Impeaching Trump-- Alexander Hamilton vs Vladimir Putin

When I studied the revolutionary period in high school, the teacher, Mr. Feinstein, a relatively conservative guy, loved Alexander Hamilton, who seemed pretty conservative to me. I preferred the more populist Thomas Jefferson, who I associated with the left. Hamilton hated the "common people," and democracy and wanted a king instead of a president and a House of Lords instead of a Senate. Last week, Ron Chernow, an historian who wrote, among many books, a classic biography of Alexander Hamilton (2004)-- the source material for Miranda's Broadway show.

Last week, Chernow's op-ed for the Washington Post, Hamilton Pushed For Impeachment Powers. Trump Is What He Had In Mind, made it clear that Hamilton would be backing Pelosi's impeachment inquiry against Trump. "Trump," he wrote, "has described the impeachment proceedings as a 'coup,' and his White House counsel has termed them 'unconstitutional.' This would come as a surprise to Alexander Hamilton, who wrote not only the 11 essays in The Federalist outlining and defending the powers of the presidency, but also the two essays devoted to impeachment. There seems little doubt, given his writings on the presidency, that Hamilton would have been aghast at Trump’s behavior and appalled by his invitation to foreign actors to meddle in our elections. As a result, he would most certainly have endorsed the current impeachment inquiry. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Trump embodies Hamilton’s worst fears about the kind of person who might someday head the government."

Want to know more about Hamilton? This is long... and fantastic. If you have 3 hours, you're be richer for watching it:





You know who is completely against the impeachment inquiry? Trump's patron and benefactor, Vladimir Putin. Tatiana Stanovaya, scholar at the Carnegie Moscow Center, looked at why for Politico Sunday. "As impeachment proceedings loom over President Donald Trump," wrote Stanovaya, "some observers have speculated that Russia, actively enjoying sowing chaos in the United States, is delighted by the dysfunction tearing apart the U.S. government. Nineteen Republican members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee signed a joint letter to the Wall Street Journal that was published on the paper’s op-ed page last month with the headline, 'Impeachment Is What Vladimir Putin Wants.' The GOP members of Congress wrote, 'His goal, now and before the 2016 election, has been to pit Americans against one another and erode confidence in our democratic process.' That might be true up to a point. But the impeachment investigation might be a bit too chaotic, even for Russian President Vladimir Putin."

There are many ways in which the Ukraine affair is terrifying the Kremlin, because it threatens to unwind what little progress Russia has made in recent years and undercuts its wider goals. Putin’s long-term goal is pretty clear: He wants the United States to conclude a “big deal” that would revise the outcome of the Cold War and limit the strategic threat that he believes the West poses to Russia through its military expansion, double standards in foreign affairs and liberal values.

...This is not the scandal the Kremlin wants for three reasons. First, the Russians were interested in an improvement in Russia-U.S. relations during the Trump presidency. Just after Trump’s election Moscow began preparing proposals aimed at finding ground for the kind of “big deal” the new American president had talked about during his campaign.

But the initial euphoria has faded. U.S.-Russia relations turned out to be worse than ever, following revelations of Russia’s meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Even so, Trump remains the one political actor the Kremlin has been relying on to revive bilateral relations.

...And now-- poof. A new cycle of chaos and madness has begun, which may lead to more negative repercussions for Russia. A new wave of anti-Russian sentiment is being unleashed in U.S. politics that could trigger new congressional sanctions. No less an authoritative figure than Nancy Pelosi has suggested that Russia was directly involved in the Trump-Ukraine mess. The call between Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is often interpreted as an extension of Russia’s 2016 interference. All the discussions about Ukraine in the United States almost always lead to Russia and become a reason to talk about Ukraine as its victim in need of protection. Altogether, any mention of Ukraine in the current anti-Russia news media further damages Russia’s international image, which, of course, is already considerably underwater.

The second reason for the Kremlin’s worry is that the Ukraine scandal undermines Trump’s capacity to conduct his own Russia policy, in opposition to the rest of the U.S. political establishment. As far as the Kremlin is concerned, Trump functions, in Putin’s eyes, as a buffer between Russia and the traditional U.S. national security establishment, which the Kremlin sees as implacably hostile. Trump has thrown overboard all of the established U.S. foreign policy approaches to Russia. He doesn’t preach and he doesn’t stand in Russia’s way. Trump is a businessman, not an ideological warrior, and he is not impeded by annoying democratic values.

Russia is ready to pay a price to maintain the Trump buffer, including enduring further rounds of Western economic sanctions. The rest of the U.S. political class, both Democratic and Republican, represents a long-term strategic threat to Russia and its geopolitical interests. Thus, regardless of whatever headaches Trump may create for the Kremlin, he will always seem like the lesser evil. Not surprisingly, whatever happens to Trump, Putin publicly supports him. But now, there is more scrutiny than ever on Trump’s foreign policy conduct, and he will likely not be able to operate in secret.

The third and final reason for the Kremlin to be worried comes from the growing fear that a private presidential conversation with Trump could be published without Russia’s permission. After the release of a transcript of the July 25 conversation between Trump and Zelensky, the Kremlin said that Washington would need Russian consent before publishing any transcripts of conversations between Putin and Trump.

Putin is probably not worried the transcripts can hurt his standings at home-- in domestic affairs he remains politically untouchable. Rather, there are two other problems Putin is likely concerned about if such a transcript is published. First, Putin surely sees the transcript as a potential tool that could be used by Trump’s rivals to undermine and weaken Trump, which is not good for Moscow. We know from news accounts that Trump has said some very embarrassing things to Russian officials, such as dismissing the significance of Russian interference in the 2016 election and endorsing the idea of a joint U.S.-Russian cyber unit to somehow prevent this from ever happening again. Second, the risk itself that the talk can be published is psychologically uncomfortable for the Russian president, as he likes to have intimate heart-to-heart conversations with his counterparts-- something that apparently worked during the Trump-Putin 2017 Helsinki summit. This is his style of dealing with his counterparts-- to try to find some special chemistry with other world leaders. It’s harder to establish that kind of rapport while thinking that all you say might go public tomorrow.

It’s possible that Putin wants to sow chaos in the United States. He certainly enjoyed Trump’s presidential campaign victory and its corrosive effect on American political life. But the Ukraine scandal and the impeachment investigation might be moving a bit too fast, even for the chaos mastermind. For Putin, it would have been better if the Ukraine scandal had never happened. Trump is better than a traditional American president, who would continue the traditional policy of treating Russia as a Cold war loser.

Deep State by Nancy Ohanian

Republicans for the Rule of Law, the Never Trump group, is running this new ad on Fox & Friends, tomorrow I believe. I sincerely doubt it will do much good, considering who watches that show. You may enjoy it though: