theatlantic--2020-01-21--The Atlantic Politics Daily: The Trial Mitch McConnell Doesn’t Want

‣ Adam Schiff : He ’ s one of seven House Democrats now prosecuting the case in the Senate .
Impeachment has made Schiff a household name ( okay , not everywhere ) .
What does Schiff do now , after the spotlight of December ’ s House Intelligence Committee hearings ?
+ Also an impeachment manager : Another familiar face , Jerry Nadler .
‣ The convincible ones : A couple of GOP senators have been virtually silent on impeachment .
And these four occasional critics could ultimately turn against the president .
The climate change activist Greta Thunberg @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Davos today .
1 .
“ They learn about and talk about big important things .
Their style of politics is a parlor game in which they debate the issues on their abstract merits.
” College-educated white men dominate political discourse , but they live in a world of hypotheticals without actively participating in political movements or activism , something that the political science professor Eitan Hersh argues is destroying how politics in America is done .
2 .
“ One group ’ s politics canceled those of others , in other words.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Virginia capital on Martin Luther King Jr. Day was rife with contradiction .
Chief among them : How gun-rights activists leveraged the Second Amendment to shut down “ the free marketplace of ideas , ” Garrett Epps writes .
Guns aren ’ t just symbols .
3 .
“ Whereas the president ’ s job is to supervise the White House staff and the executive-branch agencies that report to the White House , in the Trump presidency the inverse is what ’ s really happening ... ” Trump is smashing theories of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Benjamin Wittes argue : If he can be easily manipulated , cajoled , or obstructed by his subordinates , what does that mean for future presidents and their agenda-setting power ?
One of the most aggressive medical-debt collectors in the U.S. is the U.S. government itself .
Jared Bennett and Olga Khazan report on the nightmarish web of medical debt that some patients incur after treatment at a military hospital , in this collaboration with The Center for Public Integrity .
When Ricardo Gonzalez Jurado received his first bill from the Brooke Army @ @ @ @ @ @ @ agreed that he would pay $ 100 each month until the balance was settled .
He sent in his $ 100 faithfully , according to his medical records .
In 2014 , BAMC asked for larger installments , and they compromised on $ 300 .
He began sending in that amount monthly .
In 2017 , Gonzalez Jurado received a letter from the hospital saying his balance had been “ paid in full.
” Knowing it hadn ’ t—he had only paid about $ 8,000 at that point—Gonzalez Jurado said he tried in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ billing department .
The hospital also began returning his $ 300 checks .
Gonzalez Jurado figured that , perhaps , he had satisfied the hospital ’ s desire for cash .
Maybe it had realized he was old and not rich , he thought , and had given up on collecting .
It was a gift horse ; he decided to stop inspecting its teeth .
That is , until April 2018 , when he received a letter from the U.S. Department of the Treasury , which collects delinquent debt for government agencies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Today ’ s newsletter was written by Christian Paz , a Politics fellow .
It was edited by Shan Wang , who oversees newsletters .
You can reply directly to this newsletter with questions or comments , or send a note to politicsdaily @ theatlantic.com .
Your support makes our journalism possible .
Subscribe here .

A “Potemkin trial,” a “rushed trial,” a “fair trial.” Plus: How the political “hobbyism” of the college-educated is ruining American politics.
It’s Tuesday, January 21. In today’s newsletter: A “Potemkin trial,” a “rushed trial,” a “fair trial.” Plus: How the political “hobbyism” of the college-educated is ruining American politics.
*
« TODAY IN POLITICS »
(Jonathan Ernst / Reuters )
The Senate impeachment trial kicked off in earnest today. While (spoiler alert!) President Donald Trump almost certainly won’t be removed from office, and while all senators must follow no-speaking, no-cellphones rules during the trial, prepare for at least some histrionics.
The prosecution (the House impeachment managers) and defense (Trump’s legal team) are set to deliver their opening arguments this week, with the final vote to convict or acquit coming as early as next week.
Here’s a rundown of the characters worth keeping an eye on:
‣ Mitch McConnell: “Everyone’s going to hate the Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump,” David Graham writes. But “the rules that McConnell has laid out … provide for a Potemkin trial, not a real one.”
‣ Pat Cipollone: The White House counsel will get his TV debut as he oversees Trump’s defense. Read the definitive profile of the lawyer Trump has always wanted.
‣ John Roberts: He’s constitutionally obligated to preside over the trial, but will the chief justice be an active participant, or more of a potted plant? “Roberts could ultimately be the last man standing in the GOP with the ability to say no to a president who barrels through law and custom,” Ron Brownstein writes.
‣ Adam Schiff: He’s one of seven House Democrats now prosecuting the case in the Senate. Impeachment has made Schiff a household name (okay, not everywhere). What does Schiff do now, after the spotlight of December’s House Intelligence Committee hearings?
+ Also an impeachment manager: Another familiar face, Jerry Nadler.
‣ The convincible ones: A couple of GOP senators have been virtually silent on impeachment. And these four occasional critics could ultimately turn against the president.
—Saahil Desai
*
« SNAPSHOT »
(Denis Balibouse / Reuters)
The climate change activist Greta Thunberg shortly before Trump’s speech at Davos today.
*
« IDEAS AND ARGUMENTS »
(STEVE HEAP / SHUTTERSTOCK / GETTY / THE ATLANTIC)
1. “They learn about and talk about big important things. Their style of politics is a parlor game in which they debate the issues on their abstract merits.”
College-educated white men dominate political discourse, but they live in a world of hypotheticals without actively participating in political movements or activism, something that the political science professor Eitan Hersh argues is destroying how politics in America is done.
2. “One group’s politics canceled those of others, in other words.”
The massive gun-rights protest that swarmed the Virginia capital on Martin Luther King Jr. Day was rife with contradiction. Chief among them: How gun-rights activists leveraged the Second Amendment to shut down “the free marketplace of ideas,” Garrett Epps writes. Guns aren’t just symbols.
3. “Whereas the president’s job is to supervise the White House staff and the executive-branch agencies that report to the White House, in the Trump presidency the inverse is what’s really happening ...”
Trump is smashing theories of modern presidential power, Susan Hennessey and Benjamin Wittes argue: If he can be easily manipulated, cajoled, or obstructed by his subordinates, what does that mean for future presidents and their agenda-setting power?
*
« EVENING READ »
(SHUTTERSTOCK / GETTY / PAUL SPELLA / THE ATLANTIC)
One of the most aggressive medical-debt collectors in the U.S. is the U.S. government itself.
Jared Bennett and Olga Khazan report on the nightmarish web of medical debt that some patients incur after treatment at a military hospital, in this collaboration with The Center for Public Integrity.
When Ricardo Gonzalez Jurado received his first bill from the Brooke Army Medical Center, he and the hospital agreed that he would pay $100 each month until the balance was settled. He sent in his $100 faithfully, according to his medical records. In 2014, BAMC asked for larger installments, and they compromised on $300. He began sending in that amount monthly. In 2017, Gonzalez Jurado received a letter from the hospital saying his balance had been “paid in full.” Knowing it hadn’t—he had only paid about $8,000 at that point—Gonzalez Jurado said he tried in vain to reach the hospital’s billing department. The hospital also began returning his $300 checks. Gonzalez Jurado figured that, perhaps, he had satisfied the hospital’s desire for cash. Maybe it had realized he was old and not rich, he thought, and had given up on collecting. It was a gift horse; he decided to stop inspecting its teeth. That is, until April 2018, when he received a letter from the U.S. Department of the Treasury, which collects delinquent debt for government agencies, including the Department of Defense.
Read the rest.
*


theatlantic--2020-01-21--The Solemn Absurdity of Trump’s Impeachment Trial

The eyes of the nation may well have been on the Senate today , but the eyes of the senators themselves were drooping .
Chief Justice John Roberts took the rostrum shortly after 1:15 p.m. , and barely half an hour into House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff ’ s enthusiastic opening salvo against McConnell ’ s proposed rules , Republicans were already shifting uncomfortably in their seats .
Things went downhill from there .
Make no mistake : there was a frisson of real tension in the air as the session got underway , with the Senate chaplain Barry @ @ @ @ @ @ @ solemnly praying , “ Eternal God , you are our rock and fortress .
Save us from dishonor.
” All 100 senators atypically stayed put at their small wooden desks , silver containers of blotting sand placed on each one beside a row of sharpened pencils , in tribute to the days of quill pens and inkwells .
Two brass spittoons sat under McConnell and Schumer ’ s desks in the same nostalgic tradition , and blue-suited pages silently refilled small water glasses on demand .
Reporters who filed into the press gallery @ @ @ @ @ @ @ head faced a stern warning from a sign on the door : “ ALLOWED : pen , paper , you .
NOT ALLOWED : almost everything else , ” including phones , tablets , cameras , laptops , recorders and “ ALL ELECTRONICS.
” This may be the second impeachment of the digital age , but no one would know that inside the room where it happens .
The Senate chamber itself is an intimate and elegant space , and today it was full .
There were special tables for the House managers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pack of aides ringed the room .
Rotating relays of stenographers marched to the well of the chamber to record the official proceedings with waist-mounted stenotype keyboards that called to mind a ballpark peanut vendor or the cigarette girl in a vintage nightclub .
The actress-turned-activist Alyssa Milano sat in the visitors ’ gallery opposite the Chief Justice , solemn in black against the yellow damask wallpaper adorned with Liberty Bells and laurel wreaths .
In late afternoon , three of Trump ’ s most ardent defenders in the House—Louie Gohmert of Texas @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Lee Zeldin of New York—arrived to avail themselves of their privilege of the Senate floor , staring daggers from the rear of the chamber on the Republicans ’ side .
But soon enough , boredom seemed to set in .
Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona , who arrived in the chamber in a violet teddy-bear coat and bright yellow boots , took occasional notes in pink Hi-Liter , while her neighbors , Jacky Rosen of Nevada and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut , passed notes back and forth .
Mazie Hirono of Hawaii @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts perused a fat binder that appeared to contain biographies of the president ’ s lawyers .

As senators embarked on their first day of proceedings, the occasional yawn and rubbing of the eyes emphasized the pointlessness of the whole affair.
The impeachment trial of the century had barely begun when word came down that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had softened his initial plan to make the House managers and President Donald Trump’s lawyers present their cases in marathon 12-hour sessions over four days. He’ll allow the teams a more civilized eight hours over six days instead.
And a good thing, too—if the first afternoon’s deliberations were any sign. One hundred senators accustomed to talking at length were silenced by the trial rules, and by sundown they were visibly chafing, frustrated by the unbridgeable gap between the 18th-century gravity of the proceedings and the universal assumptions about its forgone conclusion.
At 3:45 p.m. EST, Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, stifled a yawn. Two minutes later, as debate dragged on, he vigorously rubbed his eyes with both hands and yawned again. At 4:04, he shielded both eyes and held his head in his right hand. By 4:45, his eyes seemed to briefly close altogether.
“The eyes are on the Senate,” McConnell intoned during the opening period of “morning business” before the trial got formally under way in the early afternoon (only in the Senate does the morning hour come after noon). “The country is waiting to see if we can rise to the occasion.” Minutes later, Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, echoed the sentiment. “My colleagues,” he intoned, “the eyes of the nation, the eyes of the Founding Fathers, the eyes of history are upon us. Will the Senate rise to the occasion?”
The eyes of the nation may well have been on the Senate today, but the eyes of the senators themselves were drooping. Chief Justice John Roberts took the rostrum shortly after 1:15 p.m., and barely half an hour into House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff’s enthusiastic opening salvo against McConnell’s proposed rules, Republicans were already shifting uncomfortably in their seats. Things went downhill from there.
Read: Impeachment for breakfast, lunch, and dinner
Make no mistake: A frisson of real tension was in the air as the session got under way, as the Senate chaplain Barry Black, a retired Navy admiral, solemnly prayed, “Eternal God, you are our rock and fortress. Save us from dishonor.” All 100 senators atypically stayed put at their small wooden desks, silver containers of blotting sand placed on each one beside a row of sharpened pencils, in tribute to the days of quill pens and inkwells. Two brass spittoons sat under McConnell’s and Schumer’s desks in the same nostalgic tradition, and blue-suited pages silently refilled small water glasses on demand.
Reporters who filed into the press gallery directly above the Chief Justice’s head faced a stern warning from a sign on the door: “ALLOWED: pen, paper, you. NOT ALLOWED: almost everything else,” including phones, tablets, cameras, laptops, recorders, and “ALL ELECTRONICS.” This may be the second impeachment of the digital age, but no one would know that inside the room where it was happening.
The Senate chamber itself is an intimate and elegant space, and today it was full. There were special tables for the House managers and the presidents’ lawyers; a pack of aides ringed the room. Rotating relays of stenographers marched to the well of the chamber to record the official proceedings with waist-mounted stenotype keyboards that called to mind a ballpark peanut vendor or the cigarette girl in a vintage nightclub.
The actress-turned-activist Alyssa Milano sat in the visitors’ gallery opposite the Chief Justice, solemn in black against the yellow damask wallpaper adorned with Liberty Bells and laurel wreaths. In late afternoon, three of Trump’s most ardent defenders in the House—Louie Gohmert of Texas, Mark Meadows of North Carolina, and Lee Zeldin of New York—arrived to avail themselves of their privilege of the Senate floor, staring daggers from the rear of the chamber on the Republicans’ side.
But soon enough, boredom seemed to set in. Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who arrived in the chamber in a violet teddy-bear coat and bright yellow boots, took occasional notes in pink Hi-Liter, while her neighbors, Jacky Rosen of Nevada and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, passed notes back and forth. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii applied lipstick, while Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts perused a fat binder that appeared to contain biographies of the president’s lawyers.
If the debates were less than riveting, it was because both sides fundamentally agree that Trump withheld military aid to Ukraine while asking that country’s president for an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden. They disagree only on what, if anything, should be done about it, and they made no fresh arguments, and no one’s mind seemed apt to change. When Schiff made his plea for additional witnesses and documents in the face of the White House’s stonewalling of the House inquiry, Schumer listened with a bemused smile. McConnell just glowered. When White House Counsel Pat Cipollone spoke on behalf of the president, the leaders’ expressions were reversed.
Kim Wehle: Senators know they don’t know the whole story
The overriding truth is that in a trial in which McConnell needs only 51 of his side’s 53 Republican votes to prevail on procedure, the Democrats have limited power. Indeed, Schumer’s first proposed amendment—to subpoena a raft of documents from the White House—failed 47–53 along strict party lines. A second Schumer amendment to subpoena State Department documents succumbed to a similar fate just after 6:30 p.m. as Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado rose to his feet for a seventh-inning stretch.
But McConnell’s own caucus did manage to force his hand on the matter of marathon sessions after Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Rob Portman of Ohio objected to his departure from the more deliberate pace followed in the Clinton impeachment, 21 years ago this month. McConnell also agreed to automatically accept the evidence gathered by the House in its impeachment inquiry unless a senator objects, instead of subjecting it to a vote, as he had initially proposed.
Schiff insisted that McConnell’s plan to vote on calling potential witnesses only after both sides present their arguments and senators have a chance to submit written questions would be a perversion of any normal trial. “The opening arguments are the trial,” he insisted. “They’ll either be most of the trial or,” if no witnesses are called, “all of the trial.”
But Schiff may have unintentionally voiced a more profound truth when he quoted Alexander Hamilton’s observation that under the Constitution, “the Senate is given awful discretion in impeachment.” Indeed, it is, and by the end of day one, Mitch McConnell had shown that he is ready, willing, and able to exercise that discretion in the most commanding way.
6.5.0


theatlantic--2020-01-22--Who Plays by the Rules?

Who Plays by the Rules?

“ The bottom line is very simple , ” Schumer answered , after Roberts gave him permission , “ as has been clear to every senator and the country : We believe witnesses and documents are extremely important , and a compelling case has been made for them .
We will have votes on all of those.
” Schumer went on to complain that McConnell himself had deviated from his initial promise to model the rules for this impeachment on those that governed Bill Clinton ’ s 21 years ago , and had sprung the final version on the Democrats @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ So there will be a good number of votes , ” he allowed .
Within the genteel parameters of Senate decorum , it was Schumer ’ s gritted-teeth way of reminding McConnell of payback ’ s high price .
Indeed , when I asked a veteran Democratic Senate aide to explain the source of McConnell and Schumer ’ s mutual animosity , his answer was immediate and succinct .
“ Merrick Garland , Merrick Garland , Merrick Garland , ” said Jim Manley , who was a top aide to Senators Harry @ @ @ @ @ @ @ referring , of course , to McConnell ’ s refusal to act on President Barack Obama ’ s final Supreme Court nomination with nearly a year left in his White House tenure , a vacancy that was eventually filled by Neil Gorsuch , a conservative-leaning justice appointed by Trump .
“ For many Democrats , that was the final straw , ” Manley said .
“ Those that had been in the Senate for many years saw McConnell increasingly using the filibuster to block everything that the Democrats tried to bring to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , he made up this phony election-year rule that prevented Garland from even getting a hearing .
They saw that as proof that he was nothing more than a naked partisan prepared to use every tool available to prevent President Obama from getting anything done.
” Under the Senate ’ s usual rules , the minority party—and even a single senator—has significant power to delay or alter the proceedings .
But under the impeachment-trial rules , McConnell can resolve any dispute by simple majority vote—and , for the moment anyway , he has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s why Schumer and the Democrats were so determined to force votes on each amendment , in an attempt to hammer home their contention that the trial , in its present incarnation , is inherently unfair .
It ’ s the only leverage they have , and the only real remaining suspense is whether at least four GOP senators might join Democrats next week in agreeing to seek witness testimony or subpoena more documents .
Schumer and McConnell met once for about 20 minutes in December to discuss settling on bipartisan procedures @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and have been in open warfare ever since .
In his opening remarks yesterday , Schumer dismissed McConnell ’ s rules for the trial as “ nothing short of a national disgrace ” and “ completely partisan , ” while McConnell portrayed his plan as “ a fair road map ” that would ensure “ finally , some fairness ” in the impeachment inquiry .
It escaped no one ’ s notice in the chamber that those propositions are inherently irreconcilable , and if McConnell and Schumer had yet to engage in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , it was only because neither side chose to present any motions that might be the subject of the full Senate ’ s debate , so the House managers had unbroken access to the floor to present their case instead .

The two men sit barely six feet apart, stationed across the Senate chamber’s center aisle, but they seldom cast so much as a sidelong glance each other’s way. Sometimes, they actually lean to opposite sides, as if their souls were repellent magnets. They speak to each other—if at all—only through the mediation of Chief Justice John Roberts.
As the impeachment trial into President Donald Trump gets under way, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his Democratic counterpart, Chuck Schumer, personify the polarized politics playing out before them—or, perhaps, because of them. Now, just two days into the trial, their dysfunctional relationship has turned a proceeding that is by its nature adversarial into a sulfurous show.
Schumer kept the Senate in session until just before 2 a.m. this morning, forcing votes on 10 procedural amendments to compel witness testimony and documentary evidence from the White House and other executive-branch agencies (and another to extend the timetable for trial motions), even though McConnell had long ago made it clear that he had the necessary numbers to defeat each one. As the hours ticked by, and amendment after amendment failed on the same 53–47 party-line vote, McConnell, like a weary spouse, asked Roberts whether Schumer might be willing to “stack” his remaining proposals into a single vote.
“The bottom line is very simple,” Schumer answered, after Roberts gave him permission, “as has been clear to every senator and the country: We believe witnesses and documents are extremely important, and a compelling case has been made for them. We will have votes on all of those.” Schumer went on to complain that McConnell himself had deviated from his initial promise to model the rules for this impeachment on those that governed Bill Clinton’s 21 years ago, and had sprung the final version on the Democrats only moments before the trial began. “So there will be a good number of votes,” he allowed.
Within the genteel parameters of Senate decorum, it was Schumer’s gritted-teeth way of reminding McConnell of payback’s high price. Indeed, when I asked a veteran Democratic Senate aide to explain the source of McConnell and Schumer’s mutual animosity, his answer was immediate and succinct.
“Merrick Garland, Merrick Garland, Merrick Garland,” said Jim Manley, who was a top aide to Senators Harry Reid and Ted Kennedy. He was referring, of course, to McConnell’s refusal to act on President Barack Obama’s final Supreme Court nomination with nearly a year left in his White House tenure, a vacancy that was eventually filled by Neil Gorsuch, a conservative-leaning justice appointed by Trump. “For many Democrats, that was the final straw,” Manley said. “Those that had been in the Senate for many years saw McConnell increasingly using the filibuster to block everything that the Democrats tried to bring to the floor. Then all of a sudden, he made up this phony election-year rule that prevented Garland from even getting a hearing. They saw that as proof that he was nothing more than a naked partisan prepared to use every tool available to prevent President Obama from getting anything done.”
Under the Senate’s usual rules, the minority party—and even a single senator—has significant power to delay or alter the proceedings. But under the impeachment-trial rules, McConnell can resolve any dispute by simple majority vote—and, for the moment anyway, he has the votes to do so. That’s why Schumer and the Democrats were so determined to force votes on each amendment, in an attempt to hammer home their contention that the trial, in its present incarnation, is inherently unfair. It’s the only leverage they have, and the only real remaining suspense is whether at least four GOP senators might join Democrats next week in agreeing to seek witness testimony or subpoena more documents. Schumer and McConnell met once for about 20 minutes in December to discuss settling on bipartisan procedures for the trial but made no progress, and have been in open warfare ever since.
David Graham: No, Democrats aren't trying to overturn the 2016 election
In his opening remarks yesterday, Schumer dismissed McConnell’s rules for the trial as “nothing short of a national disgrace” and “completely partisan,” while McConnell portrayed his plan as “a fair road map” that would ensure “finally, some fairness” in the impeachment inquiry. It escaped no one’s notice in the chamber that those propositions are inherently irreconcilable, and if McConnell and Schumer had yet to engage in any further sparring as today wore on, it was only because neither side chose to present any motions that might be the subject of the full Senate’s debate, so the House managers had unbroken access to the floor to present their case instead.
The affair thus far is markedly different from the Clinton trial two decades ago, when procedural rules were passed unanimously after Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi and his Democratic counterpart, Tom Daschle of South Dakota, had resolved to work together despite the rancorous partisanship over the president’s affair with Monica Lewinsky.*
“Tom and I had a good relationship and had already been working together,” Lott told me by phone today. “He’s a prairie liberal and I’m a conservative southern Republican, but we had similar backgrounds, in terms of the communities we grew up in—and an agricultural environment and so on—and we’d had time to develop a trusting relationship.” By contrast, Lott added, “Everybody knows that Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell don’t mix. They’re oil and water, a New York City guy and someone who was born in Alabama and represents Kentucky. They just have very different backgrounds, and very different views of the world.”
Part of the secret of Lott and Daschle’s cooperation was that both wanted to avoid the salacious spectacle—favored by some firebrand Republicans—of having Lewinsky and perhaps even Clinton himself testify on the Senate floor about the details of their sexual encounters. So the leaders initially proposed an abbreviated trial schedule intended to wrap things up swiftly.
“I presented it to the Republican caucus, and they did everything but stone me and throw me into the street,” Lott recalled. “I had to call Tom and say, ‘I can’t sell this,’ so we were back at ground zero. We fumbled around for a week and couldn’t figure out how to get going.” Eventually, all 100 senators agreed to caucus in secret in the Old Senate Chamber with no aides or record of the proceedings.
At one point in that caucus, Senator Phil Gramm, a Republican from Texas, rose to speak, and was followed by Kennedy, the chamber’s liberal lion. Lott suddenly looked at his Republican colleague Connie Mack of Florida and said, “I think they’re saying the same thing.” So he and Daschle agreed to announce the compromise to the waiting press, but on their way to the microphones, each turned to the other and asked whether they really understood what they’d just agreed to. The answer was no, but the important point was there was agreement, and a bipartisan team was dispatched to work out the eventual details, which included waiting until after both sides had presented their arguments before deciding whether to call witnesses. (In the end, three, including Lewinsky, were deposed on videotape, with excerpts played for the full Senate.) Clinton’s then–chief of staff, John Podesta, told me last year that it was his single lowest moment of the impeachment saga, because such bipartisan agreement risked making the proceedings seem fair, when the White House was trying to paint Special Prosecutor Ken Starr’s investigation as prurient and partisan.
Quinta Jurecic and Benjamin Wittes: The serious silliness of impeachment
No such worries about sex and decorum—and no such comity—are anywhere in sight this week. As the lead House impeachment manager, Representative Adam Schiff, noted in the first few minutes of his side’s 24 hours of argument this afternoon: “We have some very long days yet to come.”
In his invocation this afternoon, Senate Chaplain Barry Black beseeched the Almighty to help senators “remember that patriots reside on both sides of the aisle, that words have consequences, and that how something is said can be as important as what is said,” and asked God to “give them a civility built upon integrity.”
Schumer and McConnell could hardly have helped but hear the prayer. Whether they were listening is another question completely.


theatlantic--2020-01-23--Donald Trump Has One Problem

Donald Trump Has One Problem

In private , Trump can accept when he ’ s wrong .
Told by aides that he ’ s made a mistake , he ’ ll reply with a simple Crap , the second former White House aide told me .
What he won ’ t do is openly admit error .
( This is too bad .
Think of how disarming it might be if Trump , standing on the South Lawn while the helicopter blades whirred , told the press pool at least once in a while , Crap , I got it wrong . )
Over time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ learned that predicting what he ’ ll do is risky .
Aides have told me they don ’ t want to jeopardize their reputations by defending positions that Trump will later renounce .
“ Sometimes we were told that we back X legislation or we ’ ll sign that bill , ” the second aide told me .
“ And then he ’ d tweet something the next day that changes it .
That was one of those things that followed us around.
” Assumptions about how Trump will act at any given @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , for example , didn ’ t think Trump would pick the option of killing Iranian General Qassem Soleimani when they presented it to him , The New York Times reported earlier this month .
They thought wrong .
But no one in Trump ’ s orbit seems to want him to change his style these days .
“ He speaks casually , ” a third former White House aide told me .
“ You understand the essence of what he ’ s thinking and saying.
” By contrast , “ you got @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
But you never got the man ’ s thinking or a sense of who he really was.
” If anything , staff members have encouraged Trump to trust his instincts .
“ You ’ ve got to be aggressive and make the case , ” Steve Bannon , the president ’ s former chief strategist , told me .
“ The media isn ’ t going to help you .
You have to attack , attack , attack.
” Trump ’ s accessibility has its merits , some who have worked with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you , he ’ ll listen to you , tossing aside the filters that normally control the information getting to the president .
Shulkin found some aspects of that approach liberating , he said .
When he worked at the VA during the Obama administration , “ you would go to a specific office and present papers and briefing material .
You would have weeks where they ’ d be looking at and analyzing the issues , and you would come back and meet about it .
Progress was steady , but slow.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ away .
He would go directly to the president and the conversation might go like this , he told me : But for all that face time , Shulkin came to a humiliating end , a casualty of the same managerial mess that had given him so much unstructured access to Trump in the first place .
Conservatives were unhappy with him ; they didn ’ t think he was doing enough to privatize certain VA services .
Trump was listening .
Hearing rumors that he might get dumped , Shulkin said he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ask about his status .
Kelly is someone who should have known the answer—he had taken the job to bring order to the West Wing .
At first Kelly told him , “ David , there ’ s absolutely no truth to that .
You have the president ’ s confidence.
” Later that same day , Trump himself called , and he didn ’ t mention that Shulkin ’ s job was in jeopardy .
Yet within a few hours , Kelly called him back : The rumors were true .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Shulkin , “ I had no idea .
”

Donald Trump faces the diciest moment of his presidency, a Senate impeachment trial, with a pair of distinct handicaps: shattered credibility and a West Wing that is broken into fiefdoms and often clueless about his intentions. Both were years in the making; neither seems easily fixed.
From the outside, these can seem like two different problems. But in many ways, they’re one and the same. False statements and West Wing disorder are not only inseparably linked; they’re mutually reinforcing.
Start with a president who is a solitary decision maker and who has swept aside early staff efforts to vet the material he sees. Trump now absorbs information, innuendo, gossip, and calumny wherever he finds it. He’s getting it from random Twitter feeds and old friends, from overseas autocrats and pro-Trump talking heads. He’ll repeat rumor as fact without naming the source.
Presidents are free to change their mind, and it’s not a bad thing to rethink one’s assumptions. But Trump does it so often and so impulsively that he’s left his staff as bewildered as anyone on the outside about his plans. No one in the West Wing can speak for him, creating awkward instances in which they’ve defended positions he’s abandoned and touted proposals he never endorsed. He’ll dispatch aides to deliver a public message, then repudiate what they’ve just announced.
Alexander Nazaryan: What if the chaos is strategic?
Misinformation feeds the chaos; chaos gives rise to more misinformation. One former aide told me that Trump had a habit of coming downstairs from the White House residential quarters calling for some action that would have upended his staff’s planning. Trying to figure out where the president got the idea, the aide would scan the previous night’s Fox News shows for hints. Members of Congress often insist to White House staff that Trump state his position in a tweet, knowing they can’t rely on assurances from anyone in the West Wing, a second former aide told me. “He changes his mind. That’s the fundamental point,” this person said.
David Shulkin is a Trump cast-off whose tumultuous stint in the Cabinet was overtaken long ago by more pressing dramas. But his short, unhappy life in Trumpland illustrates the self-perpetuating cycle of miscommunication and dysfunction. The former Veterans Affairs secretary would often get phone calls from Trump asking questions based on something he had seen on Fox News, Shulkin told me. Trump was “constantly getting information from outside people, and his contacts from outside the White House were continually telling him what needed to happen at the VA and giving him messaging,” Shulkin said. “I never really understood where he would get some of his questions from.” In one embarrassing moment caught on camera, Trump turned to him at a White House gathering and asked if he would be coming to Mar-a-Lago for a meeting to discuss the VA. Shulkin shook his head. No one had invited him to a meeting about the agency he led; this was the first he was hearing about it. “I looked at him quizzically because I had no idea what he was talking about,” Shulkin told me.
Trump’s heedlessness—his staff would call it decisiveness—has shaken his White House’s credibility since day two. Bristling over news reports showing that fewer people had come to see his inauguration than Barack Obama’s in 2009, Trump told his press secretary at the time, Sean Spicer, to go out and deal with it—quickly. Spicer’s combative claim that Trump’s crowd was the biggest ever was swiftly disproved and forever mocked. That first falsehood—three years ago this week—set a pattern.
Examples have been piling up ever since.
A few months into his term, when the Justice Department revised his travel ban to ensure that it would pass constitutional muster, Trump complained that the version his own government produced was “watered down” and “politically correct.”
Last year, Trump sent out his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, to tell the press that the next G7 summit would take place at his Doral golf club, in Florida. Two days later, Trump said it would be held elsewhere.
In recent weeks, Trump has repeatedly said that he is prepared to let top White House officials testify at the Senate impeachment trial—even as his legal team has actively worked to block them from appearing.
In private, Trump can accept when he’s wrong. Told by aides that he’s made a mistake, he’ll reply with a simple Crap, the second former White House aide told me. What he won’t do is openly admit error. (This is too bad. Think of how disarming it might be if Trump, standing on the South Lawn while the helicopter blades whirred, told the press pool at least once in a while, Crap, I got it wrong.)
Over time, Trump’s seasoned aides have learned that predicting what he’ll do is risky. Aides have told me they don’t want to jeopardize their reputations by defending positions that Trump will later renounce. “Sometimes we were told that we back X legislation or we’ll sign that bill,” the second aide told me. “And then he’d tweet something the next day that changes it. That was one of those things that followed us around.”
Assumptions about how Trump will act at any given time can backfire. U.S. military leaders, for example, didn’t think Trump would pick the option of killing Iranian General Qassem Soleimani when they presented it to him, The New York Times reported earlier this month. They thought wrong.
Read: The other reason Republicans won’t cross Trump
But no one in Trump’s orbit seems to want him to change his style these days. “He speaks casually,” a third former White House aide told me. “You understand the essence of what he’s thinking and saying.” By contrast, “you got beautifully crafted statements from the Obama administration. But you never got the man’s thinking or a sense of who he really was.”
If anything, staff members have encouraged Trump to trust his instincts. “You’ve got to be aggressive and make the case,” Steve Bannon, the president’s former chief strategist, told me. “The media isn’t going to help you. You have to attack, attack, attack.”
Trump’s accessibility has its merits, some who have worked with him told me. If he trusts you, he’ll listen to you, tossing aside the filters that normally control the information getting to the president. Shulkin found some aspects of that approach liberating, he said. When he worked at the VA during the Obama administration, “you would go to a specific office and present papers and briefing material. You would have weeks where they’d be looking at and analyzing the issues, and you would come back and meet about it. Progress was steady, but slow.” Under Trump, the bureaucracy fell away. He would go directly to the president and the conversation might go like this, he told me:
“Look, this is what I want to do.” “Is this a good thing for veterans?” Trump would ask. “Yes.” “Go ahead and do it.”
But for all that face time, Shulkin came to a humiliating end, a casualty of the same managerial mess that had given him so much unstructured access to Trump in the first place. Conservatives were unhappy with him; they didn’t think he was doing enough to privatize certain VA services. Trump was listening. Hearing rumors that he might get dumped, Shulkin said he called then–Chief of Staff John Kelly to ask about his status. Kelly is someone who should have known the answer—he had taken the job to bring order to the West Wing. At first Kelly told him, “David, there’s absolutely no truth to that. You have the president’s confidence.”
Later that same day, Trump himself called, and he didn’t mention that Shulkin’s job was in jeopardy. Yet within a few hours, Kelly called him back: The rumors were true. “David,” he said, according to Shulkin, “I had no idea.”


theatlantic--2020-01-23--The Atlantic Politics Daily: Trump’s Favorite Impeachment Defenses

Call it a credibility crisis ; call it chaos .
My colleague Peter Nicholas reports on how these twin problems are inextricably linked .
Misinformation feeds the chaos ; chaos gives rise to more misinformation .
One former aide told me that Trump had a habit of coming downstairs from the White House residential quarters calling for some action that would have upended his staff ’ s planning .
Trying to figure out where the president got the idea , the aide would scan the previous night ’ s Fox News shows for hints .
Members of Congress often insist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his position in a tweet , knowing they can ’ t rely on assurances from anyone in the West Wing , a second former aide told me .
“ He changes his mind .
That ’ s the fundamental point , ” this person said .
Migrants traveling mainly from Central America in a caravan against a backdrop of security forces are seen near Frontera Hidalgo in Chiapas , Mexico today .
Chief Justice John Roberts arrives at the U.S. Capitol to preside over the impeachment trial .
( SARAH SILBIGER / REUTERS @ @ @ @ @ @ @ McConnell has created the mistaken impression that the Constitution does not provide any guidance about the impeachment process , and that the procedures for the trial—including motions to call witnesses—can be determined by a majority vote.
” The Senate had voted along party lines , blocking Democratic efforts to compel testimony from additional witnesses such as John Bolton or Mick Mulvaney .
Democrats can try again next week after Trump ’ s defense team completes their arguments , but if no witnesses end up being called , the trial should be considered unconstitutional @ @ @ @ @ @ @ office prosecutor argues .
2 .
“ They are the latest faded luminaries seeking to revive their fame—and blemish their reputation—by shilling for Donald Trump.
” With the return of the like of Alan Dershowitz and Ken Starr in Trump ’ s impeachment trial , it can feel like the 1990s never ended .
That ’ s because Trump ’ s whole presidency continues to function as a “ revenge of the has-beens , ” Peter Beinart argues .
3 .
“ It felt like the setup to a joke : So the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a crown prince were texting one day ... ” While reports that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos was hacked via a DM from Saudi Arabia ’ s crown prince may be shocking to read , the news of their close relationship shouldn ’ t be surprising , Alexis Madrigal writes .
The rich have always been tight-knit , but the world ’ s ultra-rich are even closer .
Kelsey Juliana , a lead plaintiff in the case arguing that the federal government must act on climate change , outside the Supreme Court .
( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sued the government alleging inaction on climate change , arguing that the federal government was stripping future generations of Americans of their constitutional rights .

All the president’s talking points. Plus: Is a Senate impeachment trial that’s called no witnesses unconstitutional?
It’s Thursday, January 23. In today’s newsletter: All the president’s talking points. Plus: Is a Senate impeachment trial that’s called no witnesses unconstitutional?
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« TODAY IN POLITICS »
(FABRICE COFFRINI / AFP / GETTY)
Trump’s Favorite Impeachment Defenses
President Donald Trump has a whole lot of talking points he turns to fire back against impeachment—from “a perfect phone call” to simply blasting any quid-pro-quo allegations as a “hoax.” But maybe his favorite defense of all, and one that his fellow Republicans have co-opted, is that Democrats are trying to overturn the 2016 election.
David Graham tears down this line of thinking:
The sound bite is shorthand that is easily understood—or perhaps easily misleads. Most crucially, it provides a way for Trump and his allies to evade talking about the substance of the accusations against him. As the shifting stories the White House has told make clear, that is a very difficult task, and there were few substantive defenses of the president yesterday. If, however, the whole point is to subvert the will of the people, then it short-circuits all that debate.
Read the rest.
The president, more broadly, seems to have two big problems with the impeachment trial bearing down on him: dysfunction in the West Wing, and shattered credibility with the public.
Call it a credibility crisis; call it chaos. My colleague Peter Nicholas reports on how these twin problems are inextricably linked.
Misinformation feeds the chaos; chaos gives rise to more misinformation. One former aide told me that Trump had a habit of coming downstairs from the White House residential quarters calling for some action that would have upended his staff’s planning. Trying to figure out where the president got the idea, the aide would scan the previous night’s Fox News shows for hints. Members of Congress often insist to White House staff that Trump state his position in a tweet, knowing they can’t rely on assurances from anyone in the West Wing, a second former aide told me. “He changes his mind. That’s the fundamental point,” this person said.
Read the rest.
—Saahil Desai
*
« SNAPSHOT »
(Andres Martinez Casares / Reuters)
Migrants traveling mainly from Central America in a caravan against a backdrop of security forces are seen near Frontera Hidalgo in Chiapas, Mexico today.
*
« IDEAS AND ARGUMENTS »
Chief Justice John Roberts arrives at the U.S. Capitol to preside over the impeachment trial. (SARAH SILBIGER / REUTERS)
1. “[Mitch] McConnell has created the mistaken impression that the Constitution does not provide any guidance about the impeachment process, and that the procedures for the trial—including motions to call witnesses—can be determined by a majority vote.”
The Senate had voted along party lines, blocking Democratic efforts to compel testimony from additional witnesses such as John Bolton or Mick Mulvaney. Democrats can try again next week after Trump’s defense team completes their arguments, but if no witnesses end up being called, the trial should be considered unconstitutional, one former Manhattan DA’s office prosecutor argues.
2. “They are the latest faded luminaries seeking to revive their fame—and blemish their reputation—by shilling for Donald Trump.”
With the return of the like of Alan Dershowitz and Ken Starr in Trump’s impeachment trial, it can feel like the 1990s never ended. That’s because Trump’s whole presidency continues to function as a “revenge of the has-beens,” Peter Beinart argues.
3. “It felt like the setup to a joke: So the richest tech CEO in the world and a crown prince were texting one day ...”
While reports that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos was hacked via a DM from Saudi Arabia’s crown prince may be shocking to read, the news of their close relationship shouldn’t be surprising, Alexis Madrigal writes. The rich have always been tight-knit, but the world’s ultra-rich are even closer.
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« EVENING READ »
Kelsey Juliana, a lead plaintiff in the case arguing that the federal government must act on climate change, outside the Supreme Court. (KEVIN LAMARQUE / REUTERS)
A Climate-Lawsuit Dissent That Changed Minds
Twenty-one children sued the government alleging inaction on climate change, arguing that the federal government was stripping future generations of Americans of their constitutional rights.
A federal court dismissed the case, but one judge filed a fiery dissent (and a very readable legal argument, at that), that moved our climate and technology reporter Robinson Meyer:
It frames a growing rift on the left, about whether it’s best to address climate change through slow progress achieved institutionally or through a decisive rupture. (Every judge on the panel, including those who ruled against the kids, was appointed by a Democratic president.) And frankly, it’s like reading a document from an alternate universe—a much kinder one—in which America’s elected and appointed rulers take climate change seriously and debate the intensity of its response, rather than concern-trolling about whether the planet is warming at all.
Read the full dissent, and Rob’s analysis here.
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theatlantic--2020-01-24--Deval Patrick’s Righteous Anger

Deval Patrick’s Righteous Anger

When the lights in the lobby keep swelling high and low , and the manager comes over to apologize , he doesn ’ t recognize the former Massachusetts governor .
Neither does the waiter .
That ’ s the problem for Patrick .
He got in a year later than he was planning to , because his wife was diagnosed with cancer in late 2018 .
Then he spent this past fall stressing about how far off course the primary race seemed to be spinning , before deciding in November to go for it .
That ’ s a whole @ @ @ @ @ @ @ better known , or building any kind of organization .
By the time he did jump in , he had to argue with campaign staff he ’ d never met before about whether to spend days chasing the media exposure they said he needed or follow his gut and campaign more deliberately , one on one , the way he had in his first race , when he ’ d pulled off his out-of-nowhere win for the governorship of Massachusetts .
He ’ s annoyed about old friends and supporters who ’ ve @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reporters like me that they ’ re heartbroken to see what a flop his campaign seems to be so far .
[ Read : John Delaney is still running .
Why ? ]
On the November day Patrick formally entered the race in New Hampshire , he said he didn ’ t “ aspire ” to being part of the debates , but since then he ’ s been calling Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez , complaining about the polling and fundraising thresholds , which have kept him out .
He says @ @ @ @ @ @ @ idea of participating , but wants his campaign to be taken seriously , and have reason to be taken seriously .
He ’ s still more interested in writing policy proposals than doing the kind of attention-grabbing being pushed by his younger aides .
And he ’ s tired of talking about his “ path to the nomination , ” or how much trouble he brought himself by waiting until November to launch .
Patrick and former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg jumped in within days of each other , sensing the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ field .
Patrick is running a campaign that would seem to represent what so many Democrats say they want politics to be : a thoughtful candidate with a history of winning white and nonwhite voters , resisting the theatrics of the process , spending his time talking with people instead of fitting their problems into a preset worldview or cribbing talking points from aides .
Bloomberg is running the opposite kind of campaign , one in which what counts more than anything else is how much money and how much time a candidate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the one actually registering in the polls .
If you want idealized politics , go watch Dave or The West Wing .
Donald Trump ’ s been building a billion-dollar campaign machine for three years—that ’ s what Bloomberg is spending piles of money to combat .
And while voters might not exactly be swooning for him or for the candidates who have weathered a year of scrutiny and pressure , the other remaining candidates Patrick is up against have at least semi-functional organizations , and , like Bloomberg , support that ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ error .

COLUMBIA, S.C.—Pretty much everyone hates what the Democratic primary race has become. It’s gone on too long, cost too much money, and tended to reward people who’ve been repeating the same lines for years. Pretty much everyone also hates the debates. (How many people watched last week’s debate and saw a future president? How many people saw someone who they’re confident can beat Donald Trump?) And pretty much everyone hates what the process has churned out: A Des Moines Register poll three weeks before the Iowa caucuses, and 14 months after the campaign started, showed that 60 percent of people still hadn’t made up their minds. The New York Times endorsed two candidates. “People like the field, but I don’t think they feel that great about the front-runners,” John Delaney, who is still winding down the final days of his own candidacy, told me a few weeks ago. New York magazine’s latest cover headline nailed the Democratic panic: “Well, Here We Are.”
And here I am, in the lobby restaurant of a Marriott, with a candidate who’s telling me it’s not too late to do something about all this. Deval Patrick says voters have been telling him directly that they like him, that they’re ready to go with him, or at least consider him. “I meet donors who say, ‘I am so there; I just want to see this in the polls, and then I want to bundle for you.’ What are you waiting for? If you already think I contribute something that the rest of the field doesn’t, why are you waiting for permission from pundits, pollsters, the party, somebody else?” Patrick said. I’ve heard the same thing from people who’ve been thinking about writing checks. More often, I’ve heard people tell me that they can’t bring themselves to be a part of this.
When the lights in the lobby keep swelling high and low, and the manager comes over to apologize, he doesn’t recognize the former Massachusetts governor. Neither does the waiter.
That’s the problem for Patrick. He got in a year later than he was planning to, because his wife was diagnosed with cancer in late 2018. Then he spent this past fall stressing about how far off course the primary race seemed to be spinning, before deciding in November to go for it. That’s a whole year he didn’t spend getting better known, or building any kind of organization. By the time he did jump in, he had to argue with campaign staff he’d never met before about whether to spend days chasing the media exposure they said he needed or follow his gut and campaign more deliberately, one on one, the way he had in his first race, when he’d pulled off his out-of-nowhere win for the governorship of Massachusetts. He’s annoyed about old friends and supporters who’ve been smiling to his face—and then telling reporters like me that they’re heartbroken to see what a flop his campaign seems to be so far.
[Read: John Delaney is still running. Why?]
On the November day Patrick formally entered the race in New Hampshire, he said he didn’t “aspire” to being part of the debates, but since then he’s been calling Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez, complaining about the polling and fundraising thresholds, which have kept him out. He says he still doesn’t love the idea of participating, but wants his campaign to be taken seriously, and have reason to be taken seriously. He’s still more interested in writing policy proposals than doing the kind of attention-grabbing being pushed by his younger aides. And he’s tired of talking about his “path to the nomination,” or how much trouble he brought himself by waiting until November to launch.
Patrick and former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg jumped in within days of each other, sensing the same weakness in and dissatisfaction with the field. Patrick is running a campaign that would seem to represent what so many Democrats say they want politics to be: a thoughtful candidate with a history of winning white and nonwhite voters, resisting the theatrics of the process, spending his time talking with people instead of fitting their problems into a preset worldview or cribbing talking points from aides. Bloomberg is running the opposite kind of campaign, one in which what counts more than anything else is how much money and how much time a candidate spends on TV. Bloomberg’s the one actually registering in the polls.
If you want idealized politics, go watch Dave or The West Wing. Donald Trump’s been building a billion-dollar campaign machine for three years—that’s what Bloomberg is spending piles of money to combat. And while voters might not exactly be swooning for him or for the candidates who have weathered a year of scrutiny and pressure, the other remaining candidates Patrick is up against have at least semi-functional organizations, and, like Bloomberg, support that’s larger than a polling margin of error.
Montana Governor Steve Bullock and Senator Cory Booker both tried versions of Patrick’s campaign, emphasizing getting results as executives and bridging divides. Both are back at their day jobs.
Because Patrick got into the race so late, there haven’t been many chances to see directly how he compares with the rest of the field. But Martin Luther King Day found him in South Carolina with many of the other candidates in the race, including the front-runners. They started the morning at Zion Baptist Church in Columbia, then linked arms to march to the state capitol for a program of short speeches. Bernie Sanders spent his four minutes all but declaring that King would have been voting for him, repeatedly stressing the word revolutionary. Biden, going with remarks not subtly geared to African American voters, mangled many of his lines—sounding like he was reading them for the first time, even though he’d read most of them verbatim at an event a few miles away the night before. Tom Steyer, who’d been doing goofy fist bumps during the the musical interludes, came up to the mic surrounded by African American members of his staff and made sure to mention that he’s for reparations. Tulsi Gabbard managed to jam her usual campaign spiel about ending military spending into an appeal to build social programs. Elizabeth Warren gave a warm speech linking herself to the parable of the persistent widow. Amy Klobuchar spoke at length about voting rights and carrying King’s spirit of justice into the impeachment trial. Buttigieg didn’t speak, having ducked out to get on his charter plane back to Iowa before the program began.
[Read: Andrew Yang’s campaign is not a joke]
Patrick spoke last, talking about how he’d gone from his childhood sharing a bed in a Chicago tenement on the South Side to a business career and two terms as Massachusetts governor. Standing a few feet away from where the Confederate flag had flown until it was taken down in the aftermath of the 2015 Mother Emanuel shooting in Charleston, Patrick talked about Strom Thurmond, who’d stood in the way of civil rights as a senator from the state—and then voted for Patrick’s confirmation as head of the Justice Department’s civil-rights division under Bill Clinton, where he’d led a task force that tracked down Klansmen who’d burned a church in Greeleyville.
The event had been going on for well over an hour. It was chilly, and past lunchtime. But the crowd remained focused, listening and reacting, as he spoke off a few note cards, delivering the kind of audience-grabbing oratory that, in this election cycle, only Cory Booker had come close to pulling off.
“We cannot go from hope and change to fear and ‘settle for that.’ Not a nation with a conscience. Dr. King and his allies didn’t fight for the right to vote for us to sit idly by and wait for someone else to save us,” Patrick said. “No one’s coming to save us, but us.”
Patrick was the only candidate who stayed after the program to greet voters, though not many rushed to him. Deborah Breedlove, a retired business owner from Columbia, told me she liked his honesty, and respected that he’d taken a pause for his wife’s health, but acknowledged the downsides. “I think his only problem is that enough people haven’t met him yet,” she said. Ahmuld Thomas, who works at a local supermarket, told me he’d logged on to Patrick’s website during the speech, and wanted to read more. To that point, he’d been leaning toward Tom Steyer, distrustful of anyone who’s been in D.C. for years. But “he’s fresh,” Thomas said of Patrick. “I’m definitely going to look him up.” Neither was committed.
After the speech, Patrick ducked into the capitol building to regroup, but when I asked after him, the security guards misheard and told me there was no “Governor Kirkpatrick” inside. I elaborated. “Oh, the black guy?” one of them said, and then let me in. Patrick had been leaning on the back of a chair in an auditorium on the first floor, texting someone, but he almost leapt at me when I asked if he’d read the New York Times endorsement. He was bemused by both the wishy-washy double pick, and by the inclusion of his name in a throwaway line from the editorial board about how readers should “stop and consider the talents who did throw their hat into the ring and never got more than a passing glance from voters”—this written by a group of people who had called him in for an interview and, he felt, clearly not given him more than a passing glance themselves.
A day earlier, after a different church service he’d quietly sat through for an hour, I’d told him I’d met a voter with whom he seemed to be making a connection but who’d told me he thought Patrick would make a good vice president. Convinced I was just trying to elicit a fitting quote from him to end a precooked story about his no-chance presidential bid, he issued a terse “Thank you?” and walked away. After the speeches the next day, he was still hot about this. Growing up in poverty and fighting his way to success in school, government, business, and politics, he told me, he’d spent his whole life getting the “back of the hand” from people who told him to sit down, and it had never stopped him.
“We revere competition, until the competitor comes forward and says, ‘Well, I’d like to compete.’ And particularly in a field that has been working this hard and hasn’t settled the question” of who should be the nominee, he continued, “there are all these people saying, ‘Well, we’—we: pundits, pollsters—‘can’t handle any more candidates.’ But the people can. They can. And the wise guys and wise gals consistently underestimate people.”
Patrick wasn’t done: “At the end of the day, functionally—I’m not talking about the material impact, but functionally—what is the difference between ‘He’s too late’ and, a dozen years ago or more, ‘We’re not ready for a black president’? I would expect that commentators who are really sophisticated would be self-aware enough to examine those kinds of assumptions, instead of just accepting them.”
It’s true that the themes of the 2020 election on the Democratic side have been powerlessness, resignation, and bitterness. If you’re looking at candidate events for the kind of passion that supporters showed for Obama in 2008, or for Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders in 2016, it’s hard to find—I’ve tried. “I’m going to work real hard for the nominee,” Patrick said, “but like most voters, I want to be excited about it. I don’t want to be running from a position of, you know, ‘elect or doom.’”
“I’m as angry as anybody, but in some ways, I listen to the anger and I think to myself, My gracious, I’ve been angry for generations about the same things—generations,” he said. He’s heartened that more people feel the anger now. He won’t say their names explicitly, but he’s worried about what happens if that anger is compounded by Sanders or Warren going to war with Republicans, or if Biden or Buttigieg tries to jam the anger back beneath the surface. He’s worried about any of them failing to connect with enough voters to beat Trump, or to actually deal with what Trump has exposed about how close to the edge the country is. “Our determination to beat him is expressing itself the way people who are bullied sometimes express themselves: as fearful and overthought, instead of standing up for what we believe in.”
“I’m not sure we will, but we might win the election,” Patrick said. “But we won’t win the one after that.”


theatlantic--2020-01-24--A Reckoning Over Iowa

A Reckoning Over Iowa

“ It is painfully obvious and problematic that after the historic candidacy of the first black president , we have basically an all-white field , and that really needs to occasion some soul-searching on the Democratic side , ” says Steve Phillips , the founder of the advocacy group Democracy in Color , who is African American .
“ The most workable and straightforward approach would be to reconfigure the order of the states.
” Read : Iowans vote first , if they can vote at all Dislodging either state from its privileged position won ’ t be easy .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ their leadoff roles .
And many Democratic Party leaders around the country reject the charge that the states ’ prominence contributed to the fall of so many minority contenders .
Instead , most Democratic operatives I ’ ve spoken with point to many factors—from fundraising patterns to assumptions about so-called electability—that may have contributed to their failure .
“ If you didn ’ t have Iowa [ first ] this year , I don ’ t think any of this would have changed , ” said the longtime strategist Robert Shrum , who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s success in 2008 , many party activists “ feel like we ’ re going backwards ” in terms of minority candidates ’ ability to win the presidential nomination , as Bakari Sellers , an African-American Democratic official in South Carolina put it .
That disappointment could ignite a debate within the party over all aspects of the nominating process , including the reliance on Iowa and New Hampshire .
Iowa and New Hampshire are vulnerable in any such discussion because the gap between their demography and that of the party overall @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will likely cast more than 40 percent of the ballots in the party ’ s primaries and caucuses this year—a new record—whites still account for about 85 percent of the population in Iowa and exactly 90 percent in New Hampshire , according to census figures .
Though Iowa is slightly more diverse , its position could come under greater threat than New Hampshire ’ s after 2020 .
One reason is that New Hampshire law commits the state to always holding its primary before any other ; the other is that Democrats may @ @ @ @ @ @ @ New Hampshire , a swing state that has inclined toward them in recent years , than in Iowa , which has been tilting more Republican .
The two states ’ assumed their one-two position in 1972 .
But by the late ’ 70s , and intensifying through the mid- ’ 80s , the Iowa–New Hampshire duopoly faced growing opposition in the party , says Elaine Kamarck , who is a Brookings Institution senior fellow and a longtime member of the Democratic National Committee ’ s rules committee .
The core grievance at the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that the states were elevating weak candidates ( including George McGovern and Walter Mondale ) .
But they also faced the “ same complaints as they [ do ] now : small , unrepresentative … too white , ” Kamarck , who is white herself , told me .

DES MOINES, Iowa—The contrast was unmistakable: Most people in the crowd at the venerable Brown & Black Forum on minority issues here were African American, Latino, or Asian American. But all of the Democratic candidates onstage, apart from Andrew Yang, were white.
“It is disappointing,” said Bridgette Andrews, an African American executive assistant from the nearby suburb of Johnston, as she walked into the event, which took place on a frigid afternoon earlier this week. “It would have been nice to have another candidate from a minority group up there. It does make you go hmm that they are not there.”
Many Democratic activists, especially but not exclusively those from minority communities, are perplexed and frustrated that the candidates of color who were considered most viable when the presidential contest began—Senators Cory Booker and Kamala Harris, former Cabinet Secretary Julían Castro—have been forced from the race before the first votes are cast. While Yang has built a spirited following, it remains limited. And all this when Democrats began the primary with the most diverse field they’ve ever had.
This jarring reality could prompt the most serious revolt in decades against the decisive role that Iowa and New Hampshire, two preponderantly white states, play in winnowing the field and shaping the race. Already Castro and former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg—another 2020 contender, who is white—have argued that the lack of diversity should disqualify both states from their favored roles. At the forum itself, Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado argued that their status “probably should evolve.”
“It is painfully obvious and problematic that after the historic candidacy of the first black president, we have basically an all-white field, and that really needs to occasion some soul-searching on the Democratic side,” says Steve Phillips, the founder of the advocacy group Democracy in Color, who is African American. “The most workable and straightforward approach would be to reconfigure the order of the states.”
Read: Iowans vote first, if they can vote at all
Dislodging either state from its privileged position won’t be easy. Both Iowa and New Hampshire fervently guard their leadoff roles. And many Democratic Party leaders around the country reject the charge that the states’ prominence contributed to the fall of so many minority contenders. Instead, most Democratic operatives I’ve spoken with point to many factors—from fundraising patterns to assumptions about so-called electability—that may have contributed to their failure. “If you didn’t have Iowa [first] this year, I don’t think any of this would have changed,” said the longtime strategist Robert Shrum, who is white.
But after Barack Obama’s success in 2008, many party activists “feel like we’re going backwards” in terms of minority candidates’ ability to win the presidential nomination, as Bakari Sellers, an African-American Democratic official in South Carolina put it. That disappointment could ignite a debate within the party over all aspects of the nominating process, including the reliance on Iowa and New Hampshire.
Iowa and New Hampshire are vulnerable in any such discussion because the gap between their demography and that of the party overall is widening. While voters of color will likely cast more than 40 percent of the ballots in the party’s primaries and caucuses this year—a new record—whites still account for about 85 percent of the population in Iowa and exactly 90 percent in New Hampshire, according to census figures.
Though Iowa is slightly more diverse, its position could come under greater threat than New Hampshire’s after 2020. One reason is that New Hampshire law commits the state to always holding its primary before any other; the other is that Democrats may be more reluctant to ruffle feathers in New Hampshire, a swing state that has inclined toward them in recent years, than in Iowa, which has been tilting more Republican.
The two states’ assumed their one-two position in 1972. But by the late ’70s, and intensifying through the mid-’80s, the Iowa–New Hampshire duopoly faced growing opposition in the party, says Elaine Kamarck, who is a Brookings Institution senior fellow and a longtime member of the Democratic National Committee’s rules committee. The core grievance at the time, she told me, was that the states were elevating weak candidates (including George McGovern and Walter Mondale). But they also faced the “same complaints as they [do] now: small, unrepresentative … too white,” Kamarck, who is white herself, told me.
The controversy began to recede in the 1990s. But it never entirely abated. The DNC’s most dramatic response to the enduring concerns came after the 2004 election, when it authorized Nevada, which has a large Latino population, and South Carolina, which has a large African American population, to hold the next two contests after New Hampshire.
That shift has unquestionably provided those states more influence: South Carolina in particular proved crucial to the nomination of both Obama in 2008 and Hillary Clinton in 2016. Strategists working on campaigns this year likewise believe they’ll again have a major effect on the race’s outcome, especially South Carolina.
But the departures from the race of Booker, Harris, and Castro vividly capture the limits of Nevada’s and South Carolina’s power. Voters in those states will still be choosing only from the candidates who are viable after Iowa and New Hampshire cut down the field. The Iowa winner has ultimately captured the Democratic nomination in each of the past four contested races.
Activists I’ve spoken with almost all agree that Iowa and New Hampshire aren’t solely to blame for minority candidates’ fall. Both Phillips and Sellers, for instance, believe the principal cause was a pervasive belief among financial donors, the media, and voters that a white candidate represents the party’s best hope of beating Trump. “What I know has happened since Donald Trump and this emergence of his white identity politics is that voters, particularly Democratic voters of color, are now of this weird belief that it takes a white man who can talk to ‘Middle America’” to best Trump, said Sellers, who backed Harris before she exited the race late last year. “Our electorate has been groomed to believe something which I believe is a total falsehood.”
And few Democrats seem to believe candidates of color can’t receive a fair hearing in Iowa or New Hampshire. Obama won the former and only narrowly lost the latter in 2008. Exactly two decades earlier, Jesse Jackson won a double-digit share of the Iowa vote. Wayne Ford, an African American former Iowa state representative who co-founded the Brown & Black Forum, defended Iowa’s role by citing Obama’s first win there, as well as the strong support this year for former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who is gay. “Why not Iowa?” Ford said. “Iowa gave you a black president,” and “for a while” Buttigieg “was leading the polls in the state of Iowa.”
Read: The opportunity that Warren and Sanders passed up
Troy Price, the state Democratic Party chair, who is white, said that the caucus process requires the candidates to reach out to all communities, even small ones. “I can’t change the demographic makeup of Iowa,” Price told me, “but I can say our process elevates voices by making the candidates go into different communities and build organization in different communities.”
But for the critics of Iowa and New Hampshire, the issue isn’t overt or even implicit bias among Democratic voters there. The question is whether voters in such overwhelmingly white states place as much priority on issues affecting minority communities, or value picking a nominee of color as highly as many members of those minority communities do. Both Phillips and Sellers argue that the race might have unfolded very differently if one highly diverse state had been among the first two contests. “If we started with South Carolina, then a Cory and a Kamala would have had a much better chance to get some traction,” Phillips said.
Others in the party dispute that, noting, for instance, that both of the African American senators in the race failed to earn significant polling support from black voters in South Carolina, just as Castro struggled with Latinos in Nevada. And as Sellers noted, even many minority voters have prioritized electability in this race—and defined it mostly as the ability to win back working-class whites.
Yet the issues most concerning minority communities simply aren’t top of mind for many of the white voters who crowd the candidates’ town halls in small Iowa and New Hampshire communities. For many in the audience at the Brown & Black Forum this week, it was striking to hear the candidates peppered with questions about how they would address racial disparities in maternal health, the elevated suicide rate among African American teenagers, the effect of climate change on minority communities, whether English should be the nation’s official language, how to unwind mass incarceration, and the gap between whites and minorities in wealth and access to investment capital.
Hearing the candidates confront those issues was “very, very, very refreshing,” Cynthia Hunafa, an African American retired teacher from West Des Moines, told me. She was especially pleased that the candidates faced tough questions about criminal-justice reform: “I’m glad to hear that brought up today because I haven’t been hearing it much of late.”
Concerns about diversity alone may not be enough to dislodge the dominance of Iowa and New Hampshire after 2020. But the states could face a more unpredictable future if they elevate a candidate next month who wins the nomination but then fails to defeat Donald Trump in the general election. If Democrats lose again, almost every accepted belief in the party about how to contest elections could be rattled—including about relying on a primary calendar that gives primacy to two mostly white states on behalf of a party that is becoming only more diverse.


theatlantic--2020-01-24--The Atlantic Politics Daily: Will Iowa Always Get to Go First?

It ’ s Friday , January 24 .
The CDC has confirmed another U.S. case of coronavirus .
“ Based on what ’ s known so far , the virus is dangerous , ” James Hamblin writes , “ but not unprecedentedly so.
” On Capitol Hill , the impeachment trial continues .
Here ’ s David Graham on the latest news to emerge from that world .
In the rest of today ’ s newsletter : Eyes on Iowans , who get to vote first .
Plus : Joe Rogan “ feels the Bern , ” and Tulsi Gabbard @ @ @ @ @ @ @ field of Democrats who mounted presidential runs this cycle was the most racially diverse ever .
But looking at the frontrunners these days , after months of culling , you ’ d never know it .
The highest-polling candidate of color , political newbie Andrew Yang , is trailing far , far behind the all-white heavyweights .
Deval Patrick , the former Massachusetts governor , is averaging … 0 percent in the national polls .
As my colleague Ron Brownstein writes , the unbearable whiteness of the 2020 field has some Democrats pointing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ first : Iowa ( 85 percent white ) and New Hampshire ( 90 percent white ) .
Could the two early states actually be on the cusp of losing their privileged position ?
If the eventual Democratic nominee loses to President Trump , expect a reckoning , Ron argues .
If Democrats lose again , almost every accepted belief in the party about how to contest elections could be rattled—including about relying on a primary calendar that gives primacy to two mostly white states on behalf of a party that is becoming only @ @ @

Why the two early states could be on the cusp of losing their privileged positions. Plus: About that Joe Rogan endorsement.
The Atlantic Politics Daily: Will Iowa Always Get to Go First?
It’s Friday, January 24. The CDC has confirmed another U.S. case of coronavirus. “Based on what’s known so far, the virus is dangerous,” James Hamblin writes, “but not unprecedentedly so.”
On Capitol Hill, the impeachment trial continues. Here’s David Graham on the latest news to emerge from that world.
In the rest of today’s newsletter: Eyes on Iowans, who get to vote first. Plus: Joe Rogan “feels the Bern,” and Tulsi Gabbard really wants more attention.
*
« TODAY IN POLITICS »
(CHARLIE NEIBERGALL / AP)
Early Voting Privileges
The bloated field of Democrats who mounted presidential runs this cycle was the most racially diverse ever. But looking at the frontrunners these days, after months of culling, you’d never know it.
The highest-polling candidate of color, political newbie Andrew Yang, is trailing far, far behind the all-white heavyweights. Deval Patrick, the former Massachusetts governor, is averaging … 0 percent in the national polls.
As my colleague Ron Brownstein writes, the unbearable whiteness of the 2020 field has some Democrats pointing fingers at the two states that vote first: Iowa (85 percent white) and New Hampshire (90 percent white).
Could the two early states actually be on the cusp of losing their privileged position? If the eventual Democratic nominee loses to President Trump, expect a reckoning, Ron argues.
If Democrats lose again, almost every accepted belief in the party about how to contest elections could be rattled—including about relying on a primary calendar that gives primacy to two mostly white states on behalf of a party that is becoming only more diverse.
Read the rest.
—Saahil Desai
*
« SNAPSHOT »
(Michelle Rohn)
The über-popular podcast host Joe Rogan gave a sort of unofficial endorsement to Bernie Sanders this week, leading the Vermont senator to tout this support on Twitter.
But considering Rogan’s track record of making misogynistic comments and dabbling in conspiracy theories, Sanders’s showcasing of Rogan’s endorsement ignited a wildfire of controversy.
“Few men in America are as popular among American men as Joe Rogan,” Devin Gordon writes. His August 2019 story tries to understand the enormous wave Rogan has been riding:
The bedrock issue, though, is Rogan’s courting of a middle-bro audience that the cultural elite hold in particular contempt—guys who get barbed-wire tattoos and fill their fridge with Monster energy drinks and preordered their tickets to see Hobbs & Shaw … He shares their passions and enthusiasms at a moment when the public dialogue has branded them childish or problematic or a slippery slope to Trumpism.
Read the rest.
*
« IDEAS AND ARGUMENTS »
(MARY ALTAFFER / AP)
1. “Much of Tulsi Gabbard’s complaint reads less like a legal argument than a stump speech.”
A 2020 Democratic presidential contender is suing Hillary Clinton, arguing that the former Secretary of State had maliciously called Gabbard a “Russian asset” in an act of defamation.
But the suit is flimsy and reads more like a rallying cry for relevance from a campaign stuck at a statistical zero, David Frum argues.
2. “By doing nothing to ensure that the process is fairly constructed to get at the truth, John Roberts is in fact taking a side.”
The Chief Justice has had opportunities to resolve impasses over facts and evidence in Trump’s impeachment trial, but has stayed out of the partisan mess. Still, Democrats should be prodding him to play a more active role, rather than letting Mitch McConnell and the Trump defense team manipulate the process, Kim Wehle argues.
3. “Equality premised on the power to end life is not true equality at all.”
Trump headlined the March for Life in Washington today, the first sitting president to make remarks at the event in the decades it’s been ongoing.
If you’re still thinking about the abortion-rights issue, read this argument from Erika Bachiochi:
Many Americans think of Roe v. Wade as the defining Supreme Court decision on the issue of abortion. But a 1992 high-court decision actually governs abortion law. That ruling rested on fateful assumptions about the relationship between abortion and women’s equality. But in so doing, it has served to enshrine social and professional inequalities, which mothers must fight against every day.
Read the rest.
*
« WEEKEND READ »
Marines arriving on a beach outside Beirut, Lebanon, on July 15, 1958 (BETTMANN / GETTY)
The Beginnings of American Intervention in the Middle East
“We are opening a Pandora’s Box,” Dwight Eisenhower warned when he ordered the first U.S. combat mission in the region. Little did he know how right he would be.
Uri Friedman writes:
The trajectory of U.S. involvement is one of American leaders gradually putting stock in their ability to achieve their objectives through discrete military action and then investing everything in costly military misadventures, to the point that we’ve come full circle: The American public and its leaders are profoundly ambivalent about even limited and critical missions, such as the campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
Read the rest.
*


theatlantic--2020-01-24--America Has Come Full Circle in the Middle East

Even in 1958 , now-familiar patterns of military intervention in the Middle East were evident .
Though he advocated for a troop deployment to Lebanon , for example , Dulles warned that the United States was entering a situation in which “ it will be easy to get ourselves involved , and very hard to get out.
” Then , as now , military inaction was equated with the United States renouncing its interests in the region .
“ We must act [ in Lebanon ] , or get out of the Middle East entirely , ” Eisenhower told his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump is surely acquainted with .
Then , as now , the White House debated whether it needed congressional authorization for its combat operations .
Then , as now , U.S. leaders offered the public misleading justifications for their use of force ; Eisenhower greatly inflated the situation in Lebanon to be about avoiding another world war by refusing to appease the Soviet Union , when it mostly had to do with internal Lebanese politics .
Despite Eisenhower ’ s soaring rhetoric , the actual U.S. objective was narrow in scope : to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that goal was achieved with surprising ease .
Dulles had predicted that the military intervention would generate blowback , such as an oil crisis as Egypt and its ally Syria retaliated against commercial infrastructure , or “ a wave of anti-Western feeling in the Arab world.
” Yet when hundreds of U.S. marines came ashore in Beirut on July 15 , 1958—backed up by three aircraft carriers and dozens of warships in the Mediterranean Sea , plus the threat of the U.S. deploying nuclear weapons from Germany—they were greeted merely by sunbathers and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ soon negotiated a political settlement that eased Chamoun out of power .
American forces , eventually numbering in the thousands , left the country in October after suffering only one fatality , from sniper fire , during the three-month deployment .
They got in easily , they stabilized the situation , and they got out easily .
More than half a century later , the future of the United States ’ military presence in the Middle East is once again up for discussion , as Iraq calls on the U.S. to end its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Trump struggles to remove American forces from Syria and Afghanistan as well .
U.S. politicians are now grappling with the possibility of a post-American period in the region .
Though Eisenhower and his advisers couldn ’ t have known it at the time , their swift , successful operation would prove the exception rather than the rule .
“ Subsequent American combat missions in the Middle East would not be so lucky or so cost-free , ” Bruce Riedel , a Middle East expert at the Brookings Institution , has written .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ seemingly become endless.
” In the years following the campaign in Lebanon , Iran underwent an Islamic revolution , the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan , and violent Sunni Islamist movements rose up—all seismic developments that encouraged the United States to double down on its investments in the Middle East .
By the ’ 80s , Washington had created a combatant command for the greater region and unveiled the Carter doctrine to defend Persian Gulf partners .
The U.S. came to view Saddam Hussein ’ s government in Iraq as its top threat after @ @ @ @ @ @ @ H. W. Bush ’ s carefully calibrated multinational military operations to reverse Iraq ’ s 1990 invasion of Kuwait arguably represented the height of U.S. military competence in the Middle East .

“We are opening a Pandora’s Box,” Dwight Eisenhower warned when he ordered the first U.S. combat mission in the region. Little did he know how right he would be.
In 1958, U.S. leaders stood at the threshold of an American era in the Middle East, conflicted about whether it was worth the trouble to usher in.
A year earlier, in the context of the emergent Cold War and fading British and French power in the region, Dwight Eisenhower had articulated and received congressional approval for what became known as the Eisenhower doctrine. The United States had for the first time staked out national interests in the Middle East—oil, U.S. bases and allies, Soviet containment—and declared that it was prepared to defend them with military force.
Sixty-two years before President Donald Trump dispatched a drone to Baghdad to kill Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, this is how American combat missions in the post–World War II Middle East began.
Read: The coming Middle East conflagration
Eisenhower felt compelled to issue his doctrine following a showdown over the nationalization of the Suez Canal by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, an Arab nationalist whom U.S. officials perceived as allied with the Soviet Union. The U.S. president had pledged to honor requests for American military assistance by countries facing aggression from proponents of “international communism.”
That U.S. commitment was tested when insurrectionist Iraqi army officers executed their country’s last king, the Western-friendly Faisal II, in Baghdad in the summer of 1958. Camille Chamoun, the Christian leader of Lebanon and an opponent of Nasser, asked for American aid against the backdrop of the coup in Iraq and looming civil war in his own country. (The revolution in Iraq had little connection to Nasser, but the U.S. didn’t initially grasp that.) In keeping with the grand domino theorizing of that period, U.S. officials worried that if they didn’t act decisively, U.S. partners such as Lebanon and Jordan would be next to fall to Nasserite nationalism and, by extension, Soviet communism.
Eisenhower hastily convened a meeting with his top national-security advisers on the day of the Iraqi king’s downfall. John Foster Dulles, a consummate Cold Warrior and the U.S. secretary of state at the time, argued that a failure to heed Chamoun’s call would signal to the Soviets that the United States wasn’t ready to take risks for its allies, and would thus mean “the decline and indeed the elimination of our influence—from Indonesia to Morocco.” In a calculation that has been turned on its head today, the president maintained that “to lose this area by inaction would be far worse than the loss in China, because of the strategic position and resources of the Middle East.” His team insisted that the U.S. was on sound footing to intercede militarily in another country’s civil war, because Lebanon’s president had invited them in, a poignant point to read today as Iraqi officials seek to kick the U.S. military out of the country in retaliation for Soleimani’s killing. As for intervening in Iraq as well, Eisenhower, a celebrated World War II general who was typically cautious about taking military action, dismissed the notion as unworkable. In an illustration of just how new all this was to Americans, Eisenhower’s speech announcing the operation included a geography lesson, noting that Lebanon was “a small country, a little less than the size of Connecticut” and that Iraq was “nearby.” He was also mindful of the risks. “I realize we are opening a Pandora’s Box here,” a jumpy Eisenhower told Britain’s equally nervous prime minister on the eve of deploying the Marines to Lebanon.
The episode and its aftermath are essential to understanding how the United States went from being deeply apprehensive about getting involved militarily in the Middle East to conducting more military interventions there than in any other region in the world. The trajectory of U.S. involvement is one of American leaders gradually putting stock in their ability to achieve their objectives through discrete military action and then investing everything in costly military misadventures, to the point that we’ve come full circle: The American public and its leaders are profoundly ambivalent about even limited and critical missions, such as the campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
Even in 1958, now-familiar patterns of military intervention in the Middle East were evident. Though he advocated for a troop deployment to Lebanon, for example, Dulles warned that the United States was entering a situation in which “it will be easy to get ourselves involved, and very hard to get out.” Then, as now, military inaction was equated with the United States renouncing its interests in the region. “We must act [in Lebanon], or get out of the Middle East entirely,” Eisenhower told his aides, presenting a stark choice that Trump is surely acquainted with. Then, as now, the White House debated whether it needed congressional authorization for its combat operations. Then, as now, U.S. leaders offered the public misleading justifications for their use of force; Eisenhower greatly inflated the situation in Lebanon to be about avoiding another world war by refusing to appease the Soviet Union, when it mostly had to do with internal Lebanese politics.
Despite Eisenhower’s soaring rhetoric, the actual U.S. objective was narrow in scope: to prop up a friendly government. And that goal was achieved with surprising ease. Dulles had predicted that the military intervention would generate blowback, such as an oil crisis as Egypt and its ally Syria retaliated against commercial infrastructure, or “a wave of anti-Western feeling in the Arab world.” Yet when hundreds of U.S. marines came ashore in Beirut on July 15, 1958—backed up by three aircraft carriers and dozens of warships in the Mediterranean Sea, plus the threat of the U.S. deploying nuclear weapons from Germany—they were greeted merely by sunbathers and vendors on the beach. U.S. diplomats soon negotiated a political settlement that eased Chamoun out of power. American forces, eventually numbering in the thousands, left the country in October after suffering only one fatality, from sniper fire, during the three-month deployment. They got in easily, they stabilized the situation, and they got out easily.
More than half a century later, the future of the United States’ military presence in the Middle East is once again up for discussion, as Iraq calls on the U.S. to end its roughly 5,000-strong troop presence in the country and Trump struggles to remove American forces from Syria and Afghanistan as well. U.S. politicians are now grappling with the possibility of a post-American period in the region.
Though Eisenhower and his advisers couldn’t have known it at the time, their swift, successful operation would prove the exception rather than the rule. “Subsequent American combat missions in the Middle East would not be so lucky or so cost-free,” Bruce Riedel, a Middle East expert at the Brookings Institution, has written. “The wars in Iraq have now seemingly become endless.”
In the years following the campaign in Lebanon, Iran underwent an Islamic revolution, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, and violent Sunni Islamist movements rose up—all seismic developments that encouraged the United States to double down on its investments in the Middle East. By the ’80s, Washington had created a combatant command for the greater region and unveiled the Carter doctrine to defend Persian Gulf partners. The U.S. came to view Saddam Hussein’s government in Iraq as its top threat after the Soviet Union collapsed, and George H. W. Bush’s carefully calibrated multinational military operations to reverse Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait arguably represented the height of U.S. military competence in the Middle East.
In the space of a decade and two Bush presidencies, however, the United States veered into a major debacle in Iraq. James Jeffrey, now Trump’s special representative for Syria, noted in a 2016 study that after the September 11 attacks, George W. Bush decided not to manage the challenges to U.S. interests in the region, as his predecessors had done for the past three decades, but to try to eliminate those challenges altogether. Through its post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan and especially Iraq, the Bush administration attempted not only to root out hostile regimes but also to fundamentally remake the region in a manner consistent with U.S. interests and values.
Read: The consequences of Donald Trump washing his hands of the Middle East
Bush, of course, failed in spectacular fashion to achieve that transformation. Barack Obama, who ran for president in part to remedy those failures, mostly maintained America’s security architecture in the region and sought (largely unsuccessfully) to overhaul America’s role in the Middle East without resorting to military force. Trump, by contrast, has been willing to use limited military force, but has also demonstrated little interest in effecting any change in the region beyond retiring the United States as a security guarantor. Ultimately, he wants out.
And even if Trump doesn’t get his way entirely, he will undoubtedly seize on additional opportunities to reduce the American military presence in the Middle East, as fed-up Americans and progressive presidential candidates push in the same direction. When Eisenhower elected to open that “Pandora’s Box” back in 1958, his justification was that it would be “disastrous” if “we don’t.” Perhaps nothing signals the coming post-American era in the Middle East more than the fact that so many U.S. leaders these days fear the disastrous consequences of leaving the box open.