Donald Trump is a unique figure in American history, even if you buy the argument that his election was basically a fluke event. (Which I don't.) His gleeful ignorance and cruelty, his shameless corruption, his open embrace of racism and bigotry, and his undisguised contempt for democracy have distilled and fermented many of the most noxious currents in our political tradition into a single vessel.
But what Bill Barr and Rudy Giuliani and their even less savory underlings are pursuing, in their globetrotting snipe hunt for imaginary enemies, is the shadow of a real question: Is Trump being impeached because he’s a threat to democracy, or because he’s an overly obvious threat to democracy, too stupid or too stubborn to play the game by the rules? Are his attackers defending the remnants of the peculiar republic bequeathed to us by Jefferson and Madison, as they claim, or just posturing amid the ruins for political advantage? We won’t know the answers, I suspect, until all this is over.
ANDREW O'HEHIR
Andrew O'Hehir is executive editor of Salon.
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