Instapundit Glenn Harlan Reynolds is fond of saying that he will believe that climate change, or global warming, or whatever it’s called today is a crisis when people in charge start acting like it’s a crisis.

John Mitchell, Richard Nixon’s first attorney general and reelection campaign chair and then federal prisoner, famously said, “Watch what we do, not what we say.”

So Tim Miller observes:

Crisis. An existential threat to our democracy. A mortal danger. A White Supremacist. Emergency.

This is what President Trump’s opponents on the left say they believe about the current administration.

And now, this TV interruption:

These accusations are serious and the fact that people on the left have made them before, about every Republican presidential aspirant from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush to Mitt Romney doesn’t make them untrue and this time around at least, they are claims with which I largely concur.

So let’s take the idea that Donald Trump is an existential threat to our constitutional order seriously, for just a moment, and assess what that means for our politics.

In any other aspect of life, if a person believes they are facing an emergency or a crisis or a mortal danger, there would be a corresponding set of actions that would follow.

For example, last year the apartment complex that was under construction behind my condo was torched to the ground in the dead of night. Flames engulfed the block and little balls of fire began raining down into our courtyard as if the End Times had cometh.

When the firemen came to evacuate us, we did not spend a few hours searching their twitter archives for problematic tweets before accepting their assistance.

We didn’t make sure that we brought every single item from the house with us.

After all, this was an actual emergency. So we grabbed the essentials as quickly as possible, ensured everyone was safe, and followed the instructions of the professionals who were trying to keep our home from burning to the ground. (In the end, our complex was spared and nobody was hurt—bless up to the Oakland Fire Department.)

This is the survival instinct in action. It’s how people experiencing real crises act. According to the CDC the three stages of those experiencing emergencies are first denial (hello election night 2016!); then deliberation (been a few years now); and finally, decisive action.

Nowhere in that response matrix does the CDC mention “torturous nitpicking of allies.”

People who think they are legitimately in danger don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the not-dead. They don’t take shots at those who are trying to help them. They don’t spend much time navel gazing, either. They deny, then they deliberate, and then they act.

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Does this any of this sound at all like what is happening in the Democratic primary right now?

I mean that seriously: When you look at the behavior of the candidates and their partisans, does it match what you would expect from people in the midst of a crisis that threatens the foundations of the country?

It sure seems like a big bowl of No to me.

To take just one, exceedingly minor, example, last week I wrote a piece that mocked some of the more absurd attacks that have been levied against Pete Buttigieg from his Twitter antagonists. The response to me pointing out that This guy over here trying to beat Trump is being attacked unfairly was for more people who say they’re trying to beat Trump to lose their minds about how awful it was that Mayor Pete was being defended by a Bush lackey in a neocon rag.

Please understand: This isn’t about me. I’m extremely well acquainted with the fact that some on the left will always think I’m a Bad Person with Bad Thoughts. What seems absurd is the insane levels of antipathy aimed at Buttigieg—a guy running to try to stop the mortal danger, white supremacist, existential threat-crisis.

And it’s not just Mayor Pete! Elizabeth Warren is getting dragged for making money as a consultant (a real consultant, not a Hunter-Biden consultant). Everyone on Twitter has basically decided that Joe Biden is somehow unfit for office even though he’s a year younger than Bernie Sanders and was considered beyond reproach for the 8 years he was a heartbeat away from presidency.

Doesn’t anyone notice this? I feel like I’m taking crazy pills.

It’s mystifying to me that this continues to happen, when the person that emerges from the Democratic primary is going to need not just the Peteys, but also the Bernie Bros, and the Yang Gang and the K-hive—not to mention the human scum—to all be in the same boat fighting against the Category 5 Sluricane that they claim to believe is threatening to end the very existence of our democratic republic.

And yet, here we are, with Pete Buttigieg being labeled History’s Greatest Monster because he rang the bell for the Salvation Army one time and was an entry level staffer at McKinsey.

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Here’s a thought experiment for Democrats: If right now, today, the president of the United States was Marco Rubio, or Jeb Bush, or John Kasich, then would the party be behaving any differently? How so?

Got anything?

Because I’m coming up almost empty. It’s possible that the polling might be shifted somewhat. Anecdata tells me that there may be a few more folks in Biden’s camp who are with him more as an “in emergency: break glass” candidate than there would be if the GOP opponent was slightly less hated. But beyond that, it seems to me that the Democratic primary and the online debate about the candidates would be essentially the same, maybe sans some of the high-falutin’ rhetoric about the violation of norms.

That’s a stark departure from what I expected coming into the primary. Given the seething hatred of Trump from Democrats (and his manifest unfitness for the office) I genuinely believed the Democratic contest would be tame to the point of orderliness.

Watch the first Democratic primary debate in 2007—if you can make it to the end without dozing off. It’s basically a mutual admiration society. Eventually that primary got kind of bitter, but even then Obama had to apologize for calling Hillary Clinton the senator from Punjab.

That hasn’t been the case so far. In a few of the Democratic primary debates Trump has barely been mentioned at all, while the candidates have spent minute, after minute, after minute, cracking back on each other about the minutiae in their healthcare plans. When Joe Biden released a rapid response video targeting Trump for getting laughed out of NATO, his very internet unfriendly campaign was rewarded with 12 million views and a big online conversation share – mostly because none of the other campaigns are doing it.

The Democrats aren’t just litigating their policy differences—they are absolutely sliming each other on a personal level. They are taking pretty minor process disagreements about transparency to 11, while rarely mentioning that Trump is running an unprecedented and opaque corporate welfare schemebenefiting his own business from the White House with serious national security implications. As Frank Luntz pointed out last week, many of the Democrats’ intra-party attacks are going to resurface during the general election, weaponized by Trump.

I understand: Politics ain’t beanbag, yadda yadda yadda.

But that old saw only holds in times when we’re arguing between the 40 yard lines. The whole idea of there being an actual, real-deal, emergency-crisis is that the normal rules of engagement get suspended.

All of which is why I have the sneaking suspicion that a lot of Democrats don’t actually view Trump as a unique crisis.

Or rather: They don’t view him as being more than a difference in degree from the “emergency-crisis” Republicans always represent. For these Democrats, all of Republican/conservatism has been inevitably leading to Trump and the only difference between Trump and, say, George H.W. Bush, is that Trump says the quiet part out loud.

For other Democrats, I suspect they genuinely believe that Trump is a crisis, but also that, as a wise man once said, a crisis is a terrible thing to waste. And now is their chance to push for more of what they’ve always wanted.

And still other Democrats seem to think that the election is a gimme. Recently I talked to a Democratic campaign consultant who said a lot of his peers have convinced themselves that Trump is so weak that this is the moment to bring on the most radical revolution they can get. (These individuals seem not to remember 2016.)

In a weird way, I understand these three groups. I mean, they are, as an analytical matter, wildly incorrect. But I understand why, if they view the world that way, they’re acting the way they are.

But for the Democrats who say that they think this is a unique hinge of history and that Trump must be defeated in order to preserve the political order, why are they fighting each other with an intensity that is indistinguishable from 1992, or 2000, or 2004, or 2008, or 2016?

Actual emergencies require sacrifice. They require willingness to work with people that you have major differences with to achieve a solution. They require hard choices and reflection about what you are willing to part with to come out the other side.

I believe Donald Trump is an actual emergency. I hope Democrats who agree will start acting like it.

Michael Smith on …

The Report
“I forced myself to read more of the Horror-witz Report and have come to a couple of conclusions – first, if this is what a thorough IG investigation looks like, we should immediately fire all people holding Inspector General positions because they are worthless. Secondly, while the media pounces to claim there was no spying, no wiretapping and no treason, there is ample evidence there was spying and wiretapping and it seems clear that the chance such a widespread operation against a political candidate was simply carried out by minions of their own volition approaches zero.
Puppet shows depend on the suspension of disbelief, that we divorce our minds from the puppeteers we know are behind the curtain and focus only on the puppets on the stage as if they were acting independently. This report reveals the puppet show to which we all had a front row seat and now the theater managers are asking us to believe the puppeteers had nothing to do with the show, we should just blame the puppets – and since puppets only do what they are manipulated to do, how can we blame them? They were just patriotic little puppets with no will of their own and no recognition that what they were doing was bad.
The mutually exclusive conclusions with which America is presented is the same as we faced for 8 years of Obama, the actors were either 1) incompetent or 2) maliciously complicit – but these aren’t mutually exclusive. James Comey and his band of Merry Men come off as both, a gang of Inspector Clouseau clones, stumbling toward what they thought was a foreground conclusion, a Madam Presidency (if such occurred, none of this would have ever come to light).
Despite the conclusions of CNN and MSNBC that this report “exonerates” everybody except the President, it doesn’t. It paints a damning picture of what our government has become – if I was the head of a department in any company and my employees were this out of control, just who would you think would be rightfully responsible? There’s no doubt that it would be me – and if my boss and their boss knew it, they would share in the blame as well. That’s true here. If Comey’s people were running amok, then he is as culpable as any of his employees for no maintaining control over them – and if Obama knew, then he is just as culpable as Comey (and it is completely unbelievable that an FBI Director was faced with what he termed a “foreign threat” would not brief his boss).
No wonder it took Horowitz so long to produce this report – it’s difficult to find so much wrong and then be charged with writing a report that essentially says “There’s lots of evidence of bad people doing bad stuff but they were just bumbling fools with no direction, so no harm – no foul”. Just ask yourself how people who were caught up in the process “crimes of the Mueller investigation got punished (Flynn, Manafort and Stone in particular) and not a single government employee was fingered in this IG report, even though the evidence of criminal activity was significantly greater.
Nobody gets punished because the Deep State doesn’t punish its own. They are just patriots protecting America.
I hope Bill Barr and John Durham changes that.
If they don’t, this is where the civil war starts – not over this comedic Lavrentiy Beria “impeachment” process but over a government that lets its own go free while it crushes regular citizens for thought crimes.”

Gary Probst:

Here’s the ultimate foil for the Democrats. They get Trump to say he’s done and walks away. Pence or Ted Cruz pummel the last of the very weak Democrat candidates. How’d ‘ya like them apples? As in anything in life, be cautious of short-term results, at the cost of long-term benefit. Unless they have something dynamite, they’ve angered the Republican and Libertarian base, as nobody likes scummy politics that resemble a foolish tantrum.

I have never been a fan of ethically-challenged Trump. However, making up a false narrative, like the Red Queen of Alice in Wonderland, is a massive error. It will backfire and it will be off with THEIR heads.

One thing you learn early in the news business is that you don’t think like the average person. What may seem like a big deal to you boils down to a boring story about the mechanics of government for the average viewer. What you may consider being scandalous or important may be viewed as a “so what?” moment for the public.

I interned at KWWL-TV in Waterloo, IA, many years ago. Crusty Assignment Editor, Dean Frein, had a sign above his desk. It said, “Who, What, Where, When, Why, How—and in bold–SO WHAT?”

I’d like to see the SO WHAT if they have it. If they call it an ongoing investigation, don’t they realize a coverup is likely complete and revealing information may produce coverup indictments? Let the info flow. Let us know. Otherwise, SO WHAT?

Jake Novak:

Impeachment is usually the most embarrassing and damaging thing that can happen to a President of the United States.

But for President Donald Trump, not so much. Incredibly, his likely impeachment gives the president more opportunities than liabilities.

That’s mostly because of a mix of timing and the unique nature of the Trump presidency.

The most important difference between the Trump impeachment and the other presidents who have faced this process is the fact that it comes in the midst of a reelection campaign. It may seem like trying to run for reelection during an impeachment trial in the Senate is like driving with one flat tire. But for a man whose brief political career has been entirely about a virulent campaign against the political establishment, fighting a battle against a series of entrenched politicians fits right into his brand.

Most presidential incumbents have to work hard to continue to promote the popular “outsider” persona after four years of being in the White House. But Washington’s continued refusal to accept this president had already made that task easy for the Trump campaign.

This has already been a contentious and pugnacious presidency, with Trump, his political opponents, and critics in the news media never pausing from their battles with each other since day one. Now, the Trump campaign is simply using the impeachment as an effective messaging and fundraising tool. A presidential election is already a de facto trial for the American voters deciding how to judge the president’s first term. So what’s one more trial, especially one that’s going on at the same time?

But what about the sheer embarrassment of being impeached? Is that a game-breaker for the president?

Please.

We’re talking about a man who still won the 2016 election despite the release of the “Access Hollywood” tapes that contained probably the most embarrassing things any presidential candidate has ever been caught saying. Embarrassing Donald Trump simply hasn’t worked as an effective way to defeat him politically.

It also helps that this impeachment is coming at a time when the U.S. economy and the stock market are showing historic strength. The much better than expected November jobs report is just the latest example of that, and Trump has routinely pointed to the good economic numbers to change the subject from the details of the impeachment inquiry.

It shouldn’t go unnoticed that while the impeachment process for President Richard Nixon came during hard economic times in the U.S., Bill Clinton’s impeachment was in the midst of an economic boom. The fact that Clinton survived his impeachment while Nixon was forced to resign is related to those historical economic realities.

But the above arguments are just examples of why Trump has some immunity from most of the impeachment pitfalls. The other key question is how will the impeachment affect his policy choices and ability to govern going forward if he’s reelected?

For Presidents Clinton and Nixon, their impeachment processes forced them to basically give up their domestic legislative agendas and focus on foreign policy. Trump seems to have already made that pivot when the 2018 midterm elections handed the House of Representatives to the Democrats. Most of his focus has been on the China trade battle since then. While there have been a few grumblings about the effect of the trade war from Congress, Senator Chuck Schumer’s famous tweet expressing support for the president still stands out as the most significant comment from Congressional Democrats on the matter.

Could the impeachment process somehow embolden the Democratic leadership to change its tune and openly undermine President Trump’s China negotiations?

Here again, timing is really on Trump’s side. With the Hong Kong protests still raging and concern growing over China’s mass detention of Uighur Muslims, the Democrat-controlled House has just passed two virtually unanimous resolutions condemning Beijing. No matter what happens in future impeachment hearings and the likely Senate trial, China does not seem like the issue where Trump will face new opposition.

It’s more likely that White House hopes for a definitive infrastructure bill or a prescription drug coverage overhaul will remain dead in the water. But the key word there is “remain,” because those legislative efforts were already in longshot territory before anyone ever heard of the White House phone calls to Ukraine. Had this impeachment drama played out a year or two ago, being forced to abandon those efforts in Congress would seem like a more serious political defeat. It’s another example of fortunate timing for Trump.

But one area where there is no silver impeachment lining is the Trump historical legacy. If the House follows through with its likely decision to impeach him, that fact will be prominently mentioned in every historical reference to Trump. That’s going to be true no matter how well the economy continues to chug along or how the China trade negotiations play out.

Don’t expect Trump to get the friendly pass a decent chunk of the news media and presidential historians have given Bill Clinton over the years despite his impeachment. Trump is much more likely to get the Nixon treatment; where his impeachment will be brought up as regularly as Nixon’s resignation and the Watergate scandal.

But as much as historical legacy clearly matters to this president and all presidents, a flawed legacy was probably guaranteed for Trump long ago. As it stands now, the future negatives seem like a small price to pay compared to the multiple ways this impeachment actually works for his political present.