The British and the Americans remain divided by their common political language. A British prime minister can win a general election but be unseated by a party ballot. An American president, even when deposed by half the electorate and distrusted by his own party, is harder to dislodge.
Thatcher and Blair went down like Julius Caesar, stabbed in the back but still popular with the mob. Only two presidents have been impeached by Congress: Andrew Johnson in 1868, for violating the Tenure of Office Act; and Bill Clinton in 1998, for lying on oath about what he did in the office during his tenure. A third president, Richard Nixon, resigned to avoid losing a House of Representatives’ vote on his impeachment. None of these cases produced a conviction. Nixon even received a presidential pardon.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into links between the Trump menagerie and Russia is unlikely to lead to Donald Trump’s impeachment. The legal standard for evidence is high. The Republicans have majorities in both the House and Senate. The midterm elections are more than a year away, and the Republican victory in this week’s special election in Georgia suggests that Trump has yet to alienate Republican voters.
And while suspicion and even evidence may mount, a contrary flow of events is eclipsing the supposition that Donald Trump is a pawn of Russian interests. This week, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on Russia for aggression in Ukraine, and warned of further clashes with Russian planes and interests in Syria. These are not the actions of a person in thrall to Russia, or hostage to recordings of Bill Clinton-style manoeuvres in the presidential suite of the Moscow Ritz Carlton.
Mueller may, however, find material damaging to members of Trump’s inner circle and, in the case of son-in-law Jared Kushner, his family. He may also, as Ken Starr did with Bill Clinton, turn up smaller but equally damaging malfeasance by Trump. If so, much of the media and all of the Democrats will invoke the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution and demand resignations. But these victories may prove Pyrrhic, in the midterms and beyond. American elections are won on the middle ground, not on the partisan fringe, or through an alliance between the FBI, CNN, and the left of the Democratic Party. The ultimate beneficiary of Mueller’s inquiry will not be Mike Pence or the Democrats, but the FBI itself.
The American Constitution is a three-legged stool: the presidency, the Congress, and the Supreme Court. The state agencies created in the 20th century — the Federal Reserve, the FBI, and the many ministries of Washington, DC — are meant to serve the Constitution, and may even be essential to the functions of modern government. They are not supposed to lead the executive, elected and judicial branches. Nor are the news media, who often confuse their gladiatorial task with that of the emperor who, gauging the mood of the mob, gives the thumbs up or down.
When FBI director James Comey investigated Hillary Clinton’s email server during the 2016 election campaign, Democrats accused him of trying to swing the election for Donald Trump, and Republicans acclaimed him for defending the country against oligarchy and Saudi money. When Comey looked at Trump’s Russian connections, the pro-Trump media accused Comey of representing the “deep state”, and Democrats acclaimed him for defending the country against oligarchy and Russian money.
The corruption of American politics by oligarchic wealth is chronic, and generates blatantly unfit candidates like Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. But America, pace Breitbart, has no “deep state” like those of Turkey or Egypt, where democracy has been conditional on the consent of the military. The venality bred by entirely legal “donations” and “lecture fees” from Wall Street is a greater and more pressing threat to American democracy.
Nor should the election of Trump justify the calls from the Democratic Left for “resistance”. Trump is not Marshal Petain. This week, the Public Theater of New York staged a crass Julius Caesar, in which the “noblest Roman” was played as a bequiffed Tweeter with a statuesque Slavic wife. The Roman republic devolved into oligarchy through political violence, mob politicking, and the complicity of the Senate. The American republic is not quite there yet.
The modern Rome is not the ancient Rome. The Constitution is working. The presidency is being restrained by the judicial branch, notably on Trump’s crude effort to placate his base with a “Muslim ban”. As for the legislature, a Republican president cannot stop Republican congressmen and senators from turning against him, should that appear electorally necessary.
On current evidence, impeachment proceedings would not secure Trump’s dismissal. They will, however, discredit the institutions of government, and further embitter America’s already vicious politics. The mood in America these days is febrile, with loathing and barely suppressed calls to violence. The politicising of the FBI would be an unhealthy development. It would confirm the paranoia of the fringes, right and left, and justify the aggrandising tendencies of unelected bureaucracies.
Better that Trump, the tawdry American Caesar, is seen off by the voters in three years’ time.
