We all breathed a sigh of relief when Ron Rosenstein decide to repair his shredded reputation and appoint former FBI Director, Robert Mueller as Special Counsel, charged with investigating the extent of Russian interference with our elections and the Trump campaign’s collusion with those efforts. Mueller, given his reputation for being exacting, honest and apolitical, is precisely the right person for the job. Mueller’s appointment ensures that his results will be widely seen as credible and free from any partisan bias.
We need to be mindful, though, of the other likely consequences of Mueller’s appointment. Because Mueller’s investigation will be thorough, it is unlikely to be quick. He has a reputation for running a tight ship, thus we may not see the leaks from his investigation that will depress Trump’s approval ratings. In addition, even if Mueller’s report ultimately reveals impeachable offenses, it will require the majority of a Republican controlled Congress to impeach and two thirds of a Republican controlled Senate to convict Trump. In the words of Huey Long, Mueller would have to produce a tape of Trump in bed with a dead girl or a live boy for Republicans to impeach him.
Given these realities, we can ill afford to sit back and simply watch our real life “House of Cards” unfold. We are battling a feral federal government that stokes racial resentment in furtherance of their anti-populist policy goals. Both Trump administration officials and Congressional Republicans have evinced utter contempt for bedrock Constitutional principles such as freedom of the press and one person/one vote; relying on right wing media disinformation and voter suppression to retain power.
Despite the significant cloud over his administration, Trump continues to do real damage to untold numbers of people. In the past week, we’ve seen Trump sit idly by while Turkish President Erdogan’s armed bodyguards attacked people lawfully protesting in front of the Turkish Embassy in D.C. We’ve seen Trump’s A.G. Sessions eagerly embrace failed approaches to the prosecution of drug offenses, in all likelihood BECAUSE they will result in disproportionate harm to Black and Brown Americans. We learned this week that immigration arrests have increased 32% since Trump’s inauguration and that a significant number of those arrested are guilty of nothing more serious than a traffic violation
On the flip side, several developments this week demonstrate that progressives are stepping up to the challenge of taking power back from retrograde forces. In Philadelphia, Democratic primary voters chose Larry Krasner, an unabashed progressive civil rights lawyer, as candidate for D.A. Krasner, who has represented Black Lives Matter, has pledged to reform bail, reduce civil forfeiture and seek alternatives to incarceration for lower level offenses. Stacey Abrams is a young, progressive Black woman candidate for governor of Georgia. If we hope to preserve democracy, we will need many more progressive prosecutors and governors elected, along with Democratic majorities in the House and the Senate. So while Mueller’s appointment is a victory, we need to put down the popcorn, because we have a lot of work to do.