As the impeachment inquiry chugs along, stirring up fresh and damning revelations of wrongdoing on a daily basis, there is no harm in every opponent of Trump taking a moment to feel some satisfaction in this necessary escalation against the president. Whether you’ve supported his removal from office since the earliest days of his term, or have come around to it in the wake of the Ukraine scandal, impeachment is a step in the right direction. Whether it was always going to catalyze support for the president’s removal, or needed the Ukraine shenanigans to provide the perfect summation of his unfitness for office, we’re also discovering that impeachment is, after all, serving to weaken and panic the president, forcing the GOP to defend the indefensible, and emboldening witnesses to his high crimes and misdemeanors to tell their stories.
But some observers are starting to point out that the impeachment proceedings alone will not be sufficient to maximize the damage to Trump and the odds that some Republican senators will turn against him and vote for his removal from office. A spate of heavy-hitting liberal commentators have been calling for mass protests to up the pressure on Congress to do the right thing. Matthew Yglesias, Michelle Goldberg, and Brian Beutler have all written persuasively about the efficacy of mass demonstrations to push impeachment forward. They point to how marches and protests early in the administration played a role in stiffening opposition to Trump, as well as in fighting back against the Muslim travel ban and repeal of the Affordable Care Act. And as Goldberg points out, activism proved a gateway to electoral politicking for many, building to the 2018 Democratic wave that took back the House of Representatives.
Beutler and Yglesias make indisputable points about how opponents of Trump can’t simply rely on Congress to pursue impeachment. Beutler reminds us that the Democrats in Congress lack “the kind of supportive artillery Trump enjoys in the form of relentless right-wing propaganda, a weaponized Justice Department, and a Twitter feed he now deploys routinely to incite his supporters to violence.” Meanwhile, Yglesias warns against relying too much on the model of Watergate to see us through, touching on how changes in the media and political landscape have made the elite-level resolution of that crisis inapplicable to today’s political environment. And for anyone wondering about the efficacy of mass protests, Yglesias’ argues that they can have profound catalyzing effects on public perceptions:
The mechanisms through which protest works seem multifaceted, with some of the impact driven by direct personal participation, some driven by witnessing the protest themselves, and some driven by media coverage which serves to rebroadcast key elements of the protest message. The key to it all, however, is that bothering to show up to a march is a moderately costly investment of time and energy. When a bunch of people do that, it serves as a powerful signal to the rest of society that something extraordinary is happening.
I couldn’t agree more with the call for mass protests, but the fact that none have happened yet is an intriguing question. Goldberg wonders if it’s because so many people have channeled their efforts into electoral politics, and that the fact that the system seems to be working (at least for the moment) is siphoning off some of the impetus to rally. More chillingly, Yglesias observes how the Democratic leadership saw the popular activism in response to Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court as ultimately a bad thing, causing the Democrats to lose some Senate races in 2018, and that this has led some to downplay the necessity of protest at this crucial hour.
But I also think that opponents of Trump face a challenge in that the specifics of the Ukraine scandal are, while impeachable, somewhat abstract. Will Americans really hit the streets in the name of national security, abuse of power, and the betrayal of an ally? These aren’t issues that are felt to directly impact our individual lives, though a good case could be made that they indeed do. Contrast this with the motives behind the Women’s March, where women were compelled by concerns for their bodily integrity, men marched in solidarity, and all were driven by overall outrage about Trump’s election.
Somewhat paradoxically, the epic scope of the specific acts currently under investigation, the very things that merit impeachment, also mean they lack a visceral impact for most Americans; they can persuade people to support his removal from office, but make people feel like they have a personal stake? Not so much.
At the same time, we all have more personal reasons for wanting Trump removed from office, and if ever there was a time to get in touch with those feelings, it’s now. Whether or not impeachment addresses everything he deserves to be impeached for, we are reaching a point of maximum leverage to start setting things to right, and to punish this monster for what he’s inflicted on our country: the incitement of hatred against minorities and promotion of white supremacism; the infliction of cruelties on immigrants; the use of the presidency to supercharge his businesses; an unswerving dedication to undermining our relations with democratic nations around the world while kissing up to authoritarian leaders everywhere; and a clear subservience to the Russians that leaves little doubt that the Kremlin exerts some sort of leverage over him.
But this is hardly all. It’s not just the bad acts Trump has committed and enabled; it’s also that he’s stood in the way of the necessary democratic and democratizing efforts we badly need to roll back income inequality, the horrors of climate change, and so many other challenges to our collective prosperity. At a time when we’ve needed nothing more than a renewed sense of collective purpose and solidarity, Donald Trump has called out and cultivated the darkest impulses of his supporters, and drawn political sustenance from the worst aspects of American history and culture, whether it’s white nationalism, selfish individualism, anti-intellectualism, misogyny, or a know-nothing America first-ism.
So marches would be great; but there are things short of mass protests that American interested in ending this presidency can also do. Calling your representative and senators to express support for impeachment is a good place to start; this is great if your elected officials already support impeachment or removal from office, but also necessary to let Republicans know that they’ve got constituents who want them to do the right thing. Particularly if you’re in a state with one of the more moderate GOP senators, raising a fuss is crucial.
It’s also time to re-open discussions with friends and relatives who’ve backed Trump up to now. While the issues around Ukraine are abstract compared to more kitchen table issues, the fact that they go to matters of American patriotism and leadership in the world means that traditional conservatives may be open to persuasion that Trump committed impeachable offenses. (As a side note, I am flabbergasted that anyone in the armed forces would still support the president, after he directed his lackeys to withhold military aid from a U.S. ally that has literally been invaded by Russia, and has done everything he can do disparage our allies and undermine the alliances that help keep our country safe.)
We also need to think beyond strictly political acts, and get more serious about using economic boycotts and the like to unnerve and punish Trump and his ilk. The involvement of hotelier Gordon Sondland in the scheme to attack American democracy is instructive; already, we’re seeing indications that Sondland is worried about the future of his hotel empire, though it’s hard to say if boycott threats have specifically played a role in moving him to testify before Congress. Surely there are other members of the Trump administration with vulnerable financial holdings (not to mention the president himself).
As I’ve said before, impeachment may provide a specific governmental mechanism for countering a corrupt president, but its presence in the Constitution doesn’t mean that it’s the only means at our disposal — far from it. Rather, it’s also a reminder that none of us need simply accept the authority of unaccountable and overreaching power. If there is something legal, collective, and effective that we can do to end this administration, then we are not only free but I would argue morally compelled to do it. It is telling that the bad acts that Trump and his minions took toward Ukraine, in their effort to hobble Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, were the very opposite of democratic: conducted in secret, with the goal of inflicting propaganda and confusion on the American people, in the service of subverting the 2020 elections. How fitting, then, to oppose such skullduggery with open, mass opposition, in which ordinary Americans band together as a counter to the cabal of lickspittles, incompetent millionaires, and addled former New York mayors who serve the selfish ends of one corrupt man?