Democrats Are Squandering the Chance to Make the Sober Case Against Trump

P resident Donald J. Trump possesses no talent more useful than his ability to inspire self-immolation in his critics. All things being equal, it ought not to be too difficult for the Democrats to offer up a sober case against this administration. They could point to Trump’s capricious trade war, which represents an unpopular unforced error that has sowed uncertainty in the markets and which has undermined what was previously considered to be the president’s core political competency. They could lambast the White House’s flirtation with defying the federal judiciary, which is not merely an outrage on its own terms but has put a dent in Trump’s hitherto impressive approval ratings on the border. Or they could take aim at his equivocation on the matter of Ukraine — with particular attention paid to his grotesque refusal to state clearly that the invasion, and the war that it engendered, are squarely Vladimir Putin’s fault.

Instead, they have chosen to return to the hyperbole, self-indulgence, catastrophizing, and fan-servicing that cost them the election last year.

In New Hampshire this weekend, Governor J. B. Pritzker told a crowd of cheering fans that “Republicans cannot know a moment of peace,” before suggesting that Donald Trump is a “madman,” that he is presiding over a “shameful episode of American history,” and that, soon, all portraits of the president and his party will be placed in “museum halls reserved for tyrants and traitors.” Reporting on the address, the press invariably noted that Pritzker sounded as if he were running for president. But, in fact, this is only half true. Rather, Pritzker sounded as if he were running to be nominated for president. And, as recent history has confirmed, those two things are decidedly not the same. Without doubt, the suggestion that anyone involved with the opposition party ought to be denied even “a moment of peace” will prove popular among the peculiar partisan monomaniacs who voluntarily attend political dinners in New Hampshire three years before the next season. Among the broader public, by contrast, it may sound rather silly. If the polls are to be believed, voters do not much like Donald Trump’s eschatological side. One suspects that they won’t like Pritzker’s, either.

Alas, eschatology is en vogue this season. Last week, a judge in Wisconsin was arrested on suspicion of having actively helped an illegal immigrant avoid arrest by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and, in response, the entire left side of the Democratic Party set about pretending that something completely different had occurred. “If Kash Patel and Donald Trump don’t like a judge,” tweeted Senator Tina Smith of Minnesota, “they think they can arrest them.” That construction was typical. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts complained, “Now, his FBI arrested a judge. This administration is threatening our country’s judicial system. This rings serious alarm bells.” Senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin opined, “The President’s administration arresting a sitting judge is a gravely serious and drastic move, and it threatens to breach those very separations of power.” Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota proposed that “the Administration’s arrest of a sitting judge in Wisconsin is a drastic move that threatens the rule of law.”

Which is ridiculous. It is possible, of course, that the judge in question is innocent — or, irrespective of the facts, that she will be found as such by a jury of her peers. But, whatever happens next, it is flatly untrue that she was arrested because the president “doesn’t like” her, or, indeed, that arresting judges who have been credibly accused of lawbreaking represents an attack on “separations of power,” the “rule of law,” or “our country’s judicial system.” As a matter of fact, the opposite would be closer to the truth. If, purely by dint of their being judges, there existed a class of people in this country who were effectively legally untouchable, then we would indeed have a serious problem with the integrity of the separation of powers, with the rule of law, and, more broadly, with our country’s judicial system. As many observers — including me — have recently noted, the guarantees made by our constitutional arrangement do not depend for their sustenance upon the popularity of the individuals whom the government seeks to expel. But that same standard applies to elite opinion, too. I daresay that the bien pensant class rather admires those judges who have elected to break the law in pursuit of their personal political goals. But that admiration counts for nothing within the rules. Had they so wished, the parade of Democrats who lined up to release their ridiculous statements could have stayed quiet. Instead, they issued dissembling defenses of lawbreaking on behalf of one of the most politically unpopular movements in the United States. That was a choice — and a frivolous one at that.

That word — “frivolous” — has got rather a workout over the last two decades, during which time both of our major political parties have decided that things would be far more exciting if they were to commit suicide every couple of years. Look out at the unfolding scene and consider what you see. A president who has elected to neuter his presidency by imposing tariffs on an inflation-weary electorate. A rolling Bernie Sanders-AOC tour of municipal parks, in which the word “oligarch” is thrown around like trumpet lines at a Handel recital. A bipartisan class of senators that sees the end of America in every drop of rain but still cannot stir itself to legislate. And, at the windows, looking in, a cadre of hungry, sharp-toothed political aspirants, whose desperation to become president has led them to stop at nothing in pursuit of greater authority — except, of course, to stop for a moment and inquire as to whether the approach that they have adopted is appealing to anyone at all.