Earlier today, Jeet Heer observed that, “Saying that impeaching Trump will hamper Biden's agenda is saying that holding Trump accountable and stopping future Trumps is not part of Biden's agenda. It should be.” I couldn’t agree more — and I think Heer’s comment points up a dangerous reluctance among some Democrats to fully appreciate that the attack on America launched by Trump, complicit Republicans, and violent far-right groups is not an inconvenience, but an unavoidable fight that must be engaged now, without delay.
Indeed, as I wrote yesterday, it’s foolish to act as if the coup attempt is actually over; it should be considered ongoing as long as Donald Trump remains in office, still fully vested with the awesome powers of the presidency and ever closer to the reality of post-presidential powerlessness and doom. I have no doubt that at this moment, the president is scheming to stay in office past January 20th. To think otherwise is to fail to recognize the seriousness of his crimes against the nation or his aggrieved, psychotic, and unrepentant character.
I don’t think it’s overblown to say that this is as if another country had declared war on the United States just before Biden’s inauguration, and the new president declared that defending the United States should not be part of his agenda as it would prove a distraction. This would obviously be absurd, but it’s no more absurd than worrying about having to spend time and energy on this attempted coup against American democracy. There simply is no choice; it’s too important to let fall by the wayside.
Rather than bemoaning the inescapability of addressing the coup attempt or viewing it as a waste of limited political capital, I think Democrats underestimate the way that holding accountable Trump and other elected complicit in the coup attempt actually complements existing aspects of the Democratic agenda. I am thinking in the first place of the pro-democracy moves and legislation that were necessary even before the coup attempt, and that are even more urgent now, such as a restoration of the Voting Rights Act, limits on partisan gerrymandering, and statehood for Washington, D.C. And so long as the Biden administration goes full throttle on implementing a response to the coronavirus pandemic and resulting economic fallout, simultaneously keeping some focus on the coup participants would serve to remind Americans that our covid-economic crisis is due in great part to a president who devoted his time to overthrowing America’s democratic order rather than doing his job.
A final consideration — I think we can be fairly certain that still more damning revelations are still to come about the extent and seriousness of the coup attempt, including both the physical attack on the Capitol and the president’s broader attempt to undo the November election results. Democrats who downplay prioritizing impeachment, or otherwise punishing the president for his transgressions, run the risk of being blindsided by new information that stokes the growing rage of millions of Americans, and being put in a position of having responded inadequately to a lawless president.