Like the Red Wedding, the Trial Without Witnesses is an abomination deserving its own name. Not having witnesses or evidence violates the social purpose of a trial, just as mass murder violates the social purpose of a wedding.
Seven polls by six different pollsters demonstrate the high levels of popular support for having witnesses at Trump's impeachment trial. Some of these are from even before the John Bolton story broke:
Quinnipiac: 75
Monmouth: 80
Reuters: 72
CNN: 69
AP/NORC 68
Quinnipiac 66
WaPo 71
One reason I initially opposed impeachment is that I looked up the Senate rules and saw that McConnell could make whatever nonsense of the trial he liked. Pelosi knew that too. She also knew that she could withhold the articles of impeachment for weeks because of concerns about the fairness of the trial, putting media attention on the abomination McConnell would create. I changed my views because she changed hers; this was the strategy she saw. It neutralizes the political value of Trump's acquittal -- it came from the Trial Without Witnesses!
McConnell went for it anyway, in the face of this polling. Pelosi prevented Trump from getting any advantage from acquittal, but running a sham trial probably minimized McConnell's losses. The huge public support for witnesses won't bother him too much, because the Senate is a crime against democracy.
The Senate gives every state two votes, regardless of population. So if millions and millions of Californians know that trials should have witnesses, their support will matter no more than a few hundred thousand Alaskans who think otherwise. Because of this misalignment, McConnell can just ignore a democratic consensus. Support from the Trump-loving lords and barons of Alaska can preserve his power. It would be fair to create five to ten new Democratic-leaning states to rebalance the Senate, aligning it with national popular opinion. Best if we could disband the Senate and devolve its functions to the House, but our centuries-old Constitution is too badly designed to allow permanent fixes.
The Senate has always served to protect a corrupt status quo from democracy. It preserved segregation for decades, prevented Truman from setting up single-payer, and filibustered comprehensive climate change legislation in 2010. Today it produced the Trial Without Witnesses; tomorrow if we have a Democratic president, it'll be the main obstacle to good policy.
Bodies structured like the Senate shouldn't exist in modern democracies. As long as they exist, our politics remains halfway to a Game of Thrones.
Seven polls by six different pollsters demonstrate the high levels of popular support for having witnesses at Trump's impeachment trial. Some of these are from even before the John Bolton story broke:
Quinnipiac: 75
Monmouth: 80
Reuters: 72
CNN: 69
AP/NORC 68
Quinnipiac 66
WaPo 71
One reason I initially opposed impeachment is that I looked up the Senate rules and saw that McConnell could make whatever nonsense of the trial he liked. Pelosi knew that too. She also knew that she could withhold the articles of impeachment for weeks because of concerns about the fairness of the trial, putting media attention on the abomination McConnell would create. I changed my views because she changed hers; this was the strategy she saw. It neutralizes the political value of Trump's acquittal -- it came from the Trial Without Witnesses!
McConnell went for it anyway, in the face of this polling. Pelosi prevented Trump from getting any advantage from acquittal, but running a sham trial probably minimized McConnell's losses. The huge public support for witnesses won't bother him too much, because the Senate is a crime against democracy.
The Senate gives every state two votes, regardless of population. So if millions and millions of Californians know that trials should have witnesses, their support will matter no more than a few hundred thousand Alaskans who think otherwise. Because of this misalignment, McConnell can just ignore a democratic consensus. Support from the Trump-loving lords and barons of Alaska can preserve his power. It would be fair to create five to ten new Democratic-leaning states to rebalance the Senate, aligning it with national popular opinion. Best if we could disband the Senate and devolve its functions to the House, but our centuries-old Constitution is too badly designed to allow permanent fixes.
The Senate has always served to protect a corrupt status quo from democracy. It preserved segregation for decades, prevented Truman from setting up single-payer, and filibustered comprehensive climate change legislation in 2010. Today it produced the Trial Without Witnesses; tomorrow if we have a Democratic president, it'll be the main obstacle to good policy.
Bodies structured like the Senate shouldn't exist in modern democracies. As long as they exist, our politics remains halfway to a Game of Thrones.
