I admit it: just as I sensed that it was important for Ethics Alarms to lend ethical clarity to the potentially (and possibly already) disastrous effort by the Democratic Party to abuse its power and Constitutional processes to remove (that is, overthrow) the President of the United States, I was overcome with a crippling combination of unrelated professional responsibilities and crippling weariness. I’m sick of writing about this topic; I’m even sick of thinking about it. I’m definitely sick of arguing about it on social media. The tag “2016 post-election Ethics Train Wreck” has been appended to more posts than any other, with no end in sight.
I floated the idea of creating a spin-off website that would endeavor to provide one-stop shopping for members of the public who wanted to counter media spin and information suppression on the topic. I do think this is an important project, and I have received a few generous offers to help. I’m still trying to figure out if I have the time to do it right; if I don’t, then it would be unethical to do it at all.
The fact that some polls show that the relentless pro-impeachment propaganda has led to a majority of Americans believing the President should be impeached is troubling, though 1) polls, and 2) on this topic even more than others, all the number shows is how many ignorant Americans are willing to opine at the moment on topics they know nothing about. “Survey Finds More People Would Support Impeachment If They Knew What Crime Trump Was Supposed To Have Committed” snarked the Babylon Bee.
Exactly.
I have several longish essays that I need to write, notably one titled “The Ethics Context of the Trump Impeachment Push.” It should have been written last week, and I’ll be lucky if I can get it complete next week. I know how important the Democratic Party/ “resistance” /mainstream media coup attempt is. As I have been writing here since January 2017, it is the most important ethics story of modern U.S. political history.
I’ve got to keep the analysis moving, even if it’s too slow.
Here, for reference purposes and future discussions, is a list of the Villains of the Impeachment Coup.
The order is mostly random, except at the beginning.
Barack Obama
The President’s power to keep the culture, society and public opinion from spinning out of control is well established, and many scholarly works have documented its influence on American history. Barack Obama’s mostly passive encouragement of the effort to undermine the Presidency of his successor has been a stealth affront to American democracy. He laid the infrastructure for the coup while he was President, by his enabling of his supporters’ and his party’s eventual addiction to demonizing all political and ideological opposition to his policies. After the 2016 election, when the effort was obviously underway to try to de-legitimatize the results of the election, Obama could have ended the dangerous enterprise with a well-timed and unequivocal statement in public, and strategic communications with party leaders and activists in private. He could have, and should have, stopped the Congressional Black Caucus boycott of the Inauguration. He could have, and should have, used his position and influence to unite the country before it became dangerously divided. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly for the most intentionally divisive President in our history, Obama allowed the organized degradation of our democratic institutions to proceed, either because that’s what he wanted, or because he lacked the character to do what was necessary.
Hillary Clinton
Like Obama, she had a duty, as the defeated candidate for the Presidency, to rally the nation around the victor, as every other defeated candidate has done at least to a minimal extent. Unlike Obama, Clinton actively did the opposite, and continues to do so. Despite reprimanding candidate Trump for even suggesting that he might challenge an electoral defeat as illegitimate, Clinton did exactly what she had condemned, and is doing it still. She, also like Obama, was in a position to ensure that Donald Trump, like every previous elected President of the United States, was given the traditional “honeymoon period” of guaranteed support from the citizenry, as well as support, respect and loyalty from all political adversaries. Bitter, angry, foiled in her multifarious schemes to become the first female President, she couldn’t and wouldn’t do the right thing, in part because to the sociopathic Clintons, the right thing always means what they perceive as most beneficial to them.
President Trump
Some blaming of the victim is in order, unfortunately.
Early on, even before he swore the oath of office, the President either knew or should have known that a unprecedented coup attempt was in the wind. Whether he could have stopped it on his own without the assistance of Obama and Hillary, especially with so much of the mainstream media having already made their intentions clear, is a legitimate question. However, he did not have to intentionally throw gasoline on such a dangerous fire for the nation. He could have made a show of trying to bring some prominent Democrats into the administration. He could have worked to heal the rifts, many of which he was directly responsible for, in the party whose banner he ran under. He could have, and should have, set out to at least try to make amends with the Bushes, Senator McCain, and others. including the Clintons. He could have, and should have, delivered a well-crafted speech calling for reconciliation, cooperation, and respect for the Constitution. It is pointless to repeat, but President Trump should have, and indeed had (has!) a duty to, frame his conduct, including his social media presence, with minimal standards of decorum, care, prudence and dignity.
Taunting and trolling may be fun (if you are 13) but when you hold the highest office in the land, when your duty is to preserve that office and the system it supports, and when you know or should know that an unprecedented alliance of hateful and powerful enemies are willing to do tremendous damage to the nation in order to destroy YOU, it is reckless, irresponsible, and stupid to repeatedly poke those enemies in the eyes, mock them, insult them, and dare them to bring it on.
There are another 23 or so villains to discuss. I’ll get Part II up as soon as I can stand it.
Ethics Alarms 
Admirable undertaking, Jack. Huzzah!
The reason Trump enjoys a, likely, majority of popular support is because he is willing flip off the deep state every day. Does it enrage the resistance? Yes. It also exposes them as no other politician ever has.
As much as I can’t stand him personally, it is time to admit he is the right man at the right time. Otherwise Alinskyites run the country as milk toast Republicans let it happen. No more flight. We need a leader who is willing and able to fight them.
The pre-printed impeach Trump signs were up in my neighbor’s house in December 2016. He wasn’t even in office.
This is not of his making.
True, but if he would flip them off ala William F Buckley he would be farther ahead. But alas, too few Americans would appreciate that.
Instead we prefer the approach if they bring fists we bring a knife, if they bring a knife we bring a bat, and if they bring a bat we bring a gun.
I do know one thing if Romney and other GOP swamp dwellers align themselves with the Alinskyites to impeach Trump I will bet they will be the reason millions of Trump supporters abandon the GOP Party. The NRCC needs to explain to these folks that most might tolerate RINOs Trump supporters will never support politicians that undermine their champion. They will make him a political martyr.
Bitching because you lost a close election is traditional, this quickly struck me as insane. These three deserve their top billing.
Well, the only poll purporting to show a majority that I have seen was the tragically flawed Fox News poll, which oversampled Democrats approximately 1.5-1. Independents were represented at something like 11%, and exit polls of the last election showed them to be 30% + of the electorate. Previous polling had showed independents to be opposed to impeachment by roughly 60-30. So I filed that poll under “designed to produce a result,” namely clicks and commentary for Fox.
Comments on your villains:
Obama: Frankly, he has done more than I expected by mostly keeping his mouth shut. I know he’s not doing that behind the scenes, but these days, small favors are about the best we can hope for. My expectations bar is so low for Obama’s behavior that a centenarian turtle could clear them by a mile.
HRC: Well, I have nothing to add or observe to your comments. She is manifestly the most flagrantly villainous of the villains, and it’s not close.
Trump: I agree, but throwing gasoline onto a dumpster fire is exactly who Trump is, which is one of many reasons I loathe him. Still, blaming Trump for being Trump is… I don’t know, futile? Overwrought? Something.
I can’t fault your position, it is the ethical one. But the parable of the frog and scorpion comes to mind.
Glen
The question is does Trump throw gasoline on the fire or does he merely ignite the swamp gas?
Another way to look at this is why drain the swamp if you don’t know it stinks? Perhaps Trump is simply giving us a down and dirty tour of the swamp.
Good question. Perhaps you’re right.
Jack. Typo in the Obama paragraph. “Legitimize” needs to be “delegitimize,” non? Cheers.
Daniel Hudson. Former D Back. Sigh.
Cheers.
Fixed. Thanks. #$^%$!*&^%!
You’re welcome. Cheers.
Obama made one speech that hit the right tone the day after the 2016 election. I’m not sure he even wanted to deliver it at all. He didn’t think he’d have to deliver it. Within a day the left was rioting and claiming Trump was not their president. That Friday was Veterans’ Day. In NYC they posed 4 or more policemen on every block supplemented by ICE, DOHS, and anyone else with a badge and a gun they could find, just so the veterans could have their day unmolested. Obama didn’t want to deal with Trump, and he certainly didn’t want to give him any help. All he had to do was fade into retirement, where he could join George and Amal at their villa in the Alps, make $500K a pop on the lecture circuit, and campaign for those who wanted to get in Trump’s way. That’s what he did.
Hillary initially didn’t do much, but make no mistake, she was and remains angry and bitter that she was denied the opportunity to become the first female president that she believed was rightly hers. Now she sees her chance to go for a possibly wounded president and bring him down. Will she run herself? I doubt it. There’s not much more to say other than what you’ve already said.
I don’t think I agree with you about the president. I don’t think he could have healed the rifts opened in this nation even if he had wanted to. The Democratic Party didn’t want to heal them any more than he did. It’s all well and good to say he should have brought some prominent Democrats into his administration, but who would you suggest? I think I can safely say not a single Democratic senator would have accepted, given the razor-thin margin in that chamber. I doubt any of the Democratic governors would have accepted either, unless they had no hopes of going further politically. As far as the Democratic Party was concerned, the president was radioactive, and anyone who reached out a hand to him was going to become persona non grata in the party. I think the Bush family sealed their fate when George the elder voted for Hillary. McCain would just have told him to screw off.
President Trump didn’t create the left’s hate.
President Trump didn’t create the left’s irrational aversion to truth and facts.
President Trump didn’t create the left’s anti-American and anti-Constitution ideological leanings.
President Trump didn’t create the left’s totalitarianism.
President Trump didn’t create the left’s bastardization of words and symbols.
President Trump didn’t create the left’s anti-history stance.
President Trump didn’t create the left’s anti-social behaviors.
President Trump didn’t create the left’s anti-respect, anti-logic, anti-critical thinking, and anti-civility.
President Trump didn’t create the left’s the Pravda like propaganda media machine.
President Trump didn’t create the left’s “deep state”.
Etc, etc, etc…
All President Trump has to do is do anything, or be in favor of anything, or be against anything and the left goes straight off the deep end of reality to oppose whatever Trump does or says and in the process they reveal themselves in signature significant ways!
I think Trump did the best he could. I think he gave up on the uniting idea way too quickly. Perhaps he should have kept repeating what he said that first night. It was good.
I agree about social media. There needs to be a level of restraint, especially for a political leader, that goes double for a president.
I am certain if he would have offered any democrat a position it would have been 1. Turned down and 2. Been political suicide to any dem who would’ve accepted it.
I remember being surprised at how they appeared to have isolated him the first few months and how many people turned him down for positions.
Here’s that speech, to remind you what he said.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2016/11/09/politics/donald-trump-victory-speech/index.html