gracchusdixit

Several days ago, Jerry Nadler, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee of the United States House of Representatives, declared:  “We are now in a Constitutional crisis.”  These words came in response to a sweeping and unprecedented move by the Trump administration to defy Congressional demands for evidence arising from the investigation conducted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and, more broadly, to deny the Constitutionally-mandated responsibility of Congress to oversee the actions of the executive branch.

Although Nadler‘s somber warning is undeniably correct, it is not clear how many Americans will pay attention.  There has been so much talk about a looming constitutional crisis for the last two years that many people either have become numb to the prospect or have resigned themselves to its inevitability.

It is tempting to say, as indeed many have, “We have been here before,” and thus to imagine that all will be well in the end.  Those who hold this view invariably cite the example of Watergate, when Richard Nixon also defied Congress, and like Trump, attempted to hide his crimes and cling to power.  That Nixon’s campaign of obstruction collapsed in the end, that he chose to resign rather than face impeachment, is held up as a hopeful harbinger of Trump’s eventual fate.

The trouble is that the crisis we now face is not even remotely comparable with Watergate, either in its nature or in its magnitude, nor is Donald Trump’s defiance of Congress anything like Richard Nixon’s.  Those who analogize the two crises and the two men are deceiving themselves.

To be sure, “Tricky Dick” was a conniving paranoid, who was quite happy to use corrupt and underhanded means to gain, and hold onto, public office.  But he was not an authoritarian megalomanic, suffering from delusions of grandeur.  Nor was it any part of his plan to overturn our democracy and install a de facto dictatorship in its place.  Nixon was a “crook” in the old-fashioned sense.  All the while he committed crimes, he was fully aware that they were crimes.

Donald Trump, on the other hand, is a different sort of criminal, one who is prepared to exalt himself at the cost of destroying everyone and everything that stands in his way.  Although he may be too ignorant to realize it, he is no less a fascist than Mussolini or Hitler, and he is walking in their footsteps.

Few dictators seize power all at once.  Instead, they undermine democratic institutions one corrosive step at a time.  Before most people come to realize what they are up, it is already too late.  That is the game Donald Trump is playing, and that is the game played by his predecessors.

Mussolini first came to power by democratic means and only then began to turn Italy into a one-party dictatorship, using the legislature, the courts, and the secret police to suppress his opponents, silence the free press, and consolidate his control over his country’s governing institutions.  Hitler followed a similar course, with far more devastating results.  After a “democratic” election that led to his appointment as Chancellor of Germany, he had himself declared “Führer,” a new and unconstitutional office that amounted to a permanent dictatorship.  He bided his time for a year, allowing him to consolidate his power, and then ordered “the Night of the Long Knives,” in which thousands of his political opponents were systematically slaughtered.  Two months later, he demanded that the redoubtable Wehrmacht swear an oath of personal allegiance to him and him alone.  The German officer corps, populated by Prussian aristocrats presumed to be men of unflinching courage and honor, meekly complied.

Lest you think such comparisons amount to hyperbole or hysteria, consider what Trump has already accomplished:

(1) He has completely co-opted the Republican Party, turning this one-time bastion of conservative economic and social principles into a personality cult, dedicated to the adoration and protection of its new leader.  In the face of undeniable evidence that Trump has committed countless financial crimes and colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election, Republicans have decided, not merely to turn a blind eye, but to assert the opposite of the obvious.  Having gone this far, they have no choice but to go all the way.  They will stick with Trump to the very end—if there ever is an end.

(2)  With the installation of William Barr as Attorney General, Trump has seized control of the Department of Justice and thus the entire apparatus of national law enforcement.  The Congress of the United States can investigate Trump all it wants, but its subpoenas, censures, and penalties cannot be enforced.

(3)  One of Congress’ few enforcement weapons is the power of the purse.  In theory, it could discipline obstructive agencies like the Department of Justice by refusing to fund them.  But both the Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service are now completely under Trump’s thumb.  They are responsible for providing the actual money the federal government needs to operate.  There is no reason to think that Trump’s Secretary of the Treasury, Steve Mnuchin, would shut off the spigot, even if Congress ordered him to do so.

(4) Trump has turned the immigration system into an instrument of domestic terror and intimidation.  The main unions representing the agents who work for ICE and CBP, the two agencies that control our borders, endorsed Trump in 2016, have enthusiastically embraced his policies, and see his presidency as a chance to “get tough” on people they think don’t deserve to be in this country.  There is little doubt that they would turn their strong-arm tactics against any American who gets in Trump’s way.

(5) Trump has packed the federal courts as well as the Supreme Court with right-wing judges, who are more than willing to follow him down the road toward authoritarianism.  Many of his judicial appointees are unqualified ciphers, who will simply obey orders.  Others are zealous ideologues, eager to subject the country to their social, cultural, and political agenda.  Even as Trump tramples on the Constitution, we cannot depend upon them to stand in his way.

(6) Trump’s recent declaration of a “national emergency” on the southern border involves, among other things, using the military to enforce so-called law and order domestically.  This is blatantly illegal.  If the courts let this declaration stand, and Pentagon officials comply, nothing will prevent him from using the armed forces to suppress future “emergencies” as he sees fit.  Little imagination is required to think that Donald Trump might deem an electoral defeat in 2020 to be a national emergency, requiring the imposition of martial law and the arrest of his political opponents in the name of protecting the nation.

When Jerry Nadler proclaimed, “We are now in a Constitutional crisis,” he fell short of the mark.  The crisis we face is existential, and it is far from certain that our 243-year-old experiment in democracy is going to survive.