Paul Rosenzweig, a national security lawyer of long standing, finds he can’t finish a book he’s contracted to write. Why? Because he’s lost the faith. He writes about this on Lawfare:
The last straw for me was this week’s announcement by the Republicans in the House that they have found no evidence of collusion – directly contradicting what the Special Counsel has uncovered and revealing that the function of oversight is now dead in Congress. Thus two thirds of my thesis (the premise of legality by the Executive and oversight by the Legislative) is now untenable. And I have 90,000 words that are no longer ones I am willing to publish.
I can hear my liberal friends now, mocking this somewhat. They have had this skepticism of government for a long time and will, I am sure, both welcome my “conversion” to their view and deride me for how late in my career it was. I think however (and with respect) that this sort of response undervalues and mis-states the deviance of Trumpism. The Trump approach has truly stolen the soul of conservatism. It is different in kind and not degree from past administrations.
And so, for now, I put aside the book. I hope I can return to it someday with a chapter on the “Trump Detour.” At this point, however, we can no longer say that Executive and Legislative probity is a given. The guardrails of American democracy (to paraphrase Jack Goldsmith in describing institutional restraints on authoritarianism) are buckling. To which one can only respond: Trumpism Delenda Est.
It’s disturbing to me to hear a hardened lawyer looking at the future in such a dismal way. I’m not sure I’m as depressed as all that. The structure of any democracy cannot safeguard against dictators and incompetents if the people are unwilling to participate in that democracy. Trump was elected because a sufficient number of citizens either did not participate, or participated with little attention, in the election. They have since learned that elections have consequences. We’re seeing the reaction to that in the number of new candidates for seats that have become available through special elections, or will be available at the midterms.
I think that’s encouraging, and may portend a change at the midterms of a magnitude such that the Republicans may be forced to begin reforming themselves – finding ways to man the gates, removing certain rules of the Party, as I’ve discussed before, and otherwise guiding their Party away from extremist-right.
Or the Party may simply recede into history, as the old “moderate Republicans” form a new Party which can hopefully grow into a responsible governing entity.
The hidden trick will be for the Democrats not to follow the Republicans into their own form of extremism, or they may also fade into the own forms of depravity and obscurity. In a nation such as ours, we best function through compromise at the center, feeling our way towards correct positions by feel, rather than by ideology. Right now we’re off the rails, but continued pressure on the currently incompetent President and his supporters in Congress may force them from power as their own supporters begin to realize how badly their selections have performed.
