Thoughts on Impeachment from David Frum

David Frum has two interesting articles on Donald Trump, one on impeachment and one on foreign policy.  The foreign policy article is not formally linked to impeachment, but may be relevant nonetheless.

As for impeachment, Frum recommends against it.  I agree.  He offers several reasons to recommend against impeachment, so of which I agree with and some I don't.

First, Frum says that impeachment focuses everything on one offense, while the current investigation focuses on many, and Trump will be less able to defend against multiple offenses than one.  I disagree on that.  While there are doubtless many offenses Trump has committed that deserve to be investigated, actually doing so has never been advantageous politically.  During the 2016, a new accusation against Trump occurred every week.  None of them stuck, however, because before any one accusation was seriously investigated, media attention moved on to the next.  This gave the impression that Trump's opponents were simply throwing everything at the wall and seeing what would stick.  Trump, on the other hand, kept saying, "But her e-mails" in response to every accusation against him, with the result that the e-mails stuck.  Similarly, I read someone on twitter commented on what happened when Trump supporters asked him what grounds there were to impeach.  If he offered one accusation, Trump supporters took it seriously enough to argue.  If he offered many, Trump supporters dismissed the whole thing as sour grapes.  Opposition to Trump, whether through impeachment or election, should focus on the one thing (poll-tested and focus group refined) that hurts him the most, regardless of what that is.

Second, impeachment will be a futile gesture.  The Republican Senate wouldn't convict if Trump shot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue.  The result will be to rally Republicans behind Trump and convince independents that the whole thing was simply partisan politics.

Third, we have a method of removing Trump now, i.e., by election.  If he wins, impeachment will be the only method of getting rid of Trump.*  Freed from electoral accountability, vindicated by reelection, what will Trump do with his second term?  And what if he does something impeachable?  There is no formal rule that says a President can only be impeached once, but as a practical matter, two impeachments are simply not going to be feasible.  Better to work to defeat Trump the normal way -- through election, and reserve the extreme measure of impeachment until that option is no longer viable.  And certainly investigating and revealing scandals can be part of a strategy of electoral defeat.

The other article is addressed to foreign policy, but has its domestic relevance.  Frum comments:

Trump has only one negotiating move: Take an aggressive position, try to deceive others and maybe yourself about your own strength, issue threats you cannot fulfill, and then retreat amid losses if the bluff is called.

Frum addressed that in the context of Trump's business career, and of his foreign policy.  Does it apply to his domestic policy as well?  Certainly it applied during the shutdown.  The Democrats refused to fund Trump's wall.  Trump took an aggressive position -- he would shut down the government if Democrats did not comply.  He tried to deceive others and maybe himself about his strength -- he believed that any hardship during the Obama shutdown was deliberate and unnecessary, so he left parks, museums and the like open but unstaffed, only to discover that they deteriorated rapidly when not maintained.  Air traffic, too, degenerated when staffed by unpaid personnel who could not afford to work without pay indefinitely.  He issued threats he could not fulfill -- to keep the government closed until he got his way.  And then he retreated amid losses (diminished popularity) when his bluff was called.

The big question is, will he follow the same pattern if Congress moves to enforce its subpoenas?  The ball is in your court, Congress.

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*Aside from assassination, of course, or declaring him unfit under the 25th Amendment.  But these are best not thought of.