If you’re feeling adrift and aswirl in the wake of the Mueller report (or, more to the point, what we know of it as summarized by Attorney General Bob Barr), wondering how all the documented ties between Trump and Russia could have yielded no affirmative decision on collusion or obstruction of justice, this piece by Mother Jones journalist David Corn may just be the journalistic Dramamine you didn’t know you needed. Corn systematically runs through the publicly-known facts to establish the president’s betrayal of the United States, whether or not that betrayal involved prosecutable crimes committed by Trump. Corn sets aside the fuzzy concept of “collusion” to remind us of the overwhelming reality: throughout the 2016 campaign, Trump and his staff encouraged Moscow’s efforts on behalf of his campaign, even as Donald Trump lied to the public about his ongoing efforts to build a skyscraper in Moscow. His act of lying while Moscow knew the truth meant he put himself in a compromised position vis-a-vis this adversary of the United States. More damningly, Trump and his campaign continued to deny that there was a Russian effort underway to assist his candidacy, even as the campaign was approached by the Russians and informed of such assistance. Even more damningly, such public denials continued even after the U.S. intelligence community briefed Trump on the Russian hacking and disinformation campaign. As Corn writes, “By echoing Russian disinformation—after being informed the Kremlin intended to mess with the presidential campaign to assist Trump—the Trump campaign was making it easier for a foreign power to undermine a US election.”

It is impossible to read Corn’s synopsis — much or all of which will be known to those who have followed the Trump-Russia story for the last two-plus years — and not feel both immense frustration at the apparent outcome of the Mueller investigation, and reassurance that there does indeed already exists a damning body of evidence sufficient to require the president’s removal from office. It is also hard not to think that too many have been bewitched by the under-examined notions of “collusion” and “conspiracy,” and a certainty that with so much already documented, the president must have broken some laws (which, of course, Trump staff like Paul Manafort have indeed been convicted of).

Corn argues that Trump’s actions constitute “treachery” and “betrayal,” and his evidence backs up use of these terms. Whatever the level of outright coordination with the Russian government and its lackeys, Donald Trump has acted, and continues to act, in ways that are self-serving and against the public interest, to put it mildly. Given the point we’ve reached, at which Trump’s grave offenses seem not to constitute prosecutable crimes, it seems worth revisiting the way that the opposition, and particularly the Democrats, have really veered away from framing Trump’s Russia offenses using this language. Why the emphasis on collusion and the way the notion is embedded in actual law-breaking, rather than making the public case that Donald Trump has betrayed his country?

I am wondering if part of the explanation may be that betrayal and treason are concepts mostly associated with the political right, which far more than the left is comfortable, and indeed has often relied on, such notions to divide up the body politic between patriots and enemies, makers and takers. These are concepts, after all, that can also form part of a larger framework of revenge and restoration of some prior mythical order, which not coincidentally a pretty quick description of Trumpism. Such concepts come less naturally to progressives, who broadly speaking place an emphasis on inclusivity and building a politics that grows into the future, rather than reaches back into the past. It is also possible that, in part because of how the right has unfortunately coopted traditional ideas of patriotism, the left is simply less comfortable with a formulation of someone “betraying” their country; having unfairly been the target of such accusations, it may feel somewhat taboo to level such charges against political opponents, particularly if it feels like an adoption of the darker us-versus-them, exclusionary strains of right-wing politics.

And yet, it does feel like an inability to confidently articulate a patriotism firmly grounded in democratic, positive values has played a part in our current crisis. Sure, our situation is more or less unprecedented — as many have noted, the incredible details of Trump’s avarice and serial wrongdoing wouldn’t pass the laugh test in a movie pitch — but something is arguably preventing too many Democrats from using not just the appropriate language, but from seeing and describing (two different things, I realize) what Trump has done in the most accurate and appropriate terms.

I don’t usually like this analogy, because it feels like preaching to the choir, but it’s apt enough here that I’ll risk it. If President Obama had been soliciting Russian assistance to build an Obama Tower in Moscow during an election campaign, and lied to the American people about these efforts, the Republican Party would never

ever

and I mean, E-ver

have let it go.

And for once, they would have been in the right.

The question of why the Democrats haven’t emphasized the betrayal angle of the Russia narrative may end up being one of the most important and intriguing questions of our political age.