Our political culture has allowed its muscles of accountability to atrophy.
President Donald Trump is acquitted, but the consensus view—shared by nearly all Democrats and even a decent number of Republicans—is that the United States Senate did nothing to acquit itself.
Wednesday’s vote—anticipated with near-perfect precision since the opening hours of the Ukraine scandal in September—has yielded a new indictment: The partisan divisions that saved Trump are an expression of deeper and malignant trends that are a threat to constitutional democracy.
By all means count me in for mournful sermons about the poor civic hygiene of America in the Age of Trump. The patient is indeed sick. But it is not because the pulse of democracy is growing faint. Continue reading.