America's democracy, long admired and imitated around the world, now seems to be hurtling uncontrollably toward a 2024 presidential election campaign discombobulation unlike anything we have ever seen — or our visionary Founders even imagined.
The campaign woe will mainly affect only one political party — the Republicans. And it will happen to Republicans because Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and most Senate Republicans failed to make a patriotic leadership decision two years ago. Even though they knew, in their hearts, it was in the best interests of their party, their voters and especially their nation.
Here's the Republicans' 2024 problem: Their overwhelming presidential frontrunner won't be able to campaign normally. Donald Trump will probably be in a federal courtroom during the primaries and caucuses and/or the fall campaign — the first U.S. president ever on trial for crimes allegedly committed while president. Trump was arraigned in the U.S. district court in Washington last week. He was charged with four criminal counts of seeking and conspiring to overthrow his 2020 reelection loss.
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McConnell and his fellow Senate Republicans knew all about the horrible wrongs Trump committed as president — including his persistence at overturning his reelection defeat. It was presented to us all in 2021 in words that were powerful and persuasive. Indeed, to read that case today is to realize that the case that was made then, during the Senate trial of the second House impeachment of Trump, was as compelling as the widely praised 45-page indictment Special Counsel Jack Smith made public last week.
McConnell's presentation on Feb. 13, 2021, began with a denunciation of Trump's speech that inflamed the Jan. 6, 2021, violent break-in aimed at preventing Congress from certifying Joe Biden's election victory:
"January 6 was a disgrace. American citizens attacked their own government. They used terrorism to try to stop a specific piece of domestic business they did not like … .
"Fellow Americans beat and bloodied our own police. They stormed the Senate floor. They tried to hunt down the speaker of the House. They built a gallows and chanted about murdering the vice president. They did this because they had been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on Earth because he was angry he lost an election … .
"There is no question — none — that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day. … The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president … the growing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories, and reckless hyperbole which the defeated president kept shouting into the largest megaphone on planet Earth … .
"It was also … the increasingly wild myths — myths — about a reverse landslide election that was somehow being stolen in some secret coup by our now-president … .
"It was obvious that only President Trump could end this. … The president did not act swiftly. He did not do his job. … He kept pressing his scheme to overturn the election … ."
McConnell's case for action against Trump was as powerful as anything we heard from the Jan. 6 House panel's case for impeaching Trump for his outrageous attempts to overthrow the 2020 election.
But after making the case for convicting and impeaching Trump, the Republican leader hit the brakes and made a narrowly defined judicial justification for his no-action vote of "not guilty" — only because Trump was no longer president. He called it a "close call." After all, Trump was president the day the House impeached him.
Besides, McConnell said, Trump can still be prosecuted for his crimes.
But a Senate impeachment conviction would have legally prevented Trump from ever serving again as president.
If our Founders wanted impeachment to be just a narrowly defined judicial decision, they would've put the Supreme Court in charge of deciding impeachment convictions. But the Founders sensed this ultimate governance decision might require political judgment. So they made it the Senate's role.
Now Trump is running for president — even while he's facing a criminal trial for his crimes and schemes to sabotage America's democracy. His best hope now is to become president and pardon himself.
McConnell gave Trump the help he couldn't get anywhere else, back on that Senate impeachment day — and became the unlikely de facto driver of Trump's getaway bandwagon.
Schram is a columnist for Tribune News Service: martin.schram@gmail.com.
