Quote for the day

The tribalism is so deep that Trump seems incapable of dropping below 40 percent in the national polls, and is competitive in many swing states. The cult is so strong that Trump feels invulnerable. If Trump survives impeachment, and loses the 2020 election, he may declare it another coup, rigged, and illegitimate. He may refuse to concede. And it is possible the GOP will follow his lead. That this is even thinkable reveals the full extent of our Constitutional rot.

Trump has fast-forwarded “regime cleavage.” He is appealing to the people to render him immune from Constitutional constraints imposed by the representatives of the people. He has opened up not a divide between right and left so much as a divide over whether the American system of government is legitimate or illegitimate. And that is why I don’t want to defeat Trump in an election, because that would suggest that his assault on the truth, on the Constitution, and on the rule of law is just a set of policy decisions that we can, in time, reject. It creates a precedent for future presidents to assault the legitimacy of the American government, constrained only by their ability to win the next election. In fact, the only proper Constitutional response to this abuse of executive power is impeachment.

Andrew Sullivan

Well said, and absolutely correct. Trump must be removed not as the losing electoral choice, but as an explicit matter of national defense. The government must defend its own legitimacy — or it has none, and that is Trump’s goal.

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