The progressive boomerang
The progressive strategy of investigating President Donald Trump nonstop for Russian collusion or obstruction of justice so far has produced no substantial evidence of wrongdoing.
The alternate strategy of derailing the new administration before it gets started hasn’t succeeded either, despite serial efforts to sue over election results, alter the Electoral College vote, boycott the inauguration, delay the confirmation of appointments, demand recusals, promise Trump’s removal through the 25th Amendment and file suit under the Emoluments Clause.
A third strategy of portraying Trump as a monster has failed in four special elections for House seats.
A fourth potential pathway to power would be a return to Bill Clinton’s pragmatic agendas of the 1990s. But apparently progressives find that centrist remedy worse than the malady of losing elections — given that during the Obama tenure, more than 1,000 state and local offices were lost to Republicans, in addition to majorities in the House and Senate, and a majority of governorships and legislatures.
What next?
One nagging problem with the progressive case against Trump for purported Russian collusion and obstruction of justice was that members of the Obama administration had more exposure to those allegations than did the political newcomer Trump.
Last year, then-FBI Director James Comey testified that not only did former Attorney General Loretta Lynch improperly meet in secret with Bill Clinton during an investigation of Hillary Clinton, but that Lynch had asked Comey to downplay the investigation into Hillary’s use of a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state.
Comey confessed that he had reluctantly agreed to Lynch’s request.
Earlier this month, in testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Comey admitted that he asked a friend to leak notes about Comey’s earlier conversation with Trump in hopes of forcing the nomination of a special investigator to lead the Russia investigation — perhaps a successful gambit, given that Comey’s friend, former FBI Director Robert Mueller, was soon appointed to that role.
Comey also wrongly dismissed Hillary Clinton’s email problems because of a perceived lack of criminal intent — a supposedly mitigating circumstance that legally should have had no bearing on things.
The point is not whether the Clintons, James Comey, Barack Obama or members of the Obama administration can be proven to have engaged in illegal or unscrupulous behavior.
Rather, the lesson is that progressives should have offered alternative political visions that might have won back the American people rather than attempting to terminate the Trump presidency on charges to which the progressive side was far more vulnerable.
What does all this political back-and-forth mean?
Democrats struck pre-emptively to take out Trump before he unwound the Obama legacy. That effort has probably been stalled.
The return volley is being launched at a time when an energized Trump is gaining momentum.
In sum, to thwart a new president’s policies, it is probably wiser to offer alternative agendas instead of trying to destroy him before he has even entered office.