Hi there.
Today marks the beginning of Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial. A little over a year ago, I felt frustrated that in the age of the twenty-four second news cycle, most Americans didn’t seem to fully appreciate the gravity of Trump’s first impeachment. He called the leader of a foreign government, and, in no uncertain terms, pressured that leader to investigate a political opponent. And yet, by the time the trial began, it seemed more of an afterthought. We all knew what the outcome would be, and nearly everyone in the country had already decided for themselves whether there was anything improper about Trump’s infamous phone call. The trial’s conclusion, which set the dangerous precedent that Presidents can be allowed to extort aid recipients into investigating political opponents, was met with little more than a shrug, even as Trump became the first impeached President to see a member of his own party vote to convict.
As troubling as all of that was, this week’s trial seems to command even less interest in the public. We once again know that Trump will not be convicted, even as the evidence against him is pretty straightforward: Donald Trump spread baseless conspiracy theories about a rigged election all 2020, and increased the frequency and specificity of those claims after he lost. The President led his supporters to believe that American democracy had been subverted by Democrats, and, eventually, by some Republicans like Mike Pence. He spent weeks encouraging his supporters to come to the Capitol on January 6, asserting that it would be “wild.” And just before the storming of the Capitol, he gave a speech imploring those supporters to fight. Fight they did, murdering a police officer as they seized the Capitol. There’s little doubt that if they had been able to reach Nancy Pelosi or Mike Pence, January 6 would be remembered not just as a day of insurrection, but as a day not unlike November 22, 1963, when President Kennedy was shot.
Donald Trump laid out the conspiracy theory that brought the rioters to the Capitol; he specifically encouraged violence; and, perhaps most damning of all, when he was convinced to urge them to disperse, they did so- clear evidence that they were acting on his orders. We know all of this.
But, as I have written, most Republican senators are planning to skirt around the merits of the evidence against Trump and instead claim that there’s no constitutional basis for impeaching a President who has already left office. I explained yesterday why that argument is wrong, but, as this Washington Post op-ed points out, the House of Representatives impeached Trump while he was still President. It was Mitch McConnell who ensured that the Senate trial would not begin until after Joe Biden was inaugurated.
On January 6, and in the days and weeks that followed, I thought often of a line from James Baldwin: “God gave Noah the rainbow. No more water, the fire next time!” The point of that line, in the Judeo-Christian tradition; in the African-American spiritual Baldwin borrowed from; and in Baldwin’s own book, is that if we do not learn from our own sins and self-correct, the next catastrophe will be worse. And if those who set the stage for the storming of the United States Capitol- Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, and others- are not held accountable, if precedent against this sort of behavior is not properly set, then next time, we’ll face the fire.
While the Senate is pre-occupied with the impeachment trial, the Biden Administration and the House of Representatives are continuing work on the American Rescue Act. Interestingly, Politico reports that the current proposal by House Democrats includes an expansion of the Affordable Care Act which would temporarily empower the federal government to fully subsidize Obamacare plans for anyone earning up to 150% of the poverty line. While some critics on the left will lament that such an expansion still falls far short of President Biden’s campaign promises on healthcare reform, it would be a positive first step that could open eyes to the possibility of furthering the government’s role in providing healthcare coverage.
I’ve become very interested in absorbing disparate opinions on the economics of the American Rescue Act, because it’s such a nuanced topic. Yesterday, I shared an op-ed that expressed concern about the potential for over-heating the economy with stimulus. Now, here is a Reuters piece on why the Biden Administration doesn’t share those concerns. Similarly, check out these dueling Newsweek columns from filmmaker Astra Taylor and podcast host Jimmy Sengenberger on the merits of student loan forgiveness. And, as the New York Times reports, the Congressional Budget Office has weighed in on the pros and cons of raising the federal minimum wage.
I also wrote yesterday about concerns over cybersecurity, and around that same time, news was breaking that in a Florida town, hackers gained access to a municipal water system and briefly managed to exponentially increase lye levels in the town’s water. That’s just the latest evidence that cybersecurity must be a top priority at all levels of government, because right now, the United States is woefully under-equipped. CNN has the story on the hack.
While cybersecurity is a scary issue for big cities, there is some good news for them: despite a lot of speculation that cities are headed for decline, Bloomberg’s City Lab reports on a new survey that shows otherwise.
In media news, the last editor of the top five publishing houses who was still willing to publish fiction masquerading as fact by some of the right’s most controversial figures has left the scene. Ben Smith uses his latest column for the Times to muse on the future of conservative publishing. And the Wall Street Journal reports on Reddit’s major surge in cashflow following last week’s GameStop surge that originated on the platform.
Lastly, former Secretary of State George Schultz died over the weekend. His obituary in NPR is worth a read. While he was far from perfect, Shultz’s diplomatic approach to Mikhail Gorbachev led to the end of the Cold War. Cheers to that.
Thank you for caring enough to read.
Be safe. Wear a mask. You are loved.
Talk to you tomorrow.