The safeguards are breaking down
By DAVID FRENCH
September 30, 2019 2:36 PM
Yesterday and again this morning, the president of the United States tweeted that Representative Adam Schiff should be questioned for “treason” and possibly arrested. He also approvingly quoted an absurd statement from an increasingly unhinged Trumpist pastor named Robert Jeffress that threatened a “Civil War like fracture” (led by Evangelicals!) if he is impeached and removed.
Given the lack of serious grounds on which to defend these statements, Trump’s apologists fell back to the claim that they were “just tweets,” and that we should instead always focus on his actions. If he doesn’t actually attempt to have Schiff arrested, they said, then we need to stop our “pearl-clutching,” and if he doesn’t actually attempt to start a civil war, then all we’re dealing with is a metaphor no worse than the “war” rhetoric we see all the time in politics and public controversies.
These arguments don’t hold water. One of the reasons why the Ukraine scandal is starting to have legs is that it demonstrates that the Trump you see on Twitter is not some virtual persona distinct from the man himself; they are one and the same. There is no “just Twitter.” There is just Trump, and Trump can and will operationalize his vendettas and conspiracy theories, including by running unofficial diplomatic operations through his personal legal team. He can and will break through the safeguards erected around him, even in matters of grave national importance ...
Americans have always paid close attention to their presidents’ words for a simple and profound reason: Words convey beliefs and intentions. For four years, Trump’s defenders have persuaded tens of millions of Americans that his words matter less than the words of other presidents, that there exists some kind of unbreachable firewall between bad tweets and bad acts. The Ukraine scandal shows that this is not true. Trump is like any other president in one key respect: His words matter, and when, as is so often the case, they’re irresponsible, irresponsible actions can and will follow.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/09/the-ukraine-scandal-shows-that-the-safeguards-around-donald-trump-are-breaking-down/
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