Reframing the Mueller Investigation

The Mueller report has been finalized, Barr has released a four-page summary to the American people, and now the fight has been moved to Congress to determine what happens from this point on.  Barr’s summary, though it is notably not a substitute for the entire report, states that “no evidence of collusion” was found on the President himself, and the obstruction of justice case produced results that neither “indict nor exonerate” Trump.  For Democrats, perhaps, and especially those that have been counting on Mueller to save them, the outcome, at least so far, was underwhelming. Now, the focus shifts to Congressional Democrats to decide whether they should fight to have the Mueller report released and move forward with a possible impeachment or simply move on.  But it is important to see the end of the Mueller investigation for what it is: not an unsatisfying end but part of the larger process to remove Trump from office. 

Before we go there, though, it is worth looking back at what reasonable observers should have expected at this point. The Mueller investigation took 19 lawyers, 40 FBI agents, 2,800 subpoenas, 500 interviewed witnesses, and almost two years.  Over its course, it charged 34 individuals, including nine connected to the Trump campaign, though it did not ultimately bring about criminal charges for Trump.  In a lot of ways, the Mueller investigation turned up way more information than we should have expected: what was once a question about a few Russian internet trolls and Facebook algorithms now sheds so much light on the wrongdoing inside and around the Trump campaign.  As compared to past scandals, spanning from Iran-Contra to Whitewater and beyond, Russiagate was a very successful investigation: many people very close to Trump are likely to receive justice and Mueller also recommended other findings about unrelated crimes to their respective departments.  For those who want to see Trump out of office and unable to act on his regressive agenda, the Mueller investigation was hardly a failure, even if it was overhyped by some.

Still, something about it feels disappointing, which is likely to do with our own naivety than anything else.  In other words, we should have expected this to be the institutional result of all this Russia-talk. In America, it has long been said that we have two justice systems—one for the poor and powerless and one for the rich and powerful—and that alone should explain the non-result which has come of Mueller’s investigation.  Beyond that, the history we like to remember tells us a much different story than the one which is true. In school, we all learn about Nixon’s impeachment, from break-in to coverup to resignation. We learn that a popular president was eventually forced to resign by an exhaustive investigation and about how the wheels of justice turn against all who are guilty.  But just maybe we forget or are unaware of the important context that goes along with it. A lot has been said recently of the allies Nixon courted precisely because of—and not in spite of—the Watergate investigation, of people like M. Stanton Evans who said, “I didn’t like Nixon until Watergate.” Eventually, the public turned against Nixon, despite their unwillingness to do so earlier, and the Republican Party was prompted to abandon him too.  In this way, impeachments are not like trials with Congress members as jurors, but trials in which the American people force their representatives’ hands.

Due to this reality, the lesson that transcends Nixon is that removing Trump from office through electing a Democrat in 2020 and through a successful impeachment are not necessarily two divergent strategies forward.  They are, at best, one strategy, with two divergent ends. In other words, the way to impeach Trump is not to find enough evidence to change the GOP’s view on him to obtain the votes, but to change the people’s minds enough to force the GOP to abandon him to protect themselves.  To do this, the Democrat’s private strategy must be seemingly at odds with their public choices. In effect, the bar for impeachment is much higher than the bar for voting him out in 2020: while no one who supports impeachment supports his eventual re-election, there are many Americans currently who support neither his impeachment nor his re-election.  The path forward, then, is to use the cloud of the Russiagate scandal along with the failings of the Trump presidency to fell the president, killing two birds with one stone towards getting him out of office.

On the former, the Democrats have a lot to work with: the uncertainty of the verdict of the Mueller report, it doesn’t exonerate the president, nor leave him untouched with the indictments of his former staff; its incomplete nature, as the people have not read the report and the investigation did not touch on many of issues raised since by Cohen’s testimony; and the apparent secrecy of the findings, Barr issued a summary letter when an innocence-proving-document would warrant a public release.  All of this makes up the public strategy forward for Democrats, but—though I am rarely one to warn Democrats about going too far—I would say their private agenda should be one of caution. Clearly, the evidence in the case is not overwhelming, or Barr would have had to cede such findings. Therefore, impeaching Trump on the grounds of Mueller’s investigation alone with a Republican majority in the Senate is patently impossible.  With that said, Democrats need to publicly raise the Russia questions while never quite bringing the issue to a breaking point, which would likely go against them. To the plain eye, Trump is a conman, but the burden of proof for people as powerful as he is high, and that must be understood.

The point in all this is that the left would benefit from a reframing of Mueller’s investigation from a verdict of success or failure towards a realization that this is but one step in the ultimate process.  While they should not count on the Russia scandal, the left also must never forget it: when they win, they hold all the cards to enact their agenda and keep their place. It is then up to the opposition—those who support democracy and the rule of law—to take it from them.  While legal justice requires a standard beyond reasonable doubt, electoral justice only requires 270. 

Similar Read: Kamala or Bust? 

Bold Ideas and Lessons Learned

While we all look ahead to 2020—which can be fun, that I will not deny—it might be best to start by looking back.  On Tuesday, Trump gave his second State of the Union Address, followed by the Democratic rebuttal given by Stacey Abrams.  Reading through Twitter after the address, I was expecting to find my favorite political voices pushing back on Trump’s falsehoods and rhetoric, and I did, but right before sighing and calling it a night, I found something even more profound.  It was a tweet, retweeted by an account I follow, written by Joe Kennedy. He was offering support and advice for Stacey Abrams before her rebuttal speech. It took me a minute to even understand the tweet’s context: Kennedy gave the Democrat’s State of the Union rebuttal a year earlier, at the end of Trump’s first year in office.  Aside from jokes about Kennedy’s over-application of chapstick (which he poked at in the tweet), the speech ultimately fell flat. That’s not to say it wasn’t well done, but it is to say that it appeared to be Kennedy’s opportunity to be thought of as the future of the Democratic Party, and a year later, he is not. In a very short time, the Democratic Party has experienced some pretty significant changes.  

To explain this, let us go back further, to 2015, when Hillary announced she was running for President.  Her campaign, personality notwithstanding, was essentially a promise for 4 more years of Obama: hold the line on some of the important victories Democrats had won, like Obamacare, the Iran Nuclear Deal, and legalizing gay marriage, and build on some of the things he began to do, like strengthening discrimination laws and making minor cutbacks in incarceration laws.  Then Bernie came along, then Cynthia Nixon, then Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and today, our Democratic Party has taken an entirely different form. It is being moved by a diverse array of faces, it is confronting and pushing back on its opponents, and it is insisting on bold changes. Part of this, it must be said, is due to a wholly unpopular president and stagnation in progress on health care, tax reform, and mass incarceration, which are key issues for the American public.  But it is also an important lesson in American political science. A lesson borne of our obsession with the moderate, our two-party system, and a relatively obscure idea called the Overton Window (to be explained later).

Let us start with the moderate, who is the fixation of nearly every politician who hopes to take office.  When we envision our two-party system, we imagine our microeconomics lesson on two competing hot-dog stands: if there are two hot-dog stands on a street, logic would say the best placement would be such that the two stands broke the street up into 3 equal parts.  To increase Stand A’s business in this situation, one would suggest moving closer to the middle of the street—customers who were once in the middle now find themselves closer to Stand A, while those on the edge of the street are unaffected. For an example of this kind of thinking in politics, simply look for anyone begging the Democratic Party to abandon things like Medicare for All or free college tuition in order to “appeal to the moderate.”

The problem with this opinion is that it fundamentally misunderstands how American politics work.  If we go back to the hot-dog stands, what happens in the long run if the best idea to increase business is to stay close to the center?  The answer is that we are eventually left with two stands directly next to each other—a smart reaction in the short term turns into a long-term equilibrium where very few people are happy with the inefficient placement of the stands.  Next, who’s to say that the location of the people has to be fixed? The first question ties in deeply to Clinton’s 2016 campaign; an obsession with being near the center leaves voters near the edges unhappy, and they end up staying home or voting for Jill Stein.  The answer to the second explains the importance of figures like Bernie Sanders and AOC; bold ideas, attractive messaging, and genuine desire for change has the Democratic Party promised for success in 2020 and beyond.

The best articulation of this is the Overton Window, a theory whose named was coined in the late 20th century by Joesph P. Overton, which explains just how vital the “New Left” wing of the Democratic Party is.  The theory goes that the mainstream discourse exists in a certain window, with its center being the “moderate” take, and its edges the farthest one can go without appearing extreme (and being dismissed).  Just 3 years ago, college tuition and Medicare for All fell outside this window and would have been disqualifying in a presidential candidate. The interesting thing about the Overton Window is that it is not a fixed box in space, immovable and restrictive; it is a fluid area that can be expanded, contracted, and pulled in either direction.

Bernie Sanders, through his grassroots campaign and social-media-friendly advertising, moved the Overton Window, putting M4A and other “socialist” policies on America’s radar.  In New York, AOC proved that such ideas were not simply possibilities, they were winning policy goals, as she upset a 10-year incumbent en route to becoming the youngest female ever elected to Congress.  As she leads the progressive charge, Republicans are taking notice, as many on the campaign trail made sure to tell voters they would protect their public health care. The point is not to say that the next president will pass Medicare for All or that a stronger Republican Party will not find answers to a growing swell of progressive support, but the lesson is this: too long have Democrats wholly misunderstood the game they are playing, as bold ideas populate the left, they do not weaken Democrats, they pull voters with them, making a stronger party for years to come.