It was finally Mueller time Friday, March 22! But, despite the hopes and prayers of so many, the Mueller investigation didn’t cancel the Trump Show. Mueller found no collusion with Russia, and he took no position on prosecuting possible obstruction of justice by the president.
Of course, the prevaricator-in-chief tweeted “No Collusion, No Obstruction, Complete and Total EXONERATION.” He really likes capital letters, and he used a LOT of big words in that tweet! But that doesn’t make it so.
In fact, as Attorney General William Barr wrote in his summary of Mueller’s report, “The Special Counsel states that while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”
Trump didn’t let facts that get in the way of a highly capitalized tweet. He never has. They didn’t stop Barr either, but I only have 750 words.
I was never sure that the president actually colluded with the Russians. I think that Putin and friends easily identified and exploited Trump’s weaknesses. His vanity, paranoia, dishonesty, and greed, coupled with an insatiable desire to be fawned over, allowed the Russians, the North Koreans, and the right wing of the Republican Party to use him to further their own agendas. He didn’t need to collude to be Putin’s puppet. He just needed to be himself.
There is no doubt in my mind that Trump tried to obstruct justice and Mueller didn’t exonerate him. But it wasn’t about the Russians hacking our elections. It was about the Trump Tower Moscow that he desperately wanted, his ties to Russian mobsters, loans from Deutsche Bank, payoffs to porn stars, the actions of his children, and all of the tawdry details of his business and personal life.
I’m grateful for the Mueller Report because we can finally stop waiting for the man with the white hat to ride up on his horse and arrest the Outlaw Trump. Mueller was never going to save us from Trump and now we know it.
And, we shouldn’t wait for the House because they probably won’t impeach him. As Speaker Nancy Pelosi said to the Washington Post on March 11, “Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path, because it divides the country. And he’s just not worth it.”
Pelosi is a smart woman. She knows that, even if the House was willing to impeach the guy, the Senate will never oust him from office. But if he is impeached and is not convicted by the Senate, then he could conceivably run a campaign based on grievance all the way to a second term. Dividing the country helps him and hurts the Democrats. It’s just not worth it.
No Mueller, no impeachment? What are we going to do? To quote Mother Jones, “Don’t mourn, organize.”
There are 16 Democrats running for the presidency to date and there will probably be more. There are many bright and thoughtful people in the bunch, and six of them are women. All of them (maybe even Marianne Williamson) would be enormously better in the job than the current occupant of the White House. Pick a candidate and work to get them elected. And if your person doesn’t get the nomination, suck it up and back the nominee of the Democratic Party. We can wring our hands all we want about the lesser of two evils and “I just don’t like (fill in the blank)”; that’s how he won the last time. To many Democrats stayed home and Kavanagh, Gorsuch, and the Koch brothers are grateful for that.
The House flipped in 2018, and the Senate could flip in 2020. The Republicans have a good chance of holding on, but the Democrats only need three seats if a Democrat wins the presidency, since the vice president has the tie-breaking vote. I’ll be supporting Collins’ opponent in Maine and Gardener’s opponent in Colorado. Adopt a Democratic Senate candidate! You’ll never be lonely — they’ll email you every day.
Sure, there are structural challenges that make all of this harder for Democrats; the Electoral College, the small state advantage in the Senate, racial and political gerrymandering — the list goes on. It’s really easy to sink into Trump induced despair. But, we can’t. Healthcare, women’s rights, criminal justice reform, racial and economic equity, the fate of the planet, and so many more critical issues hang in the balance. The times demand us to act. See you at the polls.
Clare Higgins, of Northampton, a former mayor of the city, is executive director of the nonprofit Community Action Pioneer Valley. She can be reached at opinion@gazettenet.com.