Saturday, October 5, 2019
From April 2019, 'Sanders Worries Impeachment Works To Trump’s Advantage'
https://dailycaller.com/2019/04/22/sanders-impeachment-trump-advantage/
April 22, 2019
Scott Morefield
Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders cautioned Democrats that pushing for the impeachment of President Donald Trump could shift the focus from other issues and ultimately work “to Trump’s advantage.”
However, the avowed socialist and 2020 presidential candidate began his Monday night town hall on CNN by replying to Chris Cuomo’s question about impeachment by calling Trump “the most dangerous president in the modern history of this country.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders says he worries focusing on impeachment would benefit President Trump #SandersTownHall https://t.co/9KZzt9ziEc pic.twitter.com/VwikdyJSwb
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) April 23, 2019
“I agree that we have the most dangerous president in the modern history of this country, somebody who’s a pathological liar,” Sanders said before stating that Congress should “explore” whether Trump obstructed justice during special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
But the independent Vermont senator was cautious on the issue of pushing for impeachment, saying,
But here is my concern. At the end of the day what is most important to me is to see that Donald Trump is not re-elected president. I intend to do everything I can to make sure that doesn’t happen.
But if—and this is an if—for the next year or year-and-a-half, going right into the heart of the election, all that Congress is talking about is impeaching Trump, Trump Trump and Mueller, Mueller, Mueller, and we’re not talking about healthcare.
We’re not talking about raising the minimum wage to a living wage.
We’re not talking about combating climate change.
We’re not talking about sexism and racism, homophobia and all of the issues that concern ordinary Americans.
What I worry about is that it works to Trump’s advantage.
Of the other major candidate town halls held Monday, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and California Sen. Kamala Harris favored impeaching the president, while Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar dodged the question.
Of the other major candidate town halls held Monday, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and California Sen. Kamala Harris favored impeaching the president, while Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar dodged the question.
Impeaching Trump is not a left-wing project — progressive Democrats shouldn't be fooled
This is about one individual,
and Russia. And it conveniently skims over all we know about US institutions
and what they stand for
Slavoj
Zizek New York
2 days ago
The campaign against Trump and
for his impeachment tells
a lot about our current ideological predicament. Trump is portrayed as an
individual pursuing his own private interests, not as the representative of a
state and its apparatuses. Edward Snowden immediately
got this point, commenting
that “a whistleblower's complaint, which triggered US President Donald Trump's impeachment
inquiry, is strategically ‘quite wise’ in its focus on the president versus an
institution.… Congress could be more than happy to throw an individual abusing
their office under the bus, in a way that they are not willing to do when they
themselves are implicated by the same allegations.… This whistleblower is doing
something [that's] a little bit unusual. They're alleging that an individual is
breaking the law who, of course, is the president, [who] is historically
unpopular at this moment.”
It is acceptable to criticize
an individual who breaks the law while he pursues his interests or private
pathological inclinations (revenge, lust for power and glory, and so on) — but
it is much more difficult to discern a crime in the activity of a state institution,
a criminal activity which is performed by personally honest individuals
dedicated to their job. Evil and crime are here not individualized but
inscribed into the very functioning of the institution.
Trump is undoubtedly a
repellant person lacking a basic moral compass; however, what about the
systematic violations of human rights in the continuous activities of the US
intelligence agencies? The true enemy are not idiosyncratic figures who act as
a disturbance for the establishment itself; the true enemy are honest patriotic
bureaucrats ruthlessly pursuing the goals of the United States.
To name names, the model of
such a patriotic bureaucrat is James Comey, the FBI
director deposed by Trump. Although, at the level of facts, Comey was probably
mostly truthful in his critique of Trump (see his memoir A Higher Loyalty),
one should nonetheless admit that his “higher loyalty” to the principles and
values of the US leaves untouched what one cannot but call the criminal
tendencies inscribed into the US state institutions — in other words, all that
was revealed by Assange, Snowden and Manning.
One should also not forget
that the movement to impeach Trump is mostly motivated by the desire to prove
that Russia influenced the last presidential elections, enabling Trump to win.
While there probably was Russian meddling (in the same way that the US tries to
influence elections all around the world; they just call their interventions “a
defense of democracy”), focusing on this one aspect ignores why Hillary Clinton
was actually defeated in 2016. Her ruthless struggle against Bernie Sanders and
the leftist wing of the Democratic Party should take centerstage here.
Bernie Sanders was
right to warn that “if for the next year, year-and-a-half, going right
into the heart of the election, all that the Congress is talking about is
impeaching Trump and Trump, Trump, Trump, and Mueller, Mueller, Mueller, and
we're not talking about healthcare, we're not talking about raising the minimum
wage to a living wage, we're not talking about combating climate change, we're
not talking about sexism and racism and homophobia, and all of the issues that
concern ordinary Americans. What I worry about is that works to Trump's advantage.”
Impeaching Trump is not a
leftist project. It is a centrist-liberal project whose secret aim is also to
prevent the progressive wing of the Democratic Party from taking over. We
should bear that in mind.
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