On Friday (the 13th), the House Judiciary Committee passed a resolution to move forward on two counts of impeachment against President Trump. Now the full House will have a vote, probably some time next week. I think we can assume that the vote will go along party lines, meaning Trump will be impeached in the House and then it will move to the Senate, which I think we can also assume will move along party lines and Trump will not be removed.
The Committee held a number of public hearings leading up to this resolution, mostly with various Ambassadors, in proceedings that I thought were quite sober and tasteful, but didn't illuminate much beyond the original July phone transcription that was released in September. There was the one guy that thinks he may have overheard something in someone else's phone call and another lady that indignantly raged against conspiracy theories and the two guys that had conflicting memories of their various conversations. But none of that told us anything new about the nature of any arrangement between Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky (*).
The revelation of a working team centered around Rudy Giuliani (and likely included Sec State Pompeo and VP Pence) wasn't new, although the depth of their participation was eye-opening. That said, it is not uncommon for presidents to have their own Special Envoys or even teams that work directly from the White House on specific topics or actions with other nations. Was Giuliani doing anything criminal? I haven't seen any evidence of that (yet). And while it was clear this ruffled the feathers of the Ambassadors, I don't know that there was anything truly out of the ordinary going on (perhaps there was, perhaps not, no one has bothered to make the case either way). Indeed, the fact that these ambassadors had little to offer shows the very nature of Ambassadorships: they're not particularly involved with foreign policy formation, so why would they know anything?
The most celebrated testimony came from Ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland. As PBS Newhour reported on November 20: "“I know that members of this Committee have frequently framed these complicated issues in the form of a simple question: Was there a “quid pro quo?” As I testified previously, with regard to the requested White House call and White House meeting, the answer is yes,” Sondland said." The committee wanted to hear the phrase 'quid pro quo' and they got it but this is not in relation to the military aid but to a White House meeting. But in the course of the case being built this is a bait-and-switch. A White House meeting is always a quid pro quo--indeed, the whole point of a meeting with POTUS is so that he can thank the person for doing what POTUS wanted done! There has never been a White House meeting in all of American history that took place merely because the POTUS had time to kill. Meetings with the POTUS are highly scripted affairs where everyone involved knows precisely what is expected of them, they are planned with full knowledge ahead of time that everyone has/will play their part. And these meetings are often purely political with little benefit to the American people or nation as a whole. To wit: where does it say in the Constitution that the POTUS shall invite the winner of the Super Bowl for a photo-op? What is the 'benefit' to the Republic of such a meeting? It happens every year for purely anodyne reasons and no one complains. And is pardoning a turkey at Thanksgiving every year done for the benefit of the Republic or is it just a bland opportunity for the sitting POTUS to enhance his own public relations? And, good God, what is politicized in Washington more than the State of the Union Address (**), where the POTUS gets to pat himself on the back and call attention to his political allies strategically placed throughout the chamber?
If American support of Ukraine is so important, wouldn't Congress want the POTUS to meet with President Zelensky in a very public fashion that acknowledges we stand with Ukraine against Russia? Why would Congress be punishing the President for a meeting when (a) it's the President's right to meet with whomever he chooses for whatever reason and (b) Congress presumably wants this meeting to take place? So while Sondland's quote won the daily soundbite war, it doesn't hold up to scrutiny. As for holding up aid, the various ambassadors had their various opinions on aid to Ukraine but none exhibited any particular knowledge of what was at work or why. Again: why would they know anything?
And as for the aid itself being 'held up' check out this CNN story from November 26 (https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/26/politics/ukraine-aid-trump-call-omb/index.html). The first paragraph says: "The White House budget office's first official action to withhold $250 million in Pentagon aid to Ukraine came on the evening of July 25, the same day President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke on the phone, according to a House Budget Committee summary of the office's documents." Then the third paragraph says: "A hold was placed on the Ukraine aid at the beginning of July, and the agencies were notified at a July 18 meeting that it had been frozen at the direction of the President, a week before the Trump-Zelensky call." Wait...what?
So was it held up on July 25? Or July 18? Or the 'beginning of July'? Was it before the phone call or after? Why is this so hard to figure out? And why hasn't this timeline been explicitly laid out if the aid being held up is so central to this proceeding?
And what of Zelensky himself? Did he feel pressure to actually do any of the things Trump wanted from him? On September 25 Time Magazine (***) published (https://time.com/5686305/zelensky-ukraine-denies-trump-pressure/) that Zelensky "Denied Trump Pressured Him to Investigate Biden's Son" based on a joint press conference Zelensky and Trump held that day where Zelensky said: "Nobody pushed me." But on November 18 Time published (https://time.com/5731647/ukraine-trump-biden-investigation-anxiety/) that "US Officials Knew Ukraine Felt 'Pressure' from Trump Administration to Investigate Biden" based on a May 7 closed-door meeting that included then-current US Ambassador to Ukraine Yovanovich. But even the weird CNN article above doesn't suggest that the Ukraine aid was held up in May, so...how does this time line work? And if the 'pressured' person says he wasn't pressured, then...how does...any of this...wait, what?
Was the aid actually held up? We've long since accepted that this as a basic fact but the 'prosecution' (re: the House Judiciary Committee) has not explicitly put the details forward and the defense (re: POTUS) has yet to participate in the proceedings, so are we sure this even happened? And if the person who has been pressured has said publicly he was not pressured, then has anything actually happened? How is it possible for a President to hold up aid? And what particular mechanisms did Trump employ and what was his stated rationale at the time and to whom? This should be quite easy to figure out, I don't understand why we don't know this yet.
What it looks like to me is that Trump tried to extort a gratuity for himself based on an already approved deal. The bi-partisan support for Ukraine suggests that this particular aid package was ironclad and Trump saw an opportunity for himself to get a little something extra out of Zelensky. Has the case been proved? The circumstantial evidence doesn't look good but I'd say there's enough legal room to reach an acquittal, which all serves to remind us that this is not a courtroom trial but a purely procedural vote that is more often than not just a party line expression. At the end of the day, Trump did not get the investigation he sought and Ukraine got the aid they were earmarked, so did anything actually happen? Is the attempt to possibly commit a crime really worth this much time and energy?
Assuming Trump is guilty of this attempted extortion, is this worthy of an impeachment in the House? Again, it doesn't matter whether it is 'worthy', all that matters is the vote itself. Thus, impeachment is, or can be, a relatively meaningless piece of agitprop. Is this worthy of removal of the POTUS? No. Now if the House showed that Trump had done this before or that this kind of grease was a pattern of behavior, then you'd have something. If Trump was systematically abusing power with, say, Lebanon, Taiwan, Poland, etc., then that would be worthy of shipping him out. But I don't see that case being made.
Indeed, the most galling thing about this procedure is the suggestion that this is the worst thing Trump has done in office. Seriously? Trump has completely warped USA's trade relations, most specifically with China, based on some minuscule, vague wording about national defense and the House thinks needling the President of Ukraine for something that means very little to Ukraine (or I would suggest to the American electorate) is worthy of impeachment? This is an abrogation of responsibility dressed up as an attempt do the right thing. *smh*
Trump's approval ratings are a stunning anomaly: no amount of Trump success makes them go up and no amount of Trump failures make them go down. Truly amazing and probably indicative of what future Presidents must have. Has the impeachment damaged Trump? I'd say not at all. People who don't like Trump are eager to rush for any excuse to get him out of office but this impeachment proceeding only makes him stronger, I think.
So here's the new conspiracy theory: the House likes Trump's bizarre trading rationale vis-a-vis China and they know no one else is dumb enough to maintain such a potentially suicidal policy. President Hillary would've talked tough but wouldn't really have done much (especially since she, too, was backing away from TPP during the 2016 campaign), likewise with President Warren, President Biden would soft pedal China, President Bernie absolutely wouldn't treat China this way. Congress likes Trump's belligerent, haphazard treatment of China and they want him to keep doing it--they likely even see it as the most important thing on our current agenda. So they're rousting up Trump's base heading into the 2020 election. Honestly, I can't see any other rationale. Pelosi gets to say, 'Trump was evil and we tried to get him out'? Uhh, not really, as this does very little to make that happen. Or does this presage another impeachment in the future? Is a POTUS that has been impeached but not removed multiple times look like a big win for the Democrats? It doesn't to me but I'm not a Democrat.
I just don't get this. The case is not a slam dunk, the victim has claimed no victimhood, the Republic is not advanced by this impeachment any more than it was advanced by an investigation into Hunter Biden, the House has spent all of its political capital on a whimper rather than actually ginning up some interesting or useful legislation and the Democrats are really just beating the same dead horse they were going to be beating even this impeachment never happened. I think the whole point of this was to create enough ongoing controversy around Trump that Republicans in the House and the Senate up for reelection would have to deal with in a thorny uncomfortable way, potentially influencing those elections or at least interrupting the ability for the Republicans in general to raise funds. But I don't see that taking place. The only silver lining for Democrats: with Trump in office, donations to Dems are probably gonna be way up. What else gets achieved here? I...don't...see anything.
If this is the worst thing Trump has done in the last three years then he is officially the cleanest POTUS we've ever had. All this sturm und drang to convince us that Trump is a self-aggrandizing sleazy guy...dude, I already knew that. This has done nothing at all for anyone except Trump's chances for re-election. (****)
(*) Honestly the part I find most vexing is that Trump didn't seem to care about an investigation, he merely wanted an announcement of an investigation. I don't really know what to make of that. If the investigation will yield damning evidence about Hunter Biden, don't the American people to deserve to know? Likewise, if an investigation completely exonerates Hunter Biden, don't the American people deserve to know that? Seems like an investigation of Hunter Biden would only be damaging to the candidacy of Joe Biden if--and only if--it reveals disturbing revelations about Hunter Biden (and even then: do people really give a shit about what Hunter Biden does in Ukraine?). It seems to me there really can't be any effect on the 2020 USA election until AFTER the investigation is completed and revealed. And even then, it would only potentially effect how people vote, which is not an effect on the election itself. So what good/bad/otherwise is accrued from an announcement of an investigation if no subsequent investigation is performed? WTF, dude? I don't understand how any of this effects anything in any way and the fact that Trump only wanted the appearance of an investigation makes even less sense.
(**) The Constitution says an annual State of the Union shall be given to the Congress by the President. But it doesn't say it has to be televised in prime time for the sake of the POTUS tooting his own horn or making a display of his political cronies. This is an annual disgrace the Republic would be better off getting rid of.
(***) I've generally been trying to link to Left-wing media sites but, honestly I had no idea Time Magazine still existed, so not sure whether they'd be right or left at this point. When I was kid Time and Newsweek were the only political magazines around, they always seemed rather bland in that softly Left way that for-real 'journalism' used to pride itself on. Now I dunno what Time is like or who reads it. Although, if the November 18 article went back to a May 7 meeting, why didn't Time know about that on September 25?
(****) As a voting American I assure you I couldn't care less what Hunter Biden was doing in Ukraine. If the Ukrainians were so offended by his conduct that they had to indict him or deport him or whatever, that is entirely their business. But even then, Hunter Biden's activities would have no effect whatsoever on my vote. Also, for what it's worth, now seems like the most perfectly awkward moment to admit that Joe Biden is one of the very very very few politicians of my life time that I actually like. And watching Democrats shy away from not merely their best candidate in general but the only one that I think can actually beat Trump...and, well, the Pelosi-wants-Trump-to-win conspiracy theory begins to look plainly obvious.
Sunday, December 15, 2019
Monday, October 21, 2019
Violence rocks Barcelona after 500,000 Catalans rally | DW News
Weird: Barcelona loves pro basketball, so why isn't this a bigger story?
"Violence gets more media attending than marches."
Hundreds of thousands protest corruption in Beirut | Capital Connection
Just think: if Lebanese people liked pro basketball, this is all we'd be talking about right now.
Chile protests: Curfew extended as chaos in capital
Just think: if Chileans liked pro basketball, this is all we'd be talking about right now.
Wednesday, October 16, 2019
Hong Kong
"We should take to the streets first and then decide what to do."
-- Anonymous protester in Hong Kong (on or around October 13, 2019)
Protests in Hong Kong erupted in May when Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam introduced a bill to allow mainland China to extradite criminal suspects from Hong Kong for trial. Hong Kongers immediately took to the streets to protest this action and were able to get the bill removed from consideration (for now) back in June. The protests continued because...well, because protesters gottta protest.
Last week, Houston Rockets general manager, Darryl Morey, re-tweeted a comment supporting the ongoing protests in Hong Kong. Harmless enough, a bland tweet about actions a million miles away that I presume Morey thought would yield a coupla 'likes' and then be forgotten under the weight of a gajillion new tweets. But this was not the case. Authorities in Beijing were offended that the head of China's favorite basketball team (*) would throw shade at the ruling party and give support to what they see as rioters in their (roughly) 7th largest city. Morey deleted the tweet and the commissioner of the NBA, Adam Silver, immediately issued an apology for the tweet and distanced his league from the actions of one of its team's employees. Chinese broadcasters still announced their intention to remove all NBA games from local television--even the pre-season games being played at the time in China--and all Houston Rockets gear was subsequently removed from sporting goods stores and sites across China (most notably Nike).
Around this time Blizzard Entertainment, one of the world's largest video game developers and publishers, banned one of their players in a Blizzard-sponsored competition after he made pro-Hong Kong comments during a post-victory interview. This has earned Blizzard a great deal of on-line vitriol from the gaming community (**).
Americans look at these kerfuffles and likely think, "Right on! Those people just want freedom and democracy! Why are American companies kowtowing (***) to China?" Lebron James, just last night, criticized Morey's tweet in serpentine language worthy of a political candidate, and has already suffered the wrath of Hong Kong protesters burning his jersey.
Let's take a quick overview of Chinese history. China as we know it more or less goes back to roughly 1050BC when the Zhou dynasty came to power. The Zhou basically peaked at that time and slowly withered away over the next 800 years or so before devolving into the Warring States Period, which was 400 years or so of chaos where smaller states asserted themselves over a singular empire. The Warring States eventually consolidated into the Qin Dynasty, where we get the name 'China' as this was roughly the time when the Chinese and the Romans became aware of each other; they are perhaps most notable for consolidating the written Chinese language that is still (more or less) in use to this day. The Qin collapsed pretty quick and gave way to the Han Dynasty, where we get the ethnic name of the Chinese people (still referred to as the Han Chinese).
Long before all that, there were people along the Yellow River that settled into clumps and had to periodically fight off interlopers from the steppes of central Asia. An 'empire' arose out of the consolidation of villages as they banded together to fight off incoming hordes. Now the hordes came and went and the 'empire' would come and go, as well, reappearing when necessary but going dormant when the threats died down. Over time, though, the necessity of empire won out, as seen in the fact that the empire produced continuity whereas the nomads from the steppe may produce an excellent general from time to time, but otherwise didn't build much or evolve as a consistently dominant force. Empire survived whether strong or not, nomads just drifted and only occasionally made a difference. The aforementioned Zhou Dynasty, for example, springs to life but then meanders for centuries because it doesn't really do anything the people need done. There are periods in the Zhou years, for example, where the emperor is more of a religious figure than a political one because he doesn't actually have much real power, so he had to grip on to symbolic power just to stay relevant.
During the Zhou period lived a man named Confucius. In the West, we think of Confucius as a spiritual force, a great ponderer on life but I'd suggest that's not the case at all. Confucius was a man of stark practicality whose message is really about getting a job and being useful to the polity of the time. He was very temporal, very pragmatic and his message is that the highest form of life is to serve the emperor. Over time--and it took more centuries than it seems like it should have!--emperors took up the message of Confucius and began to form academies where Confucian thought was extolled and tested. This formed the backbone of the political bureaucracy until well into the 20th century (and I would suggest the modern Chinese Communist Party serves much the same function in much the same way with much the same propaganda, albeit now directed to the Party itself rather than the leader).
I could continue to recount dynasties and the inter-dynastic periods of hardship but I'll just sum them up thusly: empire would rise, then fall apart, then come back together, then fall apart, etc., until around 1900 when it completely collapsed and was reborn as something new. At any rate, the point is the long and ancient history of China is the empire rising against an outside force, collapsing from within, then reemerging, over and over again. But some things remain constant: the written language, the Mandate of Heaven (whereby the emperor ruled), the Middle Kingdom (a real thing and a symbolic thing in equal measure), the Confucian Bureaucracy and (generally) the fealty of the individual states to the concept of a central imperial presence. Rather than falling into a pile of competing states (like Europe), they stayed a single unified entity with core values and communication and practices, even in the periods when it all fell apart.
The empire has not overcome every challenge--no, the empire fell apart numerous times in the last 3000 years. But the core concepts and the desire for unification are ancient. And fighting outside forces is when the Chinese are most united.
Back to the history lesson: the Chinese had a period of good growth and relative calm from roughly about 1690 to 1820. They finally defeated their Mongol enemies, they turned Tibet from an enemy to a protectorate, they signed treaties with other countries for the first time (thus, acknowledging that there are lands beyond the Mandate of Heaven), the population boomed, the economy (re: agriculture and manufacturing) was good for an extended period and they had a run of long-lasting emperors that provided continuity relatively rare in their history. Then the Europeans showed up and all that turned to shit.
The French invaded Vietnam, the Japanese invaded Taiwan and the Ryukyu Islands, Russia held large chunks Xianjiang, the Portuguese took Macau, the Americans used Most Favored Nation status as a way to really crack open Chinese economy and the Brits wanted more than the rest. The Chinese were bewildered by all of this as they had no interest in anything these foreigners had to offer and no need of their 'diplomacy'. But they put up with it all until the opium epidemic swept their lands in the early 19th century and they felt they had to outlaw it to save their population. This angered the British, who made good money off the opium trade in China (****) and they came at the minuscule Chinese military with the furious wrath of the world's finest navy and broke down the Chinese will. The Chinese reversed their laws, imported massive amounts of deadly opium which kept their population weak but their foreign overlords pleased. And in the settlement the British took Hong Kong.
In later years the Chinese were able to finagle an end date for the British occupation of Hong Kong and in 1997 Hong Kong was formally returned to China. Now by 1997 the Chinese Communist Party (in a rare correct reading of Marx) had embraced entrepreneurial capitalism and saw Hong Kong as a way to be a financial bridge to the markets of the world; and likewise, the people of Hong Kong had grown up with a lifestyle not quite in step with mainland China, so the two groups were agreed that separate identities and practices were mutually beneficial. So Hong Kong has a unique place in Chinese culture: it is part of China, no longer controlled by foreign forces, but its ways are a bit alien to the rest of Chinese culture (which in this context is referred to as the 'Mainland').
And that brings us up to today. And the protests and such. So what is that the protesters in Hong Kong want? They have a separate identity, they have more freedom and wealth already than the rest of their Chinese brethren. They don't want to be submitted to the Chinese judiciary (*****), but that issue has been removed already. Now the claim is they want 'democracy', the iconography of which has taken the form of visualizations of the Statue of Liberty, waving the American flag and readings of the American constitution. But is that really what's going on?
Watch the video above, posted by the South China Morning Post (*****) on October 13. What do you see? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIqx3YIHntc)
Do you see people yearning to breathe free under the yoke of a violent tyrannical gov't? I don't. I see pointless vandalism. I see people taking to the streets with the intent of blocking the way of their fellow non-protesting citizens. I see the people threatening the police, not the other way around. I don't see any desire for democracy, nor do I see a gov't making much effort to stem the tide of the wanton destruction of a tiny portion of its citizenry.
This is what Daryl Morey supports? This is what gamers all over the world support? This is what activists and freedom fighters support? This is what the United States Congress (in three resolutions just passed by the House of Representatives) supports? This is what we are shaming Lebron James and the NBA and Blizzard Entertainment for not supporting?
A thought experiment: what if the NBA said that their marketing this year was going to be all about Donald Trump, MAGA hats for everybody, signage at the arenas extolling the virtues of 'Trumpism', making basketball great again, etc.--how do you think that would go over with the NBA's core fans in the USA? I think it'd be a bad idea and wouldn't work well at all. Oh sure, a handful of media outlets and Twitter accounts that currently have no need for the NBA would cheer but I think it'd be a pretty tiny portion of the population and wouldn't make up for how many fans the NBA would alienate. And I don't think the players would much care for it either.
Well, that's what supporting the Hong Kong protests is like to the mainland Chinese that make up the NBA's fanbase in Asia. The mainlanders look at the Hong Kongers as people already spoiled with too much money, too much foreign influence and too much freedom--and now they're rioting in the streets for more? I assure you, my fellow Americans, these Hong Kong protest are NOT popular with regular Chinese people. Hell, I doubt they're even popular in Hong Kong! Gambits like shutting down the airport and the train stations and looting the shopping malls is of no use to the vast majority of those people. And if these protests look like massive numbers of people, remember: Hong Kong has 7,000,000 people and those pictures show only a tiny percentage of that total population. Distancing themselves from this is the right move for the NBA (and Blizzard, too).
To the rest of the Chinese people, trying to get ahead through education and stock market investment, these protests are a sign of betrayal, weakness and ignorance. The idea that the Chinese people need American political activity is frankly just rude. They like having a central leader that does all the things they don't have to worry about. They don't look at USA's fractious political debates and think, 'Yeah, we need more of that'. No! They don't. And supporting the fringe that has adopted American-style protest is not a winning strategy for American companies, nor is it respectful to the Chinese people themselves.
I'm a big fan of the American founding fathers. I view the United States Constitution and the Declaration of Independence as two of the greatest works in human history. I don't see these protests in Hong Kong as IN ANY WAY representative of a fundamental desire for representation or progress or freedom. Indeed, in the context of Chinese culture, this is just childish behavior with no meaningful intent whatsoever.
My complaint about China is that it is a mono-culture that seeks to produce only the average. In 4,000 years of Chinese there's no Thomas Jefferson or Thomas Edison, no Bill Gates, no Jimi Hendrix, no Emily Dickinson, no Micheal Jordan or Mark Twain--that's what they need! They need self-expression through intellectual and artistic achievement, not rioting in the streets. They need the NBA and Blizzard (and South Park, too, for that matter) more than they need Occupy Wall Street.
Make no mistake: the reason Lebron James backed away from Morey's tweet is because Lebron wants to make gajillions of dollars and knows that China is the place to do it. Lebron needs China. But even more than that: China needs Lebron. And American do-gooders that believe what they see on TV might well be the death of a beautiful relationship and that would be a god damn shame.
(*) Fun fact: mainland China has more basketball fans than the USA has people.
(**) Also recently the show South Park feuded with the Chinese gov't and has since been banned from Chinese TV. I'll gloss over this because (a) they court controversy as a matter of course and (b) as resilient as South Park has managed to be over the years, they are not the day in/day out obsession that sports and video games are.
(***) The term "kowtow" comes from China and specifically refers to showing obeisance to the Chinese emperor. Kinda refreshing that it is finally getting used in its original definition.
(****) ....As did a man named Warren Delano. Ever heard of him? Give him a Google.
(*****) In my humble opinion China needs two things: an independent media and an independent judiciary. The Communist Party is everything in China and the legislature, the executive, the military and the banks are cool with that because it does flow from a long a tradition of one-party rule. But a judiciary that is beholden to centralized political forces is not much of a judiciary. You may complain as much about the American judiciary and while I'm no fan of the two-party system we've anchored ourselves to, I'd suggest our judges are vastly freer to interpret precedent in this country than...well, anywhere else in the world or in the history of civilization. And the media needs to allow the people to be free, to make their own choices and make up their own minds. Indeed, what good is a gov't that doesn't allow the people to be people?
(******) In case you think the South China Morning Post is a pro-Beijing rag, I assure you it is not. It is a Hong Kong dissident paper that delights in Beijing's failings.
-- Anonymous protester in Hong Kong (on or around October 13, 2019)
Protests in Hong Kong erupted in May when Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam introduced a bill to allow mainland China to extradite criminal suspects from Hong Kong for trial. Hong Kongers immediately took to the streets to protest this action and were able to get the bill removed from consideration (for now) back in June. The protests continued because...well, because protesters gottta protest.
Last week, Houston Rockets general manager, Darryl Morey, re-tweeted a comment supporting the ongoing protests in Hong Kong. Harmless enough, a bland tweet about actions a million miles away that I presume Morey thought would yield a coupla 'likes' and then be forgotten under the weight of a gajillion new tweets. But this was not the case. Authorities in Beijing were offended that the head of China's favorite basketball team (*) would throw shade at the ruling party and give support to what they see as rioters in their (roughly) 7th largest city. Morey deleted the tweet and the commissioner of the NBA, Adam Silver, immediately issued an apology for the tweet and distanced his league from the actions of one of its team's employees. Chinese broadcasters still announced their intention to remove all NBA games from local television--even the pre-season games being played at the time in China--and all Houston Rockets gear was subsequently removed from sporting goods stores and sites across China (most notably Nike).
Around this time Blizzard Entertainment, one of the world's largest video game developers and publishers, banned one of their players in a Blizzard-sponsored competition after he made pro-Hong Kong comments during a post-victory interview. This has earned Blizzard a great deal of on-line vitriol from the gaming community (**).
Americans look at these kerfuffles and likely think, "Right on! Those people just want freedom and democracy! Why are American companies kowtowing (***) to China?" Lebron James, just last night, criticized Morey's tweet in serpentine language worthy of a political candidate, and has already suffered the wrath of Hong Kong protesters burning his jersey.
Let's take a quick overview of Chinese history. China as we know it more or less goes back to roughly 1050BC when the Zhou dynasty came to power. The Zhou basically peaked at that time and slowly withered away over the next 800 years or so before devolving into the Warring States Period, which was 400 years or so of chaos where smaller states asserted themselves over a singular empire. The Warring States eventually consolidated into the Qin Dynasty, where we get the name 'China' as this was roughly the time when the Chinese and the Romans became aware of each other; they are perhaps most notable for consolidating the written Chinese language that is still (more or less) in use to this day. The Qin collapsed pretty quick and gave way to the Han Dynasty, where we get the ethnic name of the Chinese people (still referred to as the Han Chinese).
Long before all that, there were people along the Yellow River that settled into clumps and had to periodically fight off interlopers from the steppes of central Asia. An 'empire' arose out of the consolidation of villages as they banded together to fight off incoming hordes. Now the hordes came and went and the 'empire' would come and go, as well, reappearing when necessary but going dormant when the threats died down. Over time, though, the necessity of empire won out, as seen in the fact that the empire produced continuity whereas the nomads from the steppe may produce an excellent general from time to time, but otherwise didn't build much or evolve as a consistently dominant force. Empire survived whether strong or not, nomads just drifted and only occasionally made a difference. The aforementioned Zhou Dynasty, for example, springs to life but then meanders for centuries because it doesn't really do anything the people need done. There are periods in the Zhou years, for example, where the emperor is more of a religious figure than a political one because he doesn't actually have much real power, so he had to grip on to symbolic power just to stay relevant.
During the Zhou period lived a man named Confucius. In the West, we think of Confucius as a spiritual force, a great ponderer on life but I'd suggest that's not the case at all. Confucius was a man of stark practicality whose message is really about getting a job and being useful to the polity of the time. He was very temporal, very pragmatic and his message is that the highest form of life is to serve the emperor. Over time--and it took more centuries than it seems like it should have!--emperors took up the message of Confucius and began to form academies where Confucian thought was extolled and tested. This formed the backbone of the political bureaucracy until well into the 20th century (and I would suggest the modern Chinese Communist Party serves much the same function in much the same way with much the same propaganda, albeit now directed to the Party itself rather than the leader).
I could continue to recount dynasties and the inter-dynastic periods of hardship but I'll just sum them up thusly: empire would rise, then fall apart, then come back together, then fall apart, etc., until around 1900 when it completely collapsed and was reborn as something new. At any rate, the point is the long and ancient history of China is the empire rising against an outside force, collapsing from within, then reemerging, over and over again. But some things remain constant: the written language, the Mandate of Heaven (whereby the emperor ruled), the Middle Kingdom (a real thing and a symbolic thing in equal measure), the Confucian Bureaucracy and (generally) the fealty of the individual states to the concept of a central imperial presence. Rather than falling into a pile of competing states (like Europe), they stayed a single unified entity with core values and communication and practices, even in the periods when it all fell apart.
The empire has not overcome every challenge--no, the empire fell apart numerous times in the last 3000 years. But the core concepts and the desire for unification are ancient. And fighting outside forces is when the Chinese are most united.
Back to the history lesson: the Chinese had a period of good growth and relative calm from roughly about 1690 to 1820. They finally defeated their Mongol enemies, they turned Tibet from an enemy to a protectorate, they signed treaties with other countries for the first time (thus, acknowledging that there are lands beyond the Mandate of Heaven), the population boomed, the economy (re: agriculture and manufacturing) was good for an extended period and they had a run of long-lasting emperors that provided continuity relatively rare in their history. Then the Europeans showed up and all that turned to shit.
The French invaded Vietnam, the Japanese invaded Taiwan and the Ryukyu Islands, Russia held large chunks Xianjiang, the Portuguese took Macau, the Americans used Most Favored Nation status as a way to really crack open Chinese economy and the Brits wanted more than the rest. The Chinese were bewildered by all of this as they had no interest in anything these foreigners had to offer and no need of their 'diplomacy'. But they put up with it all until the opium epidemic swept their lands in the early 19th century and they felt they had to outlaw it to save their population. This angered the British, who made good money off the opium trade in China (****) and they came at the minuscule Chinese military with the furious wrath of the world's finest navy and broke down the Chinese will. The Chinese reversed their laws, imported massive amounts of deadly opium which kept their population weak but their foreign overlords pleased. And in the settlement the British took Hong Kong.
In later years the Chinese were able to finagle an end date for the British occupation of Hong Kong and in 1997 Hong Kong was formally returned to China. Now by 1997 the Chinese Communist Party (in a rare correct reading of Marx) had embraced entrepreneurial capitalism and saw Hong Kong as a way to be a financial bridge to the markets of the world; and likewise, the people of Hong Kong had grown up with a lifestyle not quite in step with mainland China, so the two groups were agreed that separate identities and practices were mutually beneficial. So Hong Kong has a unique place in Chinese culture: it is part of China, no longer controlled by foreign forces, but its ways are a bit alien to the rest of Chinese culture (which in this context is referred to as the 'Mainland').
And that brings us up to today. And the protests and such. So what is that the protesters in Hong Kong want? They have a separate identity, they have more freedom and wealth already than the rest of their Chinese brethren. They don't want to be submitted to the Chinese judiciary (*****), but that issue has been removed already. Now the claim is they want 'democracy', the iconography of which has taken the form of visualizations of the Statue of Liberty, waving the American flag and readings of the American constitution. But is that really what's going on?
Watch the video above, posted by the South China Morning Post (*****) on October 13. What do you see? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIqx3YIHntc)
Do you see people yearning to breathe free under the yoke of a violent tyrannical gov't? I don't. I see pointless vandalism. I see people taking to the streets with the intent of blocking the way of their fellow non-protesting citizens. I see the people threatening the police, not the other way around. I don't see any desire for democracy, nor do I see a gov't making much effort to stem the tide of the wanton destruction of a tiny portion of its citizenry.
This is what Daryl Morey supports? This is what gamers all over the world support? This is what activists and freedom fighters support? This is what the United States Congress (in three resolutions just passed by the House of Representatives) supports? This is what we are shaming Lebron James and the NBA and Blizzard Entertainment for not supporting?
A thought experiment: what if the NBA said that their marketing this year was going to be all about Donald Trump, MAGA hats for everybody, signage at the arenas extolling the virtues of 'Trumpism', making basketball great again, etc.--how do you think that would go over with the NBA's core fans in the USA? I think it'd be a bad idea and wouldn't work well at all. Oh sure, a handful of media outlets and Twitter accounts that currently have no need for the NBA would cheer but I think it'd be a pretty tiny portion of the population and wouldn't make up for how many fans the NBA would alienate. And I don't think the players would much care for it either.
Well, that's what supporting the Hong Kong protests is like to the mainland Chinese that make up the NBA's fanbase in Asia. The mainlanders look at the Hong Kongers as people already spoiled with too much money, too much foreign influence and too much freedom--and now they're rioting in the streets for more? I assure you, my fellow Americans, these Hong Kong protest are NOT popular with regular Chinese people. Hell, I doubt they're even popular in Hong Kong! Gambits like shutting down the airport and the train stations and looting the shopping malls is of no use to the vast majority of those people. And if these protests look like massive numbers of people, remember: Hong Kong has 7,000,000 people and those pictures show only a tiny percentage of that total population. Distancing themselves from this is the right move for the NBA (and Blizzard, too).
To the rest of the Chinese people, trying to get ahead through education and stock market investment, these protests are a sign of betrayal, weakness and ignorance. The idea that the Chinese people need American political activity is frankly just rude. They like having a central leader that does all the things they don't have to worry about. They don't look at USA's fractious political debates and think, 'Yeah, we need more of that'. No! They don't. And supporting the fringe that has adopted American-style protest is not a winning strategy for American companies, nor is it respectful to the Chinese people themselves.
I'm a big fan of the American founding fathers. I view the United States Constitution and the Declaration of Independence as two of the greatest works in human history. I don't see these protests in Hong Kong as IN ANY WAY representative of a fundamental desire for representation or progress or freedom. Indeed, in the context of Chinese culture, this is just childish behavior with no meaningful intent whatsoever.
My complaint about China is that it is a mono-culture that seeks to produce only the average. In 4,000 years of Chinese there's no Thomas Jefferson or Thomas Edison, no Bill Gates, no Jimi Hendrix, no Emily Dickinson, no Micheal Jordan or Mark Twain--that's what they need! They need self-expression through intellectual and artistic achievement, not rioting in the streets. They need the NBA and Blizzard (and South Park, too, for that matter) more than they need Occupy Wall Street.
Make no mistake: the reason Lebron James backed away from Morey's tweet is because Lebron wants to make gajillions of dollars and knows that China is the place to do it. Lebron needs China. But even more than that: China needs Lebron. And American do-gooders that believe what they see on TV might well be the death of a beautiful relationship and that would be a god damn shame.
(*) Fun fact: mainland China has more basketball fans than the USA has people.
(**) Also recently the show South Park feuded with the Chinese gov't and has since been banned from Chinese TV. I'll gloss over this because (a) they court controversy as a matter of course and (b) as resilient as South Park has managed to be over the years, they are not the day in/day out obsession that sports and video games are.
(***) The term "kowtow" comes from China and specifically refers to showing obeisance to the Chinese emperor. Kinda refreshing that it is finally getting used in its original definition.
(****) ....As did a man named Warren Delano. Ever heard of him? Give him a Google.
(*****) In my humble opinion China needs two things: an independent media and an independent judiciary. The Communist Party is everything in China and the legislature, the executive, the military and the banks are cool with that because it does flow from a long a tradition of one-party rule. But a judiciary that is beholden to centralized political forces is not much of a judiciary. You may complain as much about the American judiciary and while I'm no fan of the two-party system we've anchored ourselves to, I'd suggest our judges are vastly freer to interpret precedent in this country than...well, anywhere else in the world or in the history of civilization. And the media needs to allow the people to be free, to make their own choices and make up their own minds. Indeed, what good is a gov't that doesn't allow the people to be people?
(******) In case you think the South China Morning Post is a pro-Beijing rag, I assure you it is not. It is a Hong Kong dissident paper that delights in Beijing's failings.
Tuesday, October 1, 2019
Impeachment (Phase One)
...And it begins. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announced last week the intention to form an inquiry into the impeachment of President Trump. This is just a trial balloon but a notable one because, to mix a metaphor, the balloon is out of the barn and now it will become the bedrock of general conversation for the next 12 months or so, taking us right up to the edge of the next presidential election. Funny: this is supposed to be a reaction to entities trying to influence the next election but I can't think of a bigger influence on the next election than this inquiry.
This all kicked off when a whistleblower (anonymous) report suggested that in July Trump had had a phone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the transcript of which had been put into a secret file rather than the regular public file, which in and of itself may be indicative of some criminality in the conversation itself.
I assume there will be a lot more coming over the next 12 months or so and bombshells and Trump gaffes are certainly possible. But upon first look: this doesn't look like much to me and I feel like going for impeachment is a bit of an overreach.
Under pressure, the White House released the "transcript" (*) of a July phone call between Trump and Zelensky. Trump opponents suggest that Trump's request for an investigation into Hunter Biden, the son of the presumptive (for now) Democratic nominee for the 2020 election, represents pressuring a foreign leader into interfering with a presidential election. To me the language looks pretty colloquial: Trump doesn't say he will hold up the approved aid to Ukraine, he simply moves the conversation to another topic. I would suggest that mentioning two different things in the same conversation does not equal a quid pro quo. Furthermore, the investigation of Biden was already under way, so where is the pressure? And if the Ukrainian investigation yields unpleasant info about Biden or his son, then why is that a bad thing? Is the implication that because Joe Biden is running for president that he is above investigation and that his family can no longer be suspected of a crime? And how would a foreign investigation be unconstitutional or a violation of Biden's rights as an American citizen? As for the aid itself, it was approved in June and delivered in September, which in federal gov't terms is not long at all, so what was the threat?
To me the awkward part of the conversation for Trump is he seems to be equating his personal lawyer (Giuliani) with the attorney general of the United States (Bill Barr) and that's weird to say the least and indicates that this is purely a private matter and not a criminal investigation. And I'm eager to hear the details of the holdup on Ukrainian aid: when did Trump stop the aid? What was his reasoning and language for doing so? How does a president stop aid that has been pledged by Congress, the State Department and the Pentagon? And when/how was the block on aid lifted?
According to the whistleblower memo, Trump's conversation with Zelensky was at first treated like all such conversations: it was transcribed by listeners and then passed on to certain other agencies (I know the memo mentions the State Department, I'm pretty sure it mentions or at least suggests others as well) and then logged as normal in a public file. It was after this period of normality that certain White House figures decided to re-route the transcript from the normal file to the special secret file. But, according to the memo, the original transcript was sent out to other agencies before it got re-classified. I presume this is the reason for the subpoena to SecState Pompeo, who theoretically should have the pre-classified transcript (and is otherwise just a big ol' target for Trump-haters in the House). I presume we'll see a few more of those subpoenas because there should be other pre-classified transcripts floating around out there. Is this out of the ordinary? (I have no idea) Are there other such re-routed transcriptions? (I dunno, will we even find out?) Will this yield impeachment-worthy stuff? (Ehh, I kinda doubt it but that's no reason not to look)
The key (at first) will be the records that the White House keeps secret (or secret-ish) and what oversight Congress actually has over those records. Can Congress demand the logs or even the contents of these files? I dunno, but I'm guessing an exhaustive history of every time Congress has asked for stuff and the White House's response will be forthcoming, whether in defense or prosecution. So will this lead to a deeper look into the secret file? Maybe, I wouldn't say 'definitely', because determining what is actually in that file is entirely up to the White House and what they choose is (I would suggest) an in-born parameter of Executive Privilege: the Prez doesn't really have the ability to share everything and, while some purely political nonsense will be shielded in this manner, it simply is not possible for Congress to receive all that it wants. And how could anyone actually verify that anything released from those files was complete or thorough? (Trick question: no one can)
It is worth noting that this is not a criminal trial, this is not a matter for the courts. This is a Congressional action that requires only a (party line) vote and needn't concern itself with evidence or witnesses (the whistleblower acknowledges that "he" was not a witness to any of his various accusations) and doesn't really do any of that beyond a shadow of doubt stuff that an ordinary citizen would receive. Hey, man, that's just how this works and the POTUS is not an ordinary citizen.
Pelosi was reticent to go forward with the impeachment and I'd say it's because she's in a World Cup conundrum: when a coach does poorly in a World Cup, he gets fired; when he does well in a World Cup, he goes off to a better job. Either way, he's not coaching the team in the next Cup. Likewise, with Pelosi: if this effort fails, she will be cannibalized by the Dems and drummed out of office; if she's successful, she'll be a folk hero, an important talking head for life and a worthy party fundraiser, but being Speaker will probably become more trouble than it's worth. So no matter what ends up happening with Trump, I think this is Pelosi's swan song. Her mission is to take one for the team with the hope of driving public opinion away from Trump heading into the 2020 election.
So where does this all go? Well, I'd say getting Trump out of office is not likely. Perhaps several months of constant Congressional attack will push the Senate Republicans to topple, but I doubt it. It's not impossible: Trump has no shortage of powerful enemies that would love to put the shiv in him, so if his support in the Senate begins to wobble, it could go downhill very quickly. If the public opinion becomes too much to bear, then the Senate will have to follow suit and run him out. (Trump has already begun throwing shade at Vice President Pence just in case Pence develops support as a potential white knight; also, don't be surprised if the ghost of John Bolton ends up taking a lot of blame) Trump's greatest liability is himself: he clearly has no grasp of how Washington works, he keeps trying to run the White House like he ran his company but the two entities are not the same. I think House Dems are employing a 'give-him-enough-rope' strategy and Trump is the kind of idiot braggart that could well hang himself. We'll see if death by tweet is listed on his death certificate.
Trump's crime here is being a neophyte politician--which is precisely what won him the election to begin with. But what was attractive to voters is deadly to the actual candidate who doesn't know what he's doing. Trump was under investigation prior to being inaugurated and he fought it with stonewalling, prevarication and outright lies, all of which work just fine in open court, but not so well when dealing with federal prosecutors. Trump has played lawyers against each other numerous times in his life but the White House is not a courtroom and in the court of public opinion double jeopardy just keeps going and going. Trump tried to connive personal support out of James Comey and it backfired badly; the way you cajole loyalty from a junior VP doesn't work as well on the head of the FBI. Trump thought firing Gen. Flynn would end the investigation; it did not. He thought Mueller's inability to hang anything notable on him (or Russia, for that matter) would be the end of it; it was not. In the game of politics the players are active 24 hours a day whether they've won or lost, simply surviving is nice but not enough. And remember: the House Democrats don't need 'evidence', they just need to call a vote.
Trump's supporters love his ability to enter the realm of the liberal media and stick fingers in the eyes of the culture warriors. But I'm not at all convinced they love anything else about him. Trump thinks they love him but if his ability to credibly inflict pain on the social media elite dissipates, then Trump's support will be gone in a flash. And once he's out of office, the politics won't stop, he's a lifelong prisoner to it now. (Ever heard of Wang Mang? Or Oliver_Cromwell? Study up on them, because I suspect Trump's future looks a lot like what happened to them)
Trump's detractors already hate everything about the man and won't need anything more than what they've seen to vote him out. But do we want an American power structure where a sitting president can be removed for any conversation that looks goofy on paper? If this was the impetus to ridding ourselves of all corruption once and for all, that'd be great! If we just needed a sacrificial lamb to slaughter to redeem all our sins and finally become the nation we were supposed to be, then I'd be all for letting Donald J. Trump be that lamb and let him carry the sins of America to his grave. But I don't think it works that way. Indeed, I think an impeachment here would be giving in to the inchoate mob that only wants to hang their unceasing frustration on someone else. If we give them Trump, they'll want more--and the next time it'll be the other side feeling like they've earned some bloodletting, too. Do you really think President Warren walks comfortably into the post-impeachment White House? Do you really think President Pence will be the savior we need to restore order?
Doomsayers love to compare contemporary USA to the Roman Empire. Rome fell and one day so will we (I'm not actually convinced that's true, the world is an entirely different place today, but it seems reasonable to most, I guess). They point to the imbalances in the economy, the militarism, the dishonorable treatment of foreigners. I've been reading lately on Rome and I don't think any of those comparisons last beyond the average mediocre cable news 'debate'. I think the real downfall of Rome was the perversion of their political processes, the way senators began tabling measures rather than voting on them, skewing the system rather than making their cases and playing it out, and the endless and fruitless argument over the concept of citizenship. The doomsayers haven't reached for this conclusion--which is precisely why I'm starting to fear they may be right! They don't see themselves as the bringers of the doom but they could be.
To me the danger of Trump isn't Trump himself but what comes after. I'm convinced the Republican Party is completely broken now and the Democratic Party is wobbling further out of control. And the message of Trump is non-politicians cannot be allowed to survive or can only survive by further perverting the system. What comes next is going to be worse and impeachment could be the worse. Flinging out a duly elected president because you didn't bother to win the election is not a good way to go (that's how California got Governor Schwarzenegger, you may recall).
So who benefits from this? Well, the bizarre possible answer is Trump. If he survives, he'll be stronger than ever, virtually impervious to attack of any kind--indeed, I'd say he needs this, he needs to overcome impeachment to really cement his standing as one of the great partisan hacks of all time because if he doesn't...bad things, man. But until we know the outcome I'd say the winner is Elizabeth Warren, who gets to distance herself from Trump and Biden simultaneously now. Or perhaps the collective prosecutorial spirit will revive the chances of Kamala Harris. And certainly a new bright shining star could emerge from the Democrats in the House or the Republicans in the Senate. And, of course, Mike Pence could go from nobody to Prez before all this is done. But I don't think this raises the hopes of the pseudo-challengers on the Republican side, nor does much for the other Democratic candidates (Buttigieg, Beto, Klobuchar get pushed even further from recognition, although this could give Cory Booker a chance to re-boot, to bring a new perspective on the whole situation). Sure Bernie gets to be even more Bernie, he gets to be louder and Bernier, but I think his time as a serious candidate has passed and I don't see this as an opportunity for him to win back lost voters.
Okay, you ready for the conspiracy theory? This isn't about getting rid of Trump (of which I'd say there's roughly a 1-in-5 chance), I think it's about getting rid of Joe Biden. If we're gonna spend the next several months digging into Trump's dealings in Ukraine we're going find out a lot about Biden's dealings in Ukraine, which won't seem any better and will only get him married with Trump in public opinion, which does not bode well for him. For the Warren wing of the Democratic Party this is two birds with one stone. Seems weird but I think Biden may take the brunt of this.
Still a long way to go, new files and transcripts to dig into, more accusations and shouting to come. Politically speaking this will suck the oxygen out of every room for the next 10-12 months, this will be everyone's main talking point, not much else will seem important (no matter how hard Iran tries). And when it is all said and done, we may have a new president, a new secretary of state, a new speaker of the House, and possibly even brand new Republican and Democrat nominees for the 2020 election. Vladimir Putin has never effected an election the way Nancy Pelosi is about to.
(*) Transcript-ish. Thorough but no reason to think this is complete. Was the call recorded? The White House tends to tape everything but taping a phone call with another foreign leader is pretty hacky, so even odds if there is audio of this conversation.
This all kicked off when a whistleblower (anonymous) report suggested that in July Trump had had a phone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the transcript of which had been put into a secret file rather than the regular public file, which in and of itself may be indicative of some criminality in the conversation itself.
I assume there will be a lot more coming over the next 12 months or so and bombshells and Trump gaffes are certainly possible. But upon first look: this doesn't look like much to me and I feel like going for impeachment is a bit of an overreach.
Under pressure, the White House released the "transcript" (*) of a July phone call between Trump and Zelensky. Trump opponents suggest that Trump's request for an investigation into Hunter Biden, the son of the presumptive (for now) Democratic nominee for the 2020 election, represents pressuring a foreign leader into interfering with a presidential election. To me the language looks pretty colloquial: Trump doesn't say he will hold up the approved aid to Ukraine, he simply moves the conversation to another topic. I would suggest that mentioning two different things in the same conversation does not equal a quid pro quo. Furthermore, the investigation of Biden was already under way, so where is the pressure? And if the Ukrainian investigation yields unpleasant info about Biden or his son, then why is that a bad thing? Is the implication that because Joe Biden is running for president that he is above investigation and that his family can no longer be suspected of a crime? And how would a foreign investigation be unconstitutional or a violation of Biden's rights as an American citizen? As for the aid itself, it was approved in June and delivered in September, which in federal gov't terms is not long at all, so what was the threat?
To me the awkward part of the conversation for Trump is he seems to be equating his personal lawyer (Giuliani) with the attorney general of the United States (Bill Barr) and that's weird to say the least and indicates that this is purely a private matter and not a criminal investigation. And I'm eager to hear the details of the holdup on Ukrainian aid: when did Trump stop the aid? What was his reasoning and language for doing so? How does a president stop aid that has been pledged by Congress, the State Department and the Pentagon? And when/how was the block on aid lifted?
According to the whistleblower memo, Trump's conversation with Zelensky was at first treated like all such conversations: it was transcribed by listeners and then passed on to certain other agencies (I know the memo mentions the State Department, I'm pretty sure it mentions or at least suggests others as well) and then logged as normal in a public file. It was after this period of normality that certain White House figures decided to re-route the transcript from the normal file to the special secret file. But, according to the memo, the original transcript was sent out to other agencies before it got re-classified. I presume this is the reason for the subpoena to SecState Pompeo, who theoretically should have the pre-classified transcript (and is otherwise just a big ol' target for Trump-haters in the House). I presume we'll see a few more of those subpoenas because there should be other pre-classified transcripts floating around out there. Is this out of the ordinary? (I have no idea) Are there other such re-routed transcriptions? (I dunno, will we even find out?) Will this yield impeachment-worthy stuff? (Ehh, I kinda doubt it but that's no reason not to look)
The key (at first) will be the records that the White House keeps secret (or secret-ish) and what oversight Congress actually has over those records. Can Congress demand the logs or even the contents of these files? I dunno, but I'm guessing an exhaustive history of every time Congress has asked for stuff and the White House's response will be forthcoming, whether in defense or prosecution. So will this lead to a deeper look into the secret file? Maybe, I wouldn't say 'definitely', because determining what is actually in that file is entirely up to the White House and what they choose is (I would suggest) an in-born parameter of Executive Privilege: the Prez doesn't really have the ability to share everything and, while some purely political nonsense will be shielded in this manner, it simply is not possible for Congress to receive all that it wants. And how could anyone actually verify that anything released from those files was complete or thorough? (Trick question: no one can)
It is worth noting that this is not a criminal trial, this is not a matter for the courts. This is a Congressional action that requires only a (party line) vote and needn't concern itself with evidence or witnesses (the whistleblower acknowledges that "he" was not a witness to any of his various accusations) and doesn't really do any of that beyond a shadow of doubt stuff that an ordinary citizen would receive. Hey, man, that's just how this works and the POTUS is not an ordinary citizen.
Pelosi was reticent to go forward with the impeachment and I'd say it's because she's in a World Cup conundrum: when a coach does poorly in a World Cup, he gets fired; when he does well in a World Cup, he goes off to a better job. Either way, he's not coaching the team in the next Cup. Likewise, with Pelosi: if this effort fails, she will be cannibalized by the Dems and drummed out of office; if she's successful, she'll be a folk hero, an important talking head for life and a worthy party fundraiser, but being Speaker will probably become more trouble than it's worth. So no matter what ends up happening with Trump, I think this is Pelosi's swan song. Her mission is to take one for the team with the hope of driving public opinion away from Trump heading into the 2020 election.
So where does this all go? Well, I'd say getting Trump out of office is not likely. Perhaps several months of constant Congressional attack will push the Senate Republicans to topple, but I doubt it. It's not impossible: Trump has no shortage of powerful enemies that would love to put the shiv in him, so if his support in the Senate begins to wobble, it could go downhill very quickly. If the public opinion becomes too much to bear, then the Senate will have to follow suit and run him out. (Trump has already begun throwing shade at Vice President Pence just in case Pence develops support as a potential white knight; also, don't be surprised if the ghost of John Bolton ends up taking a lot of blame) Trump's greatest liability is himself: he clearly has no grasp of how Washington works, he keeps trying to run the White House like he ran his company but the two entities are not the same. I think House Dems are employing a 'give-him-enough-rope' strategy and Trump is the kind of idiot braggart that could well hang himself. We'll see if death by tweet is listed on his death certificate.
Trump's crime here is being a neophyte politician--which is precisely what won him the election to begin with. But what was attractive to voters is deadly to the actual candidate who doesn't know what he's doing. Trump was under investigation prior to being inaugurated and he fought it with stonewalling, prevarication and outright lies, all of which work just fine in open court, but not so well when dealing with federal prosecutors. Trump has played lawyers against each other numerous times in his life but the White House is not a courtroom and in the court of public opinion double jeopardy just keeps going and going. Trump tried to connive personal support out of James Comey and it backfired badly; the way you cajole loyalty from a junior VP doesn't work as well on the head of the FBI. Trump thought firing Gen. Flynn would end the investigation; it did not. He thought Mueller's inability to hang anything notable on him (or Russia, for that matter) would be the end of it; it was not. In the game of politics the players are active 24 hours a day whether they've won or lost, simply surviving is nice but not enough. And remember: the House Democrats don't need 'evidence', they just need to call a vote.
Trump's supporters love his ability to enter the realm of the liberal media and stick fingers in the eyes of the culture warriors. But I'm not at all convinced they love anything else about him. Trump thinks they love him but if his ability to credibly inflict pain on the social media elite dissipates, then Trump's support will be gone in a flash. And once he's out of office, the politics won't stop, he's a lifelong prisoner to it now. (Ever heard of Wang Mang? Or Oliver_Cromwell? Study up on them, because I suspect Trump's future looks a lot like what happened to them)
Trump's detractors already hate everything about the man and won't need anything more than what they've seen to vote him out. But do we want an American power structure where a sitting president can be removed for any conversation that looks goofy on paper? If this was the impetus to ridding ourselves of all corruption once and for all, that'd be great! If we just needed a sacrificial lamb to slaughter to redeem all our sins and finally become the nation we were supposed to be, then I'd be all for letting Donald J. Trump be that lamb and let him carry the sins of America to his grave. But I don't think it works that way. Indeed, I think an impeachment here would be giving in to the inchoate mob that only wants to hang their unceasing frustration on someone else. If we give them Trump, they'll want more--and the next time it'll be the other side feeling like they've earned some bloodletting, too. Do you really think President Warren walks comfortably into the post-impeachment White House? Do you really think President Pence will be the savior we need to restore order?
Doomsayers love to compare contemporary USA to the Roman Empire. Rome fell and one day so will we (I'm not actually convinced that's true, the world is an entirely different place today, but it seems reasonable to most, I guess). They point to the imbalances in the economy, the militarism, the dishonorable treatment of foreigners. I've been reading lately on Rome and I don't think any of those comparisons last beyond the average mediocre cable news 'debate'. I think the real downfall of Rome was the perversion of their political processes, the way senators began tabling measures rather than voting on them, skewing the system rather than making their cases and playing it out, and the endless and fruitless argument over the concept of citizenship. The doomsayers haven't reached for this conclusion--which is precisely why I'm starting to fear they may be right! They don't see themselves as the bringers of the doom but they could be.
To me the danger of Trump isn't Trump himself but what comes after. I'm convinced the Republican Party is completely broken now and the Democratic Party is wobbling further out of control. And the message of Trump is non-politicians cannot be allowed to survive or can only survive by further perverting the system. What comes next is going to be worse and impeachment could be the worse. Flinging out a duly elected president because you didn't bother to win the election is not a good way to go (that's how California got Governor Schwarzenegger, you may recall).
So who benefits from this? Well, the bizarre possible answer is Trump. If he survives, he'll be stronger than ever, virtually impervious to attack of any kind--indeed, I'd say he needs this, he needs to overcome impeachment to really cement his standing as one of the great partisan hacks of all time because if he doesn't...bad things, man. But until we know the outcome I'd say the winner is Elizabeth Warren, who gets to distance herself from Trump and Biden simultaneously now. Or perhaps the collective prosecutorial spirit will revive the chances of Kamala Harris. And certainly a new bright shining star could emerge from the Democrats in the House or the Republicans in the Senate. And, of course, Mike Pence could go from nobody to Prez before all this is done. But I don't think this raises the hopes of the pseudo-challengers on the Republican side, nor does much for the other Democratic candidates (Buttigieg, Beto, Klobuchar get pushed even further from recognition, although this could give Cory Booker a chance to re-boot, to bring a new perspective on the whole situation). Sure Bernie gets to be even more Bernie, he gets to be louder and Bernier, but I think his time as a serious candidate has passed and I don't see this as an opportunity for him to win back lost voters.
Okay, you ready for the conspiracy theory? This isn't about getting rid of Trump (of which I'd say there's roughly a 1-in-5 chance), I think it's about getting rid of Joe Biden. If we're gonna spend the next several months digging into Trump's dealings in Ukraine we're going find out a lot about Biden's dealings in Ukraine, which won't seem any better and will only get him married with Trump in public opinion, which does not bode well for him. For the Warren wing of the Democratic Party this is two birds with one stone. Seems weird but I think Biden may take the brunt of this.
Still a long way to go, new files and transcripts to dig into, more accusations and shouting to come. Politically speaking this will suck the oxygen out of every room for the next 10-12 months, this will be everyone's main talking point, not much else will seem important (no matter how hard Iran tries). And when it is all said and done, we may have a new president, a new secretary of state, a new speaker of the House, and possibly even brand new Republican and Democrat nominees for the 2020 election. Vladimir Putin has never effected an election the way Nancy Pelosi is about to.
(*) Transcript-ish. Thorough but no reason to think this is complete. Was the call recorded? The White House tends to tape everything but taping a phone call with another foreign leader is pretty hacky, so even odds if there is audio of this conversation.
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