Two recent events say a lot about the state of American politics. Neither say anything good.
First, what I call the "Mueller intervention" has held us back from the brink. No one knows exactly what we were on the brink of, but the unprecedented action taken by special counsel Robert Mueller on Friday suggests it was significant.
As soon as the disputed BuzzFeed article burst onto the scene alleging that President Donald Trump directed his former lawyer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress, momentum toward impeachment and confirmation of criminal behavior began to build. Rather than let that happen, Mueller must have felt he had an obligation to stop it.
That is a good sign, but it is a bad sign that he had to in the first place.
The second harbinger of the sad state of American politics was Democrats' reaction to Trump's proposal Saturday to end the government shutdown. Rather than appear to take it seriously, many Democrats called the president's offer dead on arrival before Trump even finished giving his address.
The Mueller intervention says something about biased media outlets' hatred of Trump, while the Democrats' dismissal of the president's overture says something about how their insincerity and obstructionist mindset will manifest itself now that they rule in the House.
I wrote last month that, "for the Democrats, the present-day budget fight is a pain-free exercise." I feared that this shutdown might be different, that the president's inability to feel political pain was far from normal and that the Democrats' callousness and indifference toward working with him was unlike anything I'd seen. Given that a deal will be done eventually, it seems Democrats want to make the situation as bad as possible for as long as possible.
Editorial on 01/22/2019