14 bad Republican arguments against impeachment

The accusation is simple and direct: Donald Trump, in his role as president, held up military aid to Ukraine – which had already been approved by Congress – “asking” that the nation first commit to investigating Trump’s political opponent, Joe Biden, and Biden’s son. Republicans’ arguments against impeachment, by contrast, have been all over the map. If they can’t seem to settle on one, it may be because they’re all so flimsy. I decided to address each in turn, exposing each for the fallacy it is.

1. There was no quid pro quo

Actually, there was. Trump’s own words (“I want you to do me a favor, though”) linked military aid to a preconditioned investigation of the Bidens, along with a conspiracy theory involving the 2016 election. Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s acting chief of staff, that the money was held up in part because of Trump’s demand for an investigation into 2016. When a reporter pointed out that “what you just described is a quid pro quo,” Mulvaney responded: “We do that all the time in foreign policy.” He later tried to retract that statement, but it was already out there.

2. It’s perfectly normal

“Get over it. There’s going to be political influence in foreign policy.” – Mulvaney

On the contrary, most commentators can’t remember a president ever withholding taxpayer funds in exchange for an investigation into a political opponent.

3. It’s all being done in secret

The Democrats are taking depositions behind closed doors, and not allowing Republicans to know what’s happening.

Except that 1) Republicans were present for the depositions, which were subsequently released in their entirety and 2) public hearings are being held. Predictably, this argument was largely abandoned about the time the public hearings were announced.

4. Democrats haven’t taken a formal vote

Then they did. And they abandoned this argument, too.

5. The whistleblower must be identified

Never mind the law that protects whistle4blowers from being identified.

“I consider any impeachment in the House that doesn’t allow us to know who the whistleblower is to be invalid.” – S.C. Sen. Lindsey Graham

This, despite the fact that the substance of the whistleblower’s statement has been affirmed by several other sources.

NFL referees are literal whistleblowers. They’re relatively anonymous; fans tend to focus on the players, unless the refs make a mistake. As with politics, those fans are inherently biased in favor of their own teams. But imagine the following scenario:

A referee makes a call against the home team. The coach is unhappy with it, and decides to challenge it. This triggers a video review of the play, based on a number of camera angles. Each of these angles, however, clearly affirms that the referee’s call was correct. But the fans aren’t satisfied. Even after the game is over, they keep calling for the referee to be brought forward in publicly questioned about why he made the call. And the coach, unwilling to admit his own mistake in calling the wrong play, encourages them. Never mind the video evidence. It doesn’t matter. What matters is publicly shaming the referee for making the proper call.

This is what the Republicans want to do with the whistleblower. If the NFL were in charge of the impeachment hearings, such an action would result in nothing – except that the coach would get a hefty fine for questioning the officiating. But Donald Trump has poisoned the water by smearing the officials (career diplomats and other civil servants) as “Deep State Never-Trumpers,” that even the most absurd arguments seem credible to his fans, who are all too willing to blame the ref.

6. The right to face your accuser

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and other Republicans have suggested that the president has this right, based on the Sixth Amendment. There’s just one problem with this rationale: The amendment makes clear that it applies to “all criminal prosecutions.” And impeachment is not a criminal prosecution.

7. It will cause a “Civil War like fracture”

Trump himself said this. But it isn’t an argument, it’s a threat thinly disguised as a prediction. It’s also not the only time he’s used this tactic: He also warned that the economy will tank if he isn’t re-elected.

8. The money was eventually released

“You’re going to impeach a president for asking a favor that didn’t happen – and giving money and it wasn’t withheld?” – Nikki Haley

Yes, the same way we indict people for attempted murder that wasn’t successful and attempted bribes that weren’t accepted.

9. Trump’s Ukraine policy is inept

“What I can tell you about the Trump policy toward Ukraine: It was incoherent, it depends on who you talk to, they seem to be incapable of forming a quid pro quo.” – Graham

Graham seems to be suggesting that negligence is just fine. But people go to jail for negligent manslaughter all the time. Graham’s a lawyer; he should know this. How many Ukrainian soldiers died because Trump held up aid to that nation? Even if it were “only” negligent, the cost was counted in human lives.

10. Let the voters decide

The argument has been made that “it’s too close to the election” to impeach a president. But this ignores one important point: The crux of the accusation is that Trump was trying to interfere in that election. If he’s not checked now, who’s to say he won’t do so again?

11. Trump had a right to ask

Trump “honestly believes that there may have been corruption in Ukraine, and before he turns over $400 million of American taxpayer money, he’s entitled to ask.” – La. Sen. John Kennedy

“Asking” about corruption is quite different than insisting that a country investigate alleged corruption as a condition for receiving money. Alleged corruption on the part of a political opponent. Alleged corruption that had already been debunked. For money that had already been appropriated by Congress.  

12. Zelensky didn’t feel pressured

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky didn’t feel pressure to comply with Trump’s request. He said so himself!

But if Zelensky didn’t feel pressured, why was he preparing to comply? Out of the goodness of his heart?

Ask a shop owner who’s paying money to a mobster in a protection racket whether he feels pressured. He’ll tell you that, of course, he does not. Because if he admits it, his “benefactor” will withdraw his protection. In withholding military aid, that’s exactly what Trump was doing. It should be pointed out that a traditional protection racket is different, in that the “protection” is from the mob’s own “enforcers.” But the result is the same.

And it’s not as though Trump hasn’t made veiled threats to those supposedly under his protection, such as Marie Yovanovitch, the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, who was removed from her post by Trump. In a conversation with Zelensky, Trump called her “bad news” and saying, in vague but ominous terns that “she’s going to go through some things.”

13. Inappropriate, not impeachable

“I believe it was inappropriate, I do not believe it was impeachable.” – Texas Rep. Mac Thornberry

Wrong. One of two explicit grounds for impeachment named in the Constitution is bribery (the other being treason). Offering something of value in exchange for dirt on a political opponent is bribery. Threatening to withhold it is extortion.

Even Trump doesn’t like this argument, calling it a “fool’s trap,” but for a different reason: He maintains the phone call was “perfect.”

14. It was a perfect call

This is Trump’s favorite argument, because he sees himself as perfect.

But even most Republicans won’t go this far. Perhaps because it comes from an egotist who has made more than 14,000 false and misleading statements since taking office. Still, Trump appears to actually believe this one. That’s even more troubling when one considers this quote from Chinonye J. Chidolue: “Perfection is a lie, and lying to others is explicable, but lying to oneself is the highest form of deceit.”

Trump seems to be doing both.

We'd rather play the victim than pursue the truth

Welcome to the Victim States of America.

Somewhere along the way, we stopped judging disputes based on reason and a search for the truth, and instead started basing our decisions on who can whine the loudest – and longest.

I suppose it’s easier that way. We don’t have to think; all we have to do is grease that squeaky wheel. Except, in this case, it just makes the wheel squeak louder.  

In yet another byproduct of our increasingly polarized culture, we prize loyalty to our “tribe” over a dedication to truth, and never has it been more apparent than in the current impeachment proceedings.

Democrats announced they would be pursuing impeachment before they’d read the whistleblower complaint against Donald Trump. Then, when it did come out, Republicans dismissed it without even appearing to consider how damning its contents were.

Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse, a Republican, hit the nail on the head. “Democrats ought not to be using the word impeach before they have the whistleblower complaint or before they read any of the transcript. Republicans ought not to be rushing to circle the wagons to say there’s no there there when there’s obviously lots that’s very troubling there. The administration ought not to be attacking the whistleblower as some talking points suggest they plan to do.”

Sasse counseled “lots of deliberation” but also acknowledge that “this place is terrible at deliberation.”

How we got here

“This place” might have meant Congress, Washington or the nation at large, and it would have been equally accurate.

There are, of course, reasons why we’ve exchanged deliberation and reason for loyalty oaths and litmus tests.

First, as mentioned above, it’s easier. You don’t have to think. You just let your tribal leaders do the thinking for you. Of course, you shouldn’t be surprised if you find they’re picking your pocket and shackling your wrists in the meantime.

Second, those tribal leaders have succeeded in making “deliberation” look like gridlock. They’ve done this in part by stonewalling the release of information, so that the process becomes so drawn out and tedious that no one has the time or patience for it. (This is especially true in an era when people often work two or three jobs to make ends meet, and those who don’t have been indoctrinated in a culture of instant gratification.)

Third, they’ve raised the bar for independent judgment so high that it’s almost impossible to reach. Anything short of absolute proof can be debunked as “doctored” or “fake news.” The upshot of this is we stop trusting ourselves to make informed decisions, so we abdicate that power to (surprise!) those same tribal leaders who thirst for it the most.

Fourth, they deflect. Instead of defending themselves, they point the finger elsewhere and say, “See, he’s doing it, too, and it’s even worse!” (One has to wonder whether the folks who do this have ever heard the saying “two wrongs don’t make a right,” or whether they did hear it and simply don’t care.) We don’t have time to weigh charges and counter-charges, so we ignore the whole thing and retreat to our own camps and, yes, those tribal leaders.

Fifth, we rushed to judgment and cried wolf so many times that no one’s listening anymore. The media, chained to their instant-update news cycle, contributes to this. So do political spin doctors eager to take the first shot. When they’re wrong, they lose credibility. And they create a vicious circle: The lack of deliberation has made us even less inclined to engage in it.

Skepticism gives way to cynicism, to the extent that everything coming out of the “other” camp can be dismissed as propaganda, no matter how much evidence there might be to back it up. We don’t have time to sift through all that, weed out the facts from the spin, and make an informed decision when we don’t even know if we have all the information we need to do so.

Is it any wonder we’ve disengaged from politics? Who wants to spend all day listening to people whine – and deciding who’s the bully and who’s the victim?

When Supreme Court nominee Bret Kavanaugh was accused of sexual harassment, his most effective argument was a self-righteous tirade about how he was the one being harassed. Clarence Thomas had done the same thing under similar circumstances a couple of decades, when he characterized allegations against him as “a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves.”

The irony is that Thomas’ argument itself didn’t involve “thinking,” but was fallacious. He was attacking the messenger by questioning motive, rather than seeking to refute the allegation itself. He made it a question of identity – prejudice against “uppity blacks” – rather than reasoned argument. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard anyone comment on the irony of that supposed defense, but maybe it’s because we’ve become so used to people playing the victim that we barely notice it anymore.

Thomas and Kavanaugh now sit on the Supreme Court, which is supposed to be the most deliberative body in the land. Its members are supposed to think, not engage in ad hominem defenses. What does it say about our society as a whole when even members of our highest court seem to rely on such flawed excuses for reasoning?

Loyalty over truth

Some people are shocked that Republicans are defending Trump in the light of what appears to be very compelling evidence against him. But they shouldn’t be, because we long ago stopped judging people based on rational argument and substituted Trump’s own standard for “truth”: blind loyalty. Trump has used this standard for his entire career, and comparisons to mob culture are entirely accurate.

But Trump recognized something he has used to his advantage: That culture was spreading. The nation was catching up – or more accurately, falling back – to the kind of tribal culture he’d exploited on a smaller scale all his life as a real estate developer. Whatever his other shortcomings, he knew how to make it work for him. And as it came to dominate American culture as a whole, newcomers accustomed to operating by more conventional political rules found themselves out of their league.

Not only does Trump know how to create blind loyalty, he also recognizes it and is able to call it out in others. He then exposes it and discredits them for the very things he himself is doing – often more flagrantly. And because that loyalty has bound so many people to him, they refuse to call him out for his hypocrisy, no matter how blatant it might be. He really could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it.

Nobody whines louder about being the victim than Trump, who laments “PRESIDENTIAL HARASSMENT” in all caps and blames the media, the Democrats, and anyone else who dares to criticize him for all his woes. The only thing he seems to be more emphatic about is how great he (says he) is.

Who we’ve become

But this isn’t just – or even primarily – about Trump. He’s a symptom, not the condition. He could never have thrived if we hadn’t created a culture based on litmus tests and loyalty oaths long before he came along. Trump is Nixon redux, but in a time and culture far more vulnerable to Machiavellian bullshit. For this, we have only ourselves to blame. We began rushing to judgment long before Trump and others like him began using their cattle prods on us. We exchanged reason for outrage and humility for hubris. We ditched patriotism in favor of partisanship.

We’ve become so comfortable playing the victim and blaming others that it’s almost become second nature to us. We do it in government, in our personal lives, in our professional interactions. It’s become second nature.

But in exalting our own victimhood, we’ve abandoned what got us here: a spirit of determination that didn’t care what obstacles others put in our way. We didn’t waste time blaming the people who put them there; we tackled those obstacles head-on. We overcame them or died trying. It was what we used to call the American spirit. Flawed, yes. Cruel at times, to be certain. But we were not victims. Never victims.

Until now. Now we all want to do is play the victim – and in a sense, that’s what we are: victims of our own ignorance and stubborn refusal to face the truth.

And we’ll keep being victims until we’ve decided we’ve had enough.