Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

The one question every American can ask themselves about impeachment

The one question every American can ask themselves about impeachment

"The issue at hand is whether Trump committed crimes grave enough to warrant his removal from office," writes Erica Etelson.

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Etelson is a member of Better Angels, a citizens group fighting political polarization, and the author of "Beyond Contempt: How Liberals Can Communicate Across the Great Divide."

In my one-year retrospective last month on the Supreme Court confirmation hearings, I observed that partisan bias played a huge role in whether one believed nominee Brett Kavanaugh or Christine Blasey Ford. Extreme partisan disparity is evident once again in public opinion polls concerning impeachment.

Eighty-seven percent of Democrats and 23 percent of Republicans approve of Congress launching an impeachment inquiry, according to a September 26-27 YouGov poll commissioned by CBS News. Likewise, when asked whether Trump's handling of Ukraine is "typical — a thing most presidents do" or "unusual — something few have done," 71 percent of Republicans but just 15 percent of Democrats say it is typical.


What's going on here? Do Republicans and Democrats have vastly divergent conceptions of what constitutes proper and improper presidential conduct? Do they have different recollections of the behavior of past presidents? Or are most people basing their opinion on whether or not they want President Trump to serve out his term and reverse engineering their reasoning accordingly? I suspect the latter.

As an ardent leftist, when I initially heard about the whistleblower complaint, my first thought was, "Hurray, they finally got him!" My second thought was, "Okay, now, what exactly did he do and is there proof?" This is backwards. My first question should have been, "What did he do?" My second question should have been, "Did his actions violate any laws or democratic norms or otherwise fall short of my expectations for presidential integrity?" Then and only then should I have started breaking out the champagne.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

Nobel Prize-winning behavioral economist Daniel Kahneman developed the notion of "thinking fast and slow." The fast brain makes a snap judgment based on emotion and instinct. In its haste, it's prone to making cognitive errors such as confirmation bias. The slow brain mulls the matter over using reason and logic and may reach a different conclusion.

Once confirmation bias takes hold, it's hard to hit the reset button, but I think we should all try our utmost to do so. I'm asking my slow brain, "If it were Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama who did these things and a GOP-controlled House were calling for an impeachment inquiry, would I approve or not?"

I encourage Americans of all political persuasions to ask our slow brains that question and to reflect on our expectations for how sitting presidents conduct themselves and what role we play in holding them accountable to the standards we set for them.

Impeachment shouldn't be a referendum on Trump's ideology or likability, nor on the ideology or likability of Joe Biden or any of the other Democratic presidential candidates. The issue at hand is whether Trump committed crimes grave enough to warrant his removal from office. A country that cannot make such an assessment is a country that will not remain a democracy for much longer.

Read More

Two Minutes . . .

For This and Future Generations

Sunset over cracked soil in the desert. Global warming concept

Getty Images//Anton Petrus

Two Minutes . . . For This and Future Generations

I want to offer you a different lens through which to better understand the climatological and environmental crises that we—indeed all of humanity—are facing. I would like you to view these crises through the long lens of our planet’s geologic and evolutionary history.

From the beginning of our planet’s formation, some 4.6 billion years ago, to the present there have been five major extinction events which destroyed anywhere from70% (during the Devonian Period) to 95% (at the end of the Permian Period) of all living things on earth. These extinctions were natural events: caused by some combination of rapid and dramatic changes in climate, combined with significant changes in the composition of environments on land or in the ocean brought on by plate tectonics, volcanic activity, climate change (including the super cooling or super heating of earth), decreases in oxygen levels in the deep ocean, changes in atmospheric chemistry (acid rain), changes in oceanic chemistry and circulation, and in at least one instance, a cosmological event—the massive asteroid strike inChicxulub, near what is now the Yucatan peninsula.

Keep ReadingShow less
The Power of Outrage and Keeping Everyone Guessing

Question marks on a stack of small blocks.

Getty Images / Sakchai Vongsasiripat

The Power of Outrage and Keeping Everyone Guessing

Donald Trump loves to keep us guessing. This is exactly what we’re all doing as his second term in the White House begins. It’s one way he controls the narrative.

Trump’s off the cuff, unfiltered, controversial statements infuriate opponents and delight his supporters. The rest of us are left trying to figure out the difference between the shenanigans and when he’s actually serious.

Keep ReadingShow less
Trump’s executive orders can make change – but are limited and can be undone by the courts

The inauguration of Donald Trump.

Getty Images / The Washington Post

Trump’s executive orders can make change – but are limited and can be undone by the courts

Before his inauguration, Donald Trump promised to issue a total of 100 or so executive orders once he regained the presidency. These orders reset government policy on everything from immigration enforcement to diversity initiatives to environmental regulation. They also aim to undo much of Joe Biden’s presidential legacy.

Trump is not the first U.S. president to issue an executive order, and he certainly won’t be the last. My own research shows executive orders have been a mainstay in American politics – with limitations.

Keep ReadingShow less
Donald Trump is gearing up to politicize the Department of Justice. Again.

President-elect Donald Trump, Wednesday, January 8, 2025.

(Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Donald Trump is gearing up to politicize the Department of Justice. Again.

With his loyalists lining up for key law-enforcement roles, Trump is fixated on former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney, who helped lead the January 6 congressional investigation. “Liz Cheney has been exposed in the Interim Report, by Congress, of the J6 Unselect Committee as having done egregious and unthinkable acts of crime,” Trump recently said. Then he added: “She is so unpopular and disgusting, a real loser!”

This accelerates a dangerous trend in American politics: using the criminal justice system to settle political scores. Both the Trumps and the Bidens have been entangled in numerous criminal law controversies, as have many other politicians this century, includingScooter Libbey,Ted Stevens,Robert Coughlin,William Jefferson,Jesse Jackson Jr.,David Petraeus,Michael Fylnn,Steve Bannon,Bob Menendez, and George Santos.

Keep ReadingShow less