the 2020 election is decided. And, the cast of characters vying for the Democrat nomination still have a lot to say. And, you well know some of them get tongue tied.
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@Mike
The Democratic Party has a group -- its far Left -- that is totally disassociated from winning the election. With party members like that, who needs political enemies.
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I can't help but notice the irony that the punditry has assigned the color blue to the Democrats, and red to the Republicans, especially in this year where there is such a profound tilt to the left in Democratic policies now being considered. Look at the flag of the former Soviet Union and the current one of Communist China. What predominant color? Red. The punditry should study history and really correct this error. A small detail to be sure, but if the impeachment hearings are where truth is paramount, it should be extended across the political sphere.
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@Patrick
Most of the Dem policies deemed 'radical' today wouldn't raise a Repub eyebrow 50 years ago, other than their hatred of any program that helped the working class. Medicaid was passed in short order with hardly a whimper from 'conservatives.' Richard Nixon was president when OSHA was enacted. In short, today's so called radicals would be right center at best 50 years ago.
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@Patrick Except the USA doesn't have a far left party to assign it the communist red, to most people around the world, we would consider the Democrats as centrist, maybe even as a center right party. Perhaps the new candidates for the 2020 election are a little further on the left than Americans have seen so far, but they are far from communists.
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And now we need 3.
3 Republican Senators to vote for secret ballots in the Senate trial, and then our Democracy has a chance to give Trump his biggest win: he can be the first President actually to be removed from office for high crimes and misdemeanors.
Senators Romney, Murkowski, Gardner and Collins: are you listening?
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@Lynn
I’ll go with secret ballots AND agree that the individual votes be kept secret for 25 years.
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@Lynn
Conviction in the Senate requires 2/3 or 67 Senators, unlike impeachment by the House which only requires a simple majority.
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@Patrick
I think Lynn’s point is that if three Republican senators vote with Democrats to have secret ballots (a majority), then the rule change will give is a better chance at getting 2/3 for conviction.
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"... a day and a night that crystallized the choice for the majority of Americans ready to toss Donald Trump from office."
I thought the majority of Americans did decide to toss Donald Trump into the dustbin of history on November 11, 2016. Mr. Trump should be reminded that he lost the 2016 election based on the popular vote by more than 2,000,000 votes. But, against the will of American public, the electoral college votes put him in the White House any way!
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@Eddie B.
The rub is the Republican boot lickers know the electoral college may do it again and will do whatever moral backflips they feel are needed to keep their seats.
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Is there any doubt? Schiff for president. Draft him at the convention. No one else has a chance. Biden would have been good but he does not know how to handle trump’s attacks. Neither did Clinton and we saw the result of that. With the present front runners, we are going to lose.
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Robert, Secretary Clinton handled tramp's attacks quite ably, rightly identifying and calling out Putin's puppet on the debate stage and getting nearly 3 million more votes than he did.
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I too worry that any of the candidates can take the fight to the back alley where Trump does his worst. Schiff however could probably prevent the debate from going there, forcing trump to fight on shifting sands. Use the evidence as a sword, use the constitution as a shield.
To this point I still say putting a black, woman prosecutor on the case is our best strategy. Every eligible voter will participate and our faith will be redeemed. She could put that coalition back together. I feel sure he would agree with me.
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@Robert Black I agree 101%, I'd contribute to this great American!!
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Sondland’s quid-pro-quo for an office visit does not rise to the level of impeachment. Ken Starr has been the only adult voice: censure him and move on. This bankrupt political theater isn’t going to influence any would-be Trump voters. If anything it’s going to backfire.
The observation for a million more progressives on the coast vs 80,000 key heartland voters has merit. We will see. In my opinion the only current candidate who has even an outside chance to beat him is Biden, but he’ll make Biden look about two feet tall. He’s built up an enormous cult of personality. It will be an interesting test to see how effective that is in 2020. My bet is far more effective than most of us could ever imagine.
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your piece assumes that the Democrats select a moderate as their candidate. that is far from certain.
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Sorry Tim, most Americans have no idea who Gordon Sondland is, and they certainly won't remember him a year from now.
For the tiny minority of viewers who watched the impeachment, sure, Sondland's testimony was clear proof.
Fortunately or unfortunately, most people have better things to do then watch two weeks of Congressional hearings, historic as they may have been.
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@Paul , sadly most of them are watching YouTube cat videos, or scrolling through the bots "likes" on their Facebook page. These activities do not qualify as the "better things to do" that you assert in your post.
Dream on. The impeachment will have been forgotten in a few months, and Trump will likely get re-elected with the the help of the Russians and low-information swing states voters. God help us. We ain’t seen nothing yet.
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Wow, we sure see the hearings differently. And we surely see the 2020 election outcome differently too. I think the electors will hand Trump another win. Not certain but there’s a good chance.
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A vote in the senate would truly be a waste of time, as we already know the outcome. At this point it would be better to deny Republicans the opportunity to crow about Trump being exonerated. Certainly anyone who is interested has had a chance to see the evidence and decide for themselves.
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@Peter. No- make them vote for him, on the record. History will judge them and, before that, we will. In the aftermath of Watergate and Nixon’s resignation it was hard to find people who would admit to voting for him: I would not want U. S. Senators to have similar cover.
@LizJ
It’s about measuring the positive value of Trump’s “exoneration” to his re-election efforts, against whatever value having senators “on the record” might have - consequently four years from now.
The hearings were a nightmare for Trump, but the impeachment vote in the senate will be just what he wants - he has already said he’s looking forward to it.
@Peter . Why would you believe what he said? It’s like B’rer Rabbit saying “Please, please don’t throw me in that briar patch.” If all this is what he wants, how come he’s acting more unhinged than usual?
With the exception of Gordon Sondland, these last two weeks of hearings showed us that we have some incredibly smart and talented people in positions of international importance and I am thankful for their service. Bravo for their courage to come forward and tell us what they know. And their Made in America life stories were deeply heartfelt. Yes we can, 2020.
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"Most Democrats came to see that it would do nothing for their cause to gain another million progressives on the coasts if they still lost 80,000 people in the old industrial heartland."
Oh, if only the Democratic Coastal Elites were only smart enough to acquire this, the key lesson of 2016. Just as Nunes and Jordan were this week laser focused on an audience of one, the Dems must focus on an audience of 80,000 Mid-westerners. Or live with the consequences.
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Character IS destiny.
Thank you, Mr. Egan.
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