The Mueller Report is Still an Indictment

As Trump brays "no collusion" and "full exoneration" and Vichy Republicans attack Democrats who seek to have the full Mueller report released, former Republican Michael Gerson provides at though exercise that even four years ago would have led to demands for a president to resign or have set the stage for impeachment.  That Trump loyalist still support the man underscores just how much Trump has debased our government and American society as a whole. It is critical that the full Mueller report be released so tat Americans can see for themselves (i) the full litany of Russian efforts to elect Trump - something the report confirms - (ii) all of the sleazy and corrupt activities of Trump minions and (iii) Trump efforts to obstruct the investigation.  While the report may not have found sufficient evidence to lock down criminal indictments against Trump, I suspect it contains much that decent, moral Americans would find troubling.  While perhaps not a criminal indictment, it is nonetheless an indictment of Trump and Trumpism.  Here are column excerpts:

A thought experiment. Suppose that on March 24 — the day Attorney General William Barr publicly summarized the Mueller report — all of the results of the special counsel's probe that have dribbled out over the last two years had been revealed at once.

Americans would have discovered that a hostile foreign power had engaged in major intelligence operations designed to elect Donald Trump -- something consistently denied by the president himself.

In this hypothetical, Robert Mueller would have simultaneously announced the indictment of 34 Russians and Americans — a network of espionage and corruption including hackers, Russian military officers and high-level operatives of the 2016 Trump campaign.

Suppose the report had revealed that 14 Trump campaign officials had been in contact with Russian nationals, including the president's son, who had met with Russian operatives in an attempt to gain information harmful to Hillary Clinton's campaign.

Suppose it had been revealed that several Trump advisers and operatives had lied to the FBI and Congress in an attempt to conceal the extent of these contacts, and also that some of Trump's closest advisers — including his campaign chairman — were guilty of conspiracy and fraud.

Suppose it had been revealed that Trump himself, while a Republican candidate, had continued to pursue a multimillion-dollar business deal to place a Trump Tower in Moscow. And that there was serious though not conclusive evidence that Trump obstructed justice during the Mueller investigation.

[A] story of corruption, criminality and cover-up. The story of a presidential election that should have an asterisk explaining that the outcome may have been substantially influenced by a foreign power. This has led to an unusual circumstance. Trump supporters are doing a victory dance over the fact that he isn't a Russian agent, just a Russian stooge. And Trump's supporters are spiking the ball following an investigation that did not clear the president of obstruction charges. So it is still a legal judgment call whether or not the president is a crook. The report itself may be a catalog of horrible judgment, unethical behavior and noncriminal corruption. It may put Trump Inc. in a very bad light. If and when it comes out in full. In the meantime, the Trump administration is defendant, judge and jury.

The full report, however, may require revised judgments from some of Trump's critics as well. Perhaps the president is not a foreign agent or a criminal mastermind. Perhaps he is a weak leader who surrounds himself with clowns and criminals. Perhaps his lack of character attracts and enables other corrupt men. Perhaps he is more pathetic than dictatorial, more fool than knave. Perhaps behind the compulsive, simplistic, narcissistic exterior there is a compulsive, simplistic, narcissistic interior. Perhaps he has moved beyond good and evil, enforcing only one code: loyalty to his person. Integrity and competence be damned.

All this may not be criminal. But it mocks our country in a different way.

Complacency Will Be the Death Of American Democracy

I have been politically engaged and - in my view - informed for decades.  Sadly, many Americans cannot say that as evidenced by the over 40% of registered voters who could not be bothered to vote in last year's presidential election.  This indifference - complacency, if you will, is having dire consequences on the viability of America's democracy, not to mention the rights of minorities.  The phenomenon is not new, but seems to have intensified in the run up to the 2016 presidential election and even afterwards as some minority communities, the LGBT community in particular. If one is a student of history, one knows that the Founding Fathers were (i) educated individuals, and (ii) believed that citizens have an obligation to educate themselves on issues and be politically involved.  Stated another way, an obligation of citizenship is political involvement and staying fully informed on matters. This latter concept was and is essential to maintaining and protecting democracy.  Compare this concept with the proverbial soccer moms who fixate on PTA issues and children's' sports yet remain clueless on pressing political issues and all to often either fail to vote cast their votes in utter ignorance.  I use soccer moms as but one example.  The problem is replicated across many groups in society, including the LGBT community where a minority seems to be engaged and informed while others remain clueless and often fail to support community organizations from which they receive benefits.   Excuses the "I'm too busy" or "I don't like politics" simple are not acceptable and are a default of fulfilling one's duty as a citizen.  History has shown us time and time again of what can happen when the citizenry falls into complacency.  Two pieces look at the consequences of complacency, one by Michelangelo Signorile directed at the LGBT community and the other on remarks made by Barack Obama.  First, these highlights from Michelangelo's column:

Inside the U.S. Supreme Court this week for the oral arguments for Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission I couldn’t help but look at Justice Neil Gorsuch and imagine how things would be if Merrick Garland were rightly sitting in that chair. 

Had Republicans not stolen that seat, refusing a vote on President Obama’s nominee for almost the entirety of his last year in office and allowing Donald Trump to put Neil Gorsuch ― an ideologue on the issue of “religious liberty” ― on the court, we would not be in this dangerous predicament.

[M]any progressive legal observers are concerned ― some very much so ― and the general consensus among journalists who cover legal issues is that it will come down to Kennedy, and that he, by his own history, could side with the baker. It’s often forgotten that on another gay rights decision, Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, Kennedy joined the majority in a 2000 ruling that the Boy Scouts could ban gay scouts and scoutmasters on First Amendment grounds. 

In my 2015 book, It’s Not Over, I wrote all about what I’d termed “victory blindness,” a phenomenon in which minorities who are discriminated against become seduced by big wins ― like the Obergefell ruling ― and think they’ve achieved full equality in society. Victory blindness, I argued, overcame many LGBTQ people, who let their guards down or dismissed some anti-LGBTQ actions, not realizing that the anti-equality forces were organizing fiercely, and that the backlash would be intense and could roll back LGBTQ rights while we’re celebrating or not paying attention.

Victory blindness often prevents us from seeing how tenuous our wins are and how all minorities must continue to fight for their rights because the political winds can shift very quickly.

Donald Trump’s election and presidency did a lot to shake us from it, forcing us to become energized and to vow to fight. This week at the Supreme Court, no matter how the case eventually is decided, should serve to do the same.

The second piece goes well beyond the confines of the LGBT community and looks at how complacency can give rise to authoritarianism.  It has happened before throughout history and Donald Trump and today's GOP seemingly hope to allow it to happen again.  Here are highlights:

American democracy is fragile, and unless care is taken it could follow the path of Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

Mixed in with many softer comments, that was the somewhat jaw-dropping bottom line of Barack Obama last night as, in a Q&A session before the Economic Club of Chicago, the Chicagoan who used to be president dropped a bit of red meat to a hometown crowd that likely is a lot closer to him than the man whose name never was mentioned: President Donald Trump.

Obama moved from that to talking about a nativist mistrust and unease that has swept around the world. He argued that such things as the speed of technical change and the uneven impact of globalization have come too quickly to be absorbed in many cultures, bringing strange new things and people to areas in which "people didn't (used to) challenge your assumptions." As a result, "nothing feels solid," he said. "Sadly, there's something in us that looks for simple answers when we're agitated."

Still, the U.S. has survived tough times before and will again, he noted, particularly mentioning the days of communist fighter Joseph McCarthy and former President Richard Nixon. But one reason the country survived is because it had a free press to ask questions, Obama added. Though he has problems with the media just like Trump has had, "what I understood was the principle that the free press was vital."

The danger is "grow(ing) complacent," Obama said. "We have to tend to this garden of democracy or else things could fall apart quickly."

That's what happened in Germany in the 1930s, which despite the democracy of the Weimar Republic and centuries of high-level cultural and scientific achievements, Adolph Hitler rose to dominate, Obama noted. "Sixty million people died. . . .So, you've got to pay attention. And vote."