The beginning of the Iraq War in 2003

[This article was written in 2004. It was never published, and I have decided, fifteen years later, to post it online here.]

The invasion of Iraq was declared for the purpose of ending the decades-long dictatorship of President Saddam Hussein — which was suspected of producing weapons of mass destruction and sheltering terrorists who threatened the US — and to replace it with a democratic government. The U.S. military’s mission objectives were:

1. End the regime of Saddam Hussein
2. Identify, isolate, and eliminate Iraq’s WMD, systems, and facilities
3. Capture or drive out terrorists sheltered in Iraq
4. Collect intelligence on terrorist networks and on Iraq’s illicit WMD activity
5. Secure Iraq’s oil fields and natural resources for the Iraqi people
6. End sanctions and immediately deliver humanitarian relief and assistance
7. Help the Iraqi people rapidly transition to a representative form of self-government that does not threaten its neighbors and is committed to the territorial integrity of Iraq

The United States and Britain already had combat-ready bases in Kuwait, which borders Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf southeast of Baghdad, and were able to ship soldiers to Iraq without meeting naval opposition (Murray 71). The troops stayed at these bases awaiting their next orders.

On 18 March 2003, President Bush gave Saddam Hussein 48 hours to leave Iraq with his two sons. Saddam showed no intent of doing so. Within hours after the deadline had passed, military intelligence identified a building where Saddam was believed to be hiding and U.S. Tomahawk and F-117 missiles hit the building in a “decapitation strike” on 20 March. Saddam and his sons survived the attack, but this fact was not known to the US for days. Journalists, having been told to expect a “Shock and Awe” opening show of 3,000 cruise missiles on Baghdad, were surprised by the restraint of this attack. (Ryan) Iraq, too, was probably expecting the US to begin the war with bombs as it had done in the first Gulf War in 1991.

“Shock and Awe” did indeed initiate the war on 21 March, with strike aircraft hitting a thousand targets, mostly the evacuated buildings of Baath Party bureaucrats (Murray 75, 169). The opening air campaign lasted several nights while invading ground troops made their way toward Baghdad.

The attack plan was for the British, supported by U.S. Marines, to capture the port of Umm Qasr and Basra while the US closed in on the capital city of Baghdad from the west and the east. This did not happen exactly as planned. US Marines captured Umm Qasr on the first day of ground warfare, but the British were tied up in Basra for weeks in a protracted siege.

"What shocked the world at Guernica," says the blogger called Last Positivist ("Misanthropic Thoughts," October 25, 2025) "was actively sold to the public as cool during the Shock and Awe campaign of the Iraq war."

Baghdad fell, with only 100,000 American forces on the ground defeating 400,000 Iraqi soldiers, defying conventional military wisdom that an invading army needs to outnumber the defense three-to-one. (These 100,000 U.S. troops, though, were part of a total of 250,000 U.S. and Coalition forces that had been committed to the war.) Iraqi military power had been ravaged by 12 years of continuous bombing by the US dating back to the previous Gulf War. The Republican Guard was disorganized and lost its weapons early in the combat, while the Air Force did not even make an attempt at resistance, having only 320 aircraft, less than half of which were in working condition (Cordesman 27). The U.S. Air Force, by contrast, had 863 aircraft at the peak of the war, and that number was doubled by the contributions of other branches of the U.S. military and the Coalition. Foreign fighters arrived from neighboring Arab countries to defend Saddam’s rule and have their chance to shoot at American soldiers, but they were largely untrained and lacked an official alliance with Iraqis who sometimes treated them as an enemy.

A zero-visibility sandstorm that lasted from 24-26 March afforded the Coalition soldiers time to rest during their trek to Baghdad. However, the unexpected pause caused supplies to dwindle and anxieties to rise. During this time, President Bush requested $75 billion from Congress for the war effort, a request which was approved a week later. As soon as the sandstorm ended, reconnaissance forces were sent to determine the location and strength of the Iraqi Republican Guard near Baghdad. (Murray 128)

During the next few days, as ground forces approached the city, Baghdad continued to experience heavy bombing. On 3 April, with U.S. forces less than 10 miles outside the city, Saddam International Airport was captured and renamed Baghdad International Airport. The next day, 2,500 Republican Guard soldiers surrendered. On 7 April, two presidential palaces fell, and there was another attempted decapitation strike on a restaurant where Saddam was believed to be hiding. Baghdad fell on 9 April with the symbolic removal of a huge statue of Saddam, plunging the city into chaos. Iraqis rioted with a mix of jubilant celebration and criminal acts including the looting of historical artifacts from museums.

As of 11 April, according to Cordesman, the US had launched 17,000 precision-guided weapons, 8,500 unguided weapons, and 900 cruise missiles against Iraq. USCENTCOM claimed that most of the precision-guided weapons used GPS technology (Murray 72).

On 1 May 2003, only 42 days after the beginning of the war, President Bush declared major combat operations to be over. This was a symbolic period, as the 1991 war on Iraq fought by President Bush’s father had also been 42 days long.

Saddam Hussein survived the initial combat and was caught in hiding on 13 December 2003. Sovereignty was officially transferred from the U.S. to the new Iraqi government on 28 June 2004, over a year after major combat had ended. U.S. and Coalition troops were never planned to be withdrawn from Iraq, however, and they continued to be attacked with bombs on a weekly and sometimes daily basis.

The U.S.-led Coalition at least partly achieved its own objectives in that the Baath Party was decisively overthrown. However, a significant part of the Coalition’s mission, finding illicit weapons of mass destruction, was never achieved. President Bush finally conceded such weapons may never have existed. And the effort to drive out terrorists achieved the opposite effect, as foreign fighters poured across the border to defend Iraq and have their chance to take shots against Americans. A year and a half after the invasion, suicide car bombs and improvised explosive devices were still detonating daily in Iraq, causing Iraqi civilian and U.S. military casualties. The bipartisan Report of the 9/11 Commission determined that there never had been any connection between Saddam Hussein and the terrorists who perpetrated the attacks of 9/11. As for the objective of democracy for the Iraqi people, the significance of the war for the future of Iraq remains to be seen.

[Note: Again, this article was written in 2004. Readers may also be interested in my essay, There was no good reason for the US to invade Iraq in 2003."]

Sources

Anthony H. Cordesman. The Iraq War: Strategy, Tactics, and Military Lessons. Washington, D.C.: The Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2003.

Williamson Murray and Maj. Gen. Robert H. Scales, Jr. The Iraq War: A Military History. Cambridge and London: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2003.

Mike Ryan. Baghdad or Bust: The Inside Story of Gulf War 2. South Yorkshire, England: Leo Looper, 2003.

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Chelsea Manning wrote in her memoir README.txt (2022):

"My friends — fairly liberal people — posted links to op-eds that reflected a deep misunderstanding of what was actually going on. They seemed to believe that simply having a Democratic president instead of a Republican one could solve something. Liberal, Obama-voting Democrats appeared to think our involvement in Iraq was suddenly working out just fine, at least since their guy had taken the oath of office. The drawdown plan that Obama’s administration was following had, in fact, been cooked up by the George W. Bush team, and the Obama team more or less rubber-stamped it."

---

My Monday newsletter is going to be a "where are they now?" type piece about the media people who cheered on the invasion of Iraq, and oh boy is it depressing to see how little getting such a massive thing so horribly wrong actually affected their career trajectories.

— Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) March 17, 2023

Anyway, sign up here if you want to get that when it goes out on Monday: https://t.co/rmsaGM2Gyp

— Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) March 17, 2023

The Costs of War Project said the U.S.-led invasion and occupation "caused massive death, destruction, and political instability," killing hundreds of thousands of people while displacing millions more. https://t.co/sf9Hu66gjX

— Common Dreams (@commondreams) March 15, 2023

CNN's 20-year follow-up

The journalist Muntazer al-Zaidi threw his shoes at U.S. President George W. Bush. Regrets in 2023? No: "Iraqi journalist who threw shoes at George W. Bush says his only regret is he 'only had two shoes.'" Ahmed Shawkat and Haitham Moussa, CBS, March 21, 2023

2023 update

Here's my subscriber gift link so you can read this article unpaywalled: "The heat index reached 152 degrees in the Middle East — nearly at the limit for human survival." Scott Dance. Washington Post. July 18, 2023.

"When the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001 they named the war 'Operation Enduring Freedom.' In 2003, when the U.S. invaded Iraq on false pretenses, they called the whole enterprise 'Operation Iraqi Freedom.' Today we know these wars were utter failures that didn’t bring an ounce of freedom anywhere. Upwards of a million civilians killed, thousands of soldiers on both sides dead, a region massively destabilized and the Taliban back in power.

* * *

Many would have said that we were going after terrorists, but few could have explained how we were addressing the rise of terrorism, the reasons that some people around the world wanted to take up arms against our country. In fact, none of the top brass could’ve explained how the 'war on terror' was getting to the root causes of terrorism, because our plan was never to do that. The plan and the implementation were always war, violence, and the complete refusal to even look at how mass violence from the United States might lead to more people around the world resenting our military and our country."

— The War of Words: Waterboarding, Collateral Damage, and resisting euphemism. Joshua P. Hill. New Means (Substack). November 14, 2023.

The 'quid pro quo' in the Trump/Zelensky call transcript

Transcript of the July 25, 2019 phone call

Caveat within the transcript itself: "The text in this document records the notes and recollections of Situation Room Duty Officers and NSC policy staff assigned to listen and memorialize the conversation in written form as the conversation takes place. A number of factors can affect the accuracy of the record, including poor telecommunications connections and variations in accent and/or interpretation."

Gordon Sondland, testifying publicly on Nov. 20, said:

...members of this committee have frequently framed these complicated issues in the form of a simple question: Was there a 'quid pro quo?' With regard to the requested White House call and White House meeting, the answer is yes.

In late September, a week after news broke that a whistleblower had reported an inappropriate call President Trump had with Ukraine's President Zelensky, Trump attempted to defend himself by releasing what he referred to as a "transcript" of the call.

The document itself says it is "not a verbatim transcript."

Yet, beginning on Oct. 2, Trump has repeatedly referred to the document as an "exact" transcript of the conversation, Philip Bump explained in the Washington Post.

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who was on the call, subsequently testified that he remembers elements of the call that are not included in the transcript.

There is a quid pro quo in the interaction even if the words "quid pro quo" are not present. Monica Hesse wrote in the Washington Post:

When Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein invited a woman actor to his hotel room, the conversation (according to tape) went like this:

“Don’t ruin your friendship with me for five minutes,” he warned her. He said he was a “famous guy,” and if she left, she should “never call me again.”

One thing he didn’t say was, “This is a quid pro quo in which you’ll sleep with me or lose your career.”

Sentient humans could read between the lines.

She went on:

We have read Trump instructing Zelensky, 'I would like you to do us a favor.' We have read him saying, 'The United States has been very, very good to Ukraine.' We’ve combed through it all.

One thing Trump did not say is, 'This is a quid pro quo in which you’ll give me dirt on Joe Biden; and, in exchange, I’ll stop withholding your aid.' ... He didn’t say, 'Let's move onto the illegal part of the conversation now.' He certainly didn’t say, 'Real quick, let me abuse my power.'

But when we talk about what Trump said on that phone call, we’re really talking about what powerful people never need to say at all.

Similarly, Lt. Col. Vindman also recognized it as a demand.

My Republican colleagues may try to muddy the waters, but this fact is undisputed:

On the July 25 call, Trump asked Zelensky to investigate the Bidens.

There's no ambiguity about it.

And Lt. Col. Vindman understood that ask as a demand. pic.twitter.com/2g4EQ0j91H

— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) November 19, 2019

Trump's refrain, "Read the transcript," as if the transcript exonerates him, "is not an invitation for truth-seeking," Hesse said, but rather "a disingenuous feint provided by a powerful man who, like all people in power, knows that his wishes will be treated as commands, and his subtexts will be treated as boldface type." We need to acknowledge what we see in the interaction. As Hesse put it: "It’s such a bizarre folly to pretend we don’t understand what people are saying. It’s such a maddening exercise, to point at a collection of words and insist that the true meaning is in the white space between them. It makes you feel crazy."

Ukraine knew what Trump wanted (an investigation of the Bidens) as early as May.

AP Exclusive: U.S. State Department officials learned in May that Ukraine's president felt pressure from Trump administration to investigate Joe Biden, long before the July phone call with President Trump that sparked an impeachment inquiry, sources say. https://t.co/DmoDNxrfXL

— AP Politics (@AP_Politics) November 18, 2019

Others have tried to argue that there was no quid pro quo in the request to investigate the Bidens because Ukraine didn't know the money was being withheld. Ukraine would certainly have known that they had not yet received money, however. And, while Ukraine may not have known at the time of the July 25 call that the money was deliberately held back pending their explicit compliance with launching an investigation of the Bidens, they knew later, in August.

Sondland's public testimony on Nov. 20 "disrupts — actually, destroys — the defenses of both the White House and congressional Republicans," Chris Cillizza explained for CNN, "who have insisted that the Ukrainians had no clue that there were any preconditions to getting what they wanted most — a meeting between Zelensky and Trump and then, later, the release of the nearly $400 million in military aid from the US to Ukraine." Sondland testified: "I told President Zelensky in advance that assurances to 'run a fully transparent investigation' and 'turn over every stone' were necessary in his call with President Trump."

Sondland also testified that Zelensky was supposed "to announce the investigations. He didn't actually have to do them, as I understood it." A request from Trump which, as Chris Cillizza pointed out in another article, is more consistent with Trump attempting to generate a PR disaster for his political rival Joe Biden in the 2020 election campaign rather than having a genuine interest in identifying and stopping corruption in Ukraine.

Others have tried to argue that there was no quid pro quo because Ukraine eventually got the money. This is a bad argument. Giving the money was the quid in exchange for which they requested a quo. And even if the entire deal fell apart, attempted crimes are still crimes.

Downplaying an incomplete crime is called the "Sideshow Bob" defense, after a Simpsons character who complained in a 1994 episode, "Convicted of a crime I didn’t even commit. Hah! Attempted murder? Now honestly, what is that? Do they give a Nobel Prize for attempted chemistry? Do they?"

In Trump's case, the crime might even have been completed, since the goal was to temporarily withhold aid to prompt compliance from Ukraine; Trump may not have aspired for the hold to be permanent. Furthermore, releasing the aid may not have been Trump's decision. "It wasn’t Donald Trump who released the promised military aid to Ukraine," Mary Papenfuss wrote; it was federal lawyers who declared it was illegal for the White House Office of Management and Budget to block the aid. Because of this decision, a third of the money was quickly released, and, several days later, Trump claimed he had voluntarily chosen to release it.

Others (notably, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney) have tried to argue that such quid pro quos are done all the time and should not be a basis for impeachment. Ultimately, whether the offense is impeachable is up to Congress to decide (as per Article II, Section IV of the Constitution). A Vox/PerryUndem/Ipsos poll conducted November 5-6, 2019 found a partisan split about whether this quid pro quo is tolerable. A clear majority of Americans from both major political parties believe that “abusing the powers of office for political advantage” or “for personal enrichment” is a “high crime or misdemeanor.” (93% Democrats and 67% of Republicans have this assessment of “political advantage.” 95% of Democrats and 82% of Republicans have this assessment of “personal enrichment.”) However, when the question is narrowed to ask about “a president of the United States pressuring another country to investigate a political rival,” the Republicans drop out. (77% of Democrats believe this is a “high crime or misdemeanor,” but only 22% of Republicans make the same assertion.) Furthermore, Republicans are more likely to excuse this behavior as “something presidents do all the time.” (28% of Democrats say so; 65% of Republicans say so.) In other words, they don't think it's an abuse of presidential powers.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said on Nov. 17 that the quid pro quo situation could have been better "taken care of this behind the scenes," since "most people wanted to support Ukraine. We were trying to convince President Trump." He said it was unfortunate that a whistleblower "exposed things that didn’t need to be exposed." (Apparently, the thing that didn't need to be exposed was the president's ignorant machinations.)

Johnson said he would provide a written statement.

Nope.

Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) is a key witness.

He needs to be questioned under oath.

There is no *possible* explanation for allowing him to "write a letter."

This isn't a summer camp mash-note party, Republicans, this is, whether you like it or not, a g*ddamn impeachment. https://t.co/dXb3JdBCLO

— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) November 17, 2019

Praying with the U.S. president

In 1950, the evangelical preacher Billy Graham, then 31 years old, landed a brief private meeting with President Harry S. Truman at the White House. Graham offered to pray, and Truman consented.

Outside, on the White House lawn, reporters were waiting for Graham. Graham eagerly revealed details of the conversation. Tell us more about the prayer, the reporters asked. And Graham, not realizing the reporters were looking to sensationalize the story, knelt in prayer for the cameras.

Image caption: From left to right, Jerry Beavan, Billy Graham, Clifford Barrows and Grady Wilson. Photo by the Associated Press.

Truman was furious. He thought the preacher's prayer stunt looked ridiculous and made him look ridiculous by association.

---

What changed in the assumptions of proper presidential behavior?

Flash forward nearly 70 years. Today, the President allows people to pray for him — not just one preacher in private, but multiple preachers, touching him, with official cameras in the room.

Image caption: Christians in the Roosevelt Room in the White House, Oct. 29, 2019. Official White House photo by Joyce Boghosian.

Does it not make him look ridiculous? It does indeed. To me, it appears that the president is the center of a cult and that he wants to be seen as such. Do these white evangelicals care that they are making themselves and the president look ridiculous to everyone who doesn't share their religion? Nope.

And do they care that the president secretly mocks them? Also nope. (Michael Cohen's 2020 book Disloyal reports that Trump said "Can you believe that bullshit?" after pastors "laid hands on him" to bless him in 2011.

Today, this is deliberately promoted. A lot has changed.

.@realDonaldTrump receives a blessing he attends a Church Service at the International Church of Las Vegas in Las Vegas, NV. pic.twitter.com/3pIiGLY03P

— Doug Mills (@dougmillsnyt) October 18, 2020

Maybe Graham himself didn't want it this way. Three decades after his interaction with Truman...

"On February 1, 1981, evangelical leader Bill Graham encouraged social conservatives to avoid jumping into a hard association with the Republican Party. 'It would disturb me if there was a wedding between the religious fundamentalists and the political right,' he told Parade magazine. 'The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it.' Graham was worried that evangelicals would become corrupted by worldly political power, instead of recognizing that church teachings come first, and politics second.

But it was already too late."

— Matt Stoller, "On Lina Khan Derangement Syndrome," Substack, Feb 18, 2023

A statue of Billy Graham

As of early 2019, sculptors were sought "to design and cast a life like statue of the Rev. Dr. William Franklin 'Billy' Graham, Jr. The statue will become part of the National Statuary Hall Collection in the United States Capitol in Washington D.C."

Rev. Rob Schenck, a white evangelical who acknowledges that he himself once used "street theater" of religious performances (including publicly displaying a Bible, for example), has moved away from those tactics. He reacted to Trump's photo-op in front of St. John's church during the George Floyd protests as a "sacrilege." Schenck says he used to hear his fellow evangelical clergy speak about the transactional nature of their relationship with Trump, but that argument has become uncommon. "That's even more distressing to me," he said, "because what it seems to suggest is that a kind of final conversion has taken place, at least in their thinking, if not in their hearts." In other words, they believe what Trump is saying and doing. They no longer recognize their choice as an unpalatable transaction; it has become less objectionable to them. Schenck worried about their possibility of "reclaiming their moral integrity, regaining a sense of ethics and what is right and wrong — and if they have lost that ability to discern that, then they are indeed in very grave danger, personally. Certainly as a community: I mean, we know what the history of demoralized churches are. They quickly become relics of history, and not good ones. And then, of course, — I'm still a believer in salvation. I believe we have to have a certain standing before God. And if we lose that, we've lost everything."

The religious cult iconography may just be another version of overall fascist iconography, which I submit as an addition to Sarah Churchwell's observations in the New Statesman on September 2, 2020:

"The first fascists emphasised individual heroism and physical perfection: Trump emphasises it, too, but only in regards to himself. He is his own fascist sublime.

Anyone doubting this needs only to consider the iconography he and his family routinely share, such as the photo of Trump’s face superimposed on to the sculpted body of Rocky Balboa, which Trump himself trumpeted on social media. As historians have pointed out, this is fascist imagery, in its glorification of the physical perfection of a mythologised leader. Meanwhile, on 4 July, Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr, shared a meme of his father’s head Photoshopped on to George Washington’s body, standing in front of the American flag and holding a Minigun and an eagle. Both memes rework images from the entertainment industry, whether it’s Rocky or an image made by the Call of Duty video-game franchise, into neo-fascist propaganda."

Even and perhaps especially following his COVID-19 diagnosis, Peniel E. Joseph argues, he now embodies "a living church whose political insinuations of racial superiority attract unstinting loyalty from his most ardent supporters, no matter how nonsensical and dangerous he becomes; they seem comforted, not horrified, that he is capable of articulating and revising political, medical and personal doctrine on the fly." He "has managed to become a one-person church worshiped by an overwhelmingly, although not exclusively, White congregation that seems to believe he can do no wrong." His "uncanny ability to detect political vulnerabilities allowed him to not just remake the GOP in his own image, but to erect a kind of parallel religious faith — the Church of Trump — where in a crowd of White faces, wearing masks that might save the lives of fellow human beings during a pandemic is never required." If a church is "a gathering place or grouping point for like-minded individuals to learn, express and amplify a set of beliefs that they collectively define and refine over time," then that is what Trumpism is. "While unable to articulate any meaningful religious experience, biblical knowledge or deep belief system, the President has become, for many, the embodiment of a peculiar definition of American exceptionalism."

On June 13, 2023, immediately after his arraignment in the documents case, Trump was blessed by two clergy members. According to this article in Salon, one was "right-wing evangelical Christian pastor named Mario Bramnick," and the other was "Isaac Aretuo (also known as Alex Isaac Aretuo and Alejandro Isaac Aretuo). He is affiliated with Congregation Najamu Ami in Miami," a Messianic Jewish (i.e., Christian) congregation.

In 2023, General Mark Milley said he erred in allowing himself to be in the frame of a photo when President Trump was holding up the Bible in Lafayette Square during the George Floyd protests in 2020. Later in 2023, he gave a speech saying that the military won't pledge loyalty to "a king, or a queen, or a tyrant or a dictator," nor a "wannabe dictator." Instead: "We take an oath to the Constitution and we take an oath to the idea that is America – and we’re willing to die to protect it."

When Bob Woodward interviewed Milley for his 2024 book War, Milley called Trump "a total fascist" and "fascist to the core."

Bills to bring chaplains into public schools

"The bills have been introduced this legislative season in 14 states, inspired by Texas, which passed a law last year allowing school districts to hire chaplains or use them as volunteers for whatever role the local school board sees fit, including replacing trained counselors. Chaplain bills were approved by one legislative chamber in three states — Utah, Indiana and Louisiana — but died in Utah and Indiana. Bills are pending in nine states. One passed both houses of Florida’s legislature and is awaiting the governor’s signature."

— Putting chaplains in public school is the latest battle in culture wars, Michelle Boorstein, Washington Post, March 22, 2024

Trump's spiritual adviser:

"Robert Morris, founding pastor of Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas, which attracts an estimated 100,000 worshipers weekly, has confessed to “inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady” more than 35 years ago while he was a young pastor after a woman accused him of sexually abusing her over multiple years beginning when she was 12."

— Pastor Robert Morris confesses to ‘moral failure’ after woman claims he began molesting her at age 12, Leonardo Blair, Christian Post, June 15, 2024

Robert Morris, the former megachurch pastor and Trump spiritual advisor who just finished a sentence for sexual abuse charges, has an...interesting new photo on the sex offender website

[image or embed]

— Robert Downen (@robertdownen.bsky.social) September 15, 2026 at 3:30 PM

More prayer

Christians flock to Washington to pray for America to turn to God — by electing Trump: Conservative organizers of the “Million Women” worship rally billed the event — and the November election — as “a last stand moment” to save the nation from satanic forces. Mike Hixenbaugh, NBC, Oct. 12, 2024

Read: How’s Trump’s health? He’d rather talk about the state of his soul: Like an evangelical preacher, the president knows how to speak to his MAGA flock. Chauncey DeVega, Salon, September 4, 2025

On handling negative emotions with purpose

If we dwell on negative emotions too heavily, they can consume us. "At least one must keep one's head out of it so as not to be eaten up entirely by emotional ape-men," C. G. Jung wrote in a personal letter. But, at low levels, they may simply endure as conditions of our being. "Ressentiment is not rash, but sluggish; it is a mood or a low-energy state in opposition to the vehement nature of violent rage, horror, or grief," wrote Thomas Brudholm. "More interestingly, the diminution over time that seems to be an essential feature of the passions contrasts with the excessive duration or endurance of emotions and memories taken into ressentiment."

Intense negative emotions exist for a reason and are not necessarily bad. They may need to be named and released, not cured or erased. The Zen teacher Alan Watts said: "Such words as anger, depression, fear, grief, anxiety, and guilt suggest uniform states which tend to persist if no action is taken to change or release them. As fever was once considered a disease instead of a natural healing process, we still think of negative feelings as disorders of the mind which need to be cured.
" Releasing them lets us move on, said Martin Laird: "If we can name the thought (anger, fear, pride, etc.) instead of spinning a commentary about the thought, which is our usual response, we stand a much better chance of simply letting go of the thought and returning to our practice."

And even for the moment we experience that feeling, the moment before it subsides, may be important. Sam Keen said, "When the elemental emotions are shrouded or repressed, we cease to experience the sublime nature of all life and we begin to respond to our environment in purely utilitarian ways. Our inborn sense of reverence is occluded, and the dignity of being is replaced by the frenzy of doing. We exchange our sacred birthright for a cultural myth because it promises a secure identity, a necessary role, and a sense of belonging to the tribe." When we choose to experience the feeling consciously, we can direct our actions. Daniel Condron advised that "the more you speak your thoughts as they arise, the more control you have over your thoughts and emotions. The emotions are a way to complete the thoughts; they are not the cause of your thoughts." He continued: "The emotions are not a way to re-act to the world but instead are a way to act or take action in the world."


"To declare that someone’s suffering is “emotional manipulation” rather than genuine distress is an act of power. It attaches suspicion to certain bodies while treating other forms of pain as natural and legitimate. Sara Ahmed’s work on the cultural politics of emotion (2004) is useful here: emotions don’t simply reside inside individuals but circulate through discourse, constituting social boundaries. Anti-empathy rhetoric works by marking specific populations as threats who weaponize feeling, while privileged grievance, the anger of people who feel the culture has left them behind, passes as common sense. There is a deeper anxiety at work, too, though I’m not sure the people involved would recognize it. If we took seriously the suffering of precarious populations — the undocumented worker, the uninsured mother, the trans teenager — we might have to reckon with how our social arrangements produce that suffering. Anti-empathy rhetoric insulates against that recognition. The problem isn’t that empathy is dangerous. The problem is that empathy might reveal something about how our world actually works. Lauren Berlant’s concept of “cruel optimism” (2011) names the dynamic: we cling to myths of meritocracy precisely because the alternative — recognizing that the system distributes suffering unevenly and often deliberately — is unbearable. Easier not to feel." (The Anti-Empathy Movement & the End of the Iliad, Maximus Planudes, Medium, Feb 17, 2026)

Sources

Thomas Brudholm. Resentment’s Virtue: Jean Améry and the Refusal to Forgive. Philadelphia: Temple, 2008. p. 105.

Letter from C. G. Jung to Jolande Jacobi, 26 August 1943. Printed in C. G. Jung. Aspects of the Masculine. (Collected Works.) Translation by R. F. C. Hull. New York: MJF Books, 1989. p. 126.

Alan Watts. Nature, Man, and Woman. New York: Vintage Books, 1991 (Copyright 1958). p. 92

Sam Keen. In the Absence of God: Dwelling in the Presence of the Sacred. New York: Harmony Books, 2010. p. 79.

Martin Laird, O.S.A. Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. p. 82.

Daniel Condron. Superconscious Meditation: Kundalini and the Understanding of the Whole Mind. Windyville, Missouri: SOM Publishing, 1998. pp. 151-2, 154.

Quotes: On the symbolism of scars

"Most of my body lives,
But the scars are dead like the grooving of a frown,
Cannot be changed, and ceaselessly record
How much of me is already written down."
- William Dickey, Memoranda, Of the Festivity, 1959

"I have heard the [Native American] tradition said in this way: When you die, you meet the Old Hag, and she eats your scars. If you have no scars, she will eat your eyeballs, and you will be blind in the next world."
- Robert Bly. Iron John: A Book About Men. New York: Vintage Books, Random House, 1992 (originally 1990). p 216. Also quoted as "Carved on a bus bench on Hawthorne" from http://devrandom.net/~aidan/sphere.html Accessed August 31, 2003

"Although a man has the scars of healed wounds, when he appears before God they do not deface but ennoble him."
- Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love, Long Text, Chap. 39. Trans. E. Spearing (Harmondwsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 1998), p. 96. Quoted in Martin Laird, O.S.A. Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. p. 132.

"Undergoing unnecessary surgical operations—"unnecessary," that is, from the point of view of pathophysiology—often fulfils this function. The patient here plays the illness game and seeks validation of the sick role from the expert. The surgeon who consents to operate in such cases performs a psychologically and socially "useful" function, albeit his usefulness cannot be justified on surgical grounds. His action consists essentially of legitimizing the patient's claim to the sick role. By operating, then, he enables the patient to "win." The surgical scar is official proof of illness. It is the diploma, the trophy, the prize that goes to the winner!"
- Thomas S. Szasz. The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct. New York: Delta, 1961. p. 257.

"So you're on this journey with Jesus. You've hit a moment. What are you going to do with it? How are you going to change? What need to change? And what will you carry with you—maybe even as a scar—as you go forward?"
- Dick Foth. Quoted by David Kuo. Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction. New York: Free Press, 2006. p. 94.

"The universal incidence of puberty rites suggests that they are archetypal — a fundamental requirement of the soul. It is little wonder, then, that adolescents in secular Western society, who are deprived of official rites, unconsciously seek authentic initiation through drink, drugs, sex, rock ’n’ roll. They long to get out of themselves, get out of their heads; they positively need fear and pain and privation to know if they can stand it, to know if they are men and women, know who they are. They want scarification — scars, tattoos, piercings — to show off. Some even commit crimes specifically to incur punishment — the initiation of prison — only to be given ‘counseling’ instead.

For all its admirable compassion and humaneness, modern Western liberalism has a horror of that fear and pain which seem to be essential components of initiation. Still, happily or unhappily, there is always enough fear and pain to go round. Whether we like it or not, we suffer sickness, bereavement, betrayal and anguish enough. The secret is to use these experiences for self-initiation. Instead, we are usually encouraged to seek a cure for them, rather than to take advantage of them for self-transformation. It is, on the whole, a mistake to medicalize suffering and even death because they are primarily matters of soul and only secondarily of the body."
- Patrick Harpur. The Philosopher's Secret Fire: A History of the Imagination (2002). Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2003. pp. 90-91.

"I've learned I can't save myself with the fire

of my own hands. I've scarred my chest, gouged eyes,

scorched my tongue. I've destroyed my life to live it.

If something else now could bow me to

its brutal divinity, I would drop like a beggar.

That's no good bet, either. Like all gods,

we've gotten older, our power's in doubt. The mother's

long banished to apocrypha. We sought mercy

in the cold arms of statues. but how else might we

have worshipped a world we tried so hard to love?"
- 
Gaylord Brewer, from "Moving the Stone," Eclipse, Vol 11, No. 1, Fall 2000

Quotes: On the effort of gender transition

I was aware, during the time of boygirl, that I had been given a rare and precious gift, to see into the worlds of both men and women for a time and to be able to travel almost effortlessly between them. ... It was like being Clark Kent and Superman, in a way.

* * *

I think it is hard for me to be with people that I love for whom my transition is something other than a cause for unbridled celebration. I feel great these days, like somebody who just got out of prison after 40 years for something she didn't do, like I got pardoned by the governor. When dear friends deal with me with mixed emotions, it is a little like being told, 'Well, Jenny, we're glad you got sprung, really, but quite honestly we did kind of like you better when you were in jail.'

Jennifer Finney Boylan. She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders. New York: Broadway Books, 2003. p. 153, 179-80.

...the psychiatric disorder of transsexualism [means that one has]...agreed to go through life with an official diagnosis probably comparable in many people's minds to necrophilia.

Amy Bloom. Normal: Transsexual CEOs, Crossdressing Cops, and Hermaphrodites with Attitude. New York: Random House, 2002. p 28.

I found myself resenting the psychological requirements [for gender transition]. Part of it was distrust; after years of therapy and meditation, not one single person had noticed this truth, and now that I had finally found it, I was supposed to go to them again?

Dhillon Khosla. Both Sides Now: One Man's Journey Through Womanhood. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, 2006. p 17.

I smiled, grateful for my masculine traits that testosterone now emphasized, but I was trying to forget about that change, too, since at that time I still believed that the mark of success for any transsexual person is when he or she is able magically to make his or her transsexualism disappear.

Jamison Green. Becoming a Visible Man. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2004. p 25.

Lacking the Karhidish “human pronoun” used for persons in somer [the asexual cyclical stage], I must say “he,” for the same reasons as we used the masculine pronoun in referring to a transcendent god: it is less defined, less specific, than the neuter or the feminine. But the very use of the pronoun in my thoughts leads me continually to forget that the Karhider I am with is not a man, but a manwoman.

Ursula K. LeGuin. The Left Hand of Darkness. (1969) New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2004. p. 94.

Ladies are the kind of people who won't let my girlfriend use the public ladies' room, thinking she's not a woman. Oh, but they're not going to let her use the men's room either—they're not going to let her be a man either. If she's not a man, and she's not a woman, then what is she? Once I asked my mother what fire was: a solid, liquid, or gas? And she said it wasn't any one of those things—it was something that happened to things: a force of nature, she called it. Maybe that's what she is: a force of nature. For sure she is something that happened to me.

Holly Hughes, Clit Notes, 1993, quoted by Kate Bornstein, Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women, and the Rest of Us. NY: Vintage Books, 1994. p 102.

Mr. Jeavons asked me whether this made me feel safe, having things always in a nice order, and I said it did.

Then he asked if I didn't like things changing. And I said I wouldn't mind things changing if I became an astronaut, for example, which is one of the biggest changes you can imagine, apart from becoming a girl or dying.

He asked whether I wanted to become an astronaut and I said I did.

Mark Haddon (in the character of Christopher). The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. New York: Vintage Contemporaries, 2004. p 25.

Is Trump's time up? (impeachment 2019)

Trump admits that he brought up the Bidens on a phone call with Ukraine's president. A Trump adviser said, as CNN reported on Sept. 23, "This is a serious problem for us. He admitted doing it." More specifically, the whistleblower's Aug. 12 claims have been corroborated, as shown by the New York Times on Oct. 26. And witnesses have begun to testify against him (see my blog post published yesterday).

Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani is reduced to arguing that Trump referred to the Bidens only briefly on the phone call. Exactly how that is supposed to help, I don't know.

Out of all the days he was president, Nixon only spent a handful orchestrating a burglary and cover-up https://t.co/bAC9NJdzPB

— Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) November 13, 2019

Tomorrow (Oct. 31), the House plans to vote on formalizing the inquiry. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said that having procedures will "eliminate any doubt as to whether the Trump administration may withhold documents, prevent witness testimony, disregard duly authorized subpoenas, or continue obstructing the House of Representatives." The procedural document is eight pages long and is expected to pass.

When the impeachment inquiry is completed, the government will decide whether to proceed to an impeachment trial. That outcome looks likely, as a New York Times editorial said on October 18, and "that will force Senate Republicans to choose. Will they commit themselves and their party wholly to Mr. Trump, embracing even his most anti-democratic actions, or will they take the first step toward separating themselves from him and restoring confidence in the rule of law?"

As of late November, Democrats are discussing whether the articles of impeachment should focus on the Ukraine scandal or be expanded to include the arguably criminal allegations in the Mueller report.

Will this end his presidency? Maybe. Here's some reasons why it might not, followed by reasons why it might. Then, I quote some opinions.

"No": Reasons why this scandal won't end his presidency

A certain demographic — historically powerful in the United States, though their dominance has waned somewhat — is nearly unanimously in favor of Trump remaining in office. In an October 2019 column, Michael Gerson wrote that "an extraordinary 99 percent of Republican WEPs [white evangelical Protestants] oppose the impeachment and removal of the president." Robert Jeffress appeared on Fox News citing the 99 percent statistic and claimed that evangelicals see impeachment of Donald Trump as an impeachment of their values. (Which is odd, because Trump's personal values are decidedly not in line with American Christian conservatives' and never have been.)

Elected Republican leaders are mostly not on board.

Rep. Francis Rooney (R-FL), as discussed by Jennifer Victor on Oct. 24,

recently indicated that he might support impeachment, and then announced just one day later that he would not be seeking reelection. So, even though support for Trump is eroding, and support for impeaching is growing, most low-ranking Republicans still don’t feel like they can criticize the president and live to see another election.

One newspaper's inquiry found Republicans largely unwilling to discuss the matter. In late October, Chris Cillizza wrote for CNN, "the conservative Daily Caller website asked the offices of each of the 53 Republican senators whether they opposed the impeachment and removal of President Donald Trump. Just seven of them said yes. ... The seven who did confirm they oppose impeachment to the Caller are: Sens. James Inhofe (Oklahoma), Cindy Hyde-Smith (Mississippi), Thom Tillis (North Carolina), Roger Wicker (Mississippi), Mike Rounds (South Dakota), Rob Portman (Ohio) and Jerry Moran (Kansas). ... Of the 46 Republican senators who didn't expressly reject impeachment, almost half — 22 — simply declined to comment to the Caller."

However, as of Oct. 26, fifty senators (all Republicans) had signed a nonbinding resolution to condemn the House impeachment inquiry. There remain three Senate Republicans who have not signed it: Mitt Romney of Utah, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine. So far, then, exactly half of all Senators have signed this nonbinding resolution. Nonetheless, wrote CNN's Zachary B. Wolf, "the show of Republican cohesion does demonstrate that Trump is in little danger of being removed from office by impeachment, at least right now. It would take 67 senators to remove him." In other words, at the conclusion of the impeachment trial (which has not yet begun — only the inquiry is underway), all 47 Democrats and 20 Republicans would have to vote to remove Trump from office. Regarding the resolution condemning the House's inquiry, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, as of Oct. 29, said he had not decided whether to bring the resolution to the floor for a vote. He said he would wait to see if the House's formalization of the impeachment inquiry would contain "due process protections" for Trump.

Juleanna Glover believes the impeachment vote could be held secretly. Article I, Section 3, of the Constitution says only that two-thirds of the Senate must be present. The Senate can set its own rules for the impeachment, but it will need "a simple majority — 51 of the 53 Senate Republicans — to support any resolution outlining rules governing the trial. That means that if only three Republican senators were to break from the caucus, they could block any rule they didn’t like." Glover said:

...it’s not hard to imagine three senators supporting a secret ballot. Five sitting Republican senators have already announced their retirements; four of those are in their mid-70s or older and will never run for office again. They might well be willing to demand secrecy in order to give cover to their colleagues who would like to convict Trump but are afraid to do so because of politics in their home districts. There are also 10 Republican senators who aren’t up for reelection until 2024 and who might figure Trumpism will be irrelevant by then. Senators Mitt Romney and Lisa Murkowski have been the most vocal Republicans in expressing concerns about Trump’s behavior toward Ukraine. Other GOP senators have recently softened in their defense of him, as well — all before the House has held any public hearings.

There’s already been some public speculation that, should the Senate choose to proceed with a secret ballot, Trump would be found guilty. GOP strategist Mike Murphy said recently that a sitting Republican senator had told him 30 of his colleagues would vote to convict Trump if the ballot were secret. Former Senator Jeff Flake topped that, saying he thought 35 Republican senators would vote that way.

Sen. Lindsey Graham has enabled Trump up to this point. He may continue to do so. He was quoted in the Washington Post as having said on Oct. 15:

“Sure. I mean ... show me something that ... is a crime,” said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) to Axios on HBO in an interview on Tuesday. “If you could show me that, you know, Trump actually was engaging in a quid pro quo, outside the phone call, that would be very disturbing.” * * * [Sen. Lindsey] Graham’s comments could signal an inflection point in this impeachment debate. He has in the past twisted and omitted facts to protect Trump, and he’s warning that at some point, he won’t anymore.

Are we at that point? One month later, apparently not yet, and it's unclear what will bring us to that point.

"Yes": Reasons why this scandal will end his presidency

First of all, Americans agree that this type of behavior &mash; seeking foreign help in a presidential election — is bad. There is bipartisan agreement on this. In mid-October, a poll found that over 80 percent of Republicans, evangelicals and people living in rural areas disapprove of a president asking for election assistance from a foreign government.

While theoretical disapproval of the crime does not always translate into specific support for impeaching Trump, a majority of Americans do support the impeachment inquiry. A poll in early October 2019 of the American public found that 1 in 5 Republicans support at least an impeachment inquiry (if they have not already personally reached the conclusion that Trump should be removed from office). Across both parties, then, more than half of Americans support at least an impeachment inquiry. Nearly 2/3 of Americans said that Trump should cooperate with the impeachment inquiry; that is to say, some Americans who do not support the inquiry nevertheless believe that Trump ought to cooperate with it. At the end of the month, another poll had similar results, finding that 49 percent of Americans (including 18 percent of Republicans) want Trump removed from office.

Similar findings come from Fox News, NBC News/Wall Street Journal, the University of Texas and the Texas Tribune, and Washington Post/ABC News.

On November 3, Trump told reporters that he rejected these numbers. "I have the real polls," he claimed. He said they reveal that "people don’t want anything to do with impeachment." He did not, of course, say what these polls were. They probably do not exist.

During an Oct. 30 lunch meeting, Senate Republicans discussed changing their talking points: that Trump's request was obviously a quid pro quo, but that quid pro quos are common in foreign aid. During that meeting, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) said that a quid pro quo is only illegal if there is "corrupt intent," that is, if Trump had "a culpable state of mind." Since crimes do not usually depend on the criminal's state of mind (which is difficult to determine), this argument may not fly.

On Nov. 4, a Huffington Post reporter categorized all 53 Republican Senators' public statements. Only a slim majority (28) say there's nothing to see here, while the rest (25) have some reservations or have chosen not to publicly comment yet. Their positions are:

"The Call Was Totally Fine" (28 senators)
"The Call Was Bad But Not Impeachable" (7 senators)
"The Call Was Wrong" (4 senators: Thune, Murkowski, Sasse, Romney)
"I’m A Potential Juror And Shouldn’t Speak" (4 senators: Collins, Isakson, Young, Enzi)
"Criticized Impeachment But Have Not Weighed In On Call" (10 senators)

On Nov. 7, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) said that, in an impeachment trial, he will "look at all the evidence like a juror, which is what the Senate serves as, and then I am going to make a decision and what’s based on the best interest of the country given the facts," rather than reacting to "what’s being leaked in the press or what’s being reported or what politicians are saying.”

Nikki Haley, who served as U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. during the first two years of Trump's term, claimed that there was no quid pro quo because Trump was ultimately unsuccessful in his attempt to withhold aid from Ukraine. (He did, however, delay it for months.)

In excerpt of a @CBSSunday interview to air tonight on @CBSEveningNews, former UN Amb @NikkiHaley ridicules notion of impeaching Pres Trump. "On what? You're going to impeach a president for asking for a favor that didn’t happen and – and giving money and it wasn’t withheld?" pic.twitter.com/N3CW2lrEBt

— Mark Knoller (@markknoller) November 8, 2019

Nikki Haley on NBC just now insisting Trump is a “truthful” president and tougher on Russia than any previous president. She appears to be all in.

— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) November 12, 2019

One indication that the Trump administration is panicking is that they are asking foreign governments to discredit U.S. intelligence findings on this scandal and related scandals, including the Mueller Report. The Independent:

Trump and Barr have also been asking other foreign governments for help in investigating the FBI, CIA and Mueller investigators. The US president has called on the Australian prime minister Scott Morrison for assistance, while the attorney general has been on similar missions to the UK and Italy.

And the information being requested has left allies astonished. One British official with knowledge of Barr’s wish list presented to London commented that “it is like nothing we have come across before, they are basically asking, in quite robust terms, for help in doing a hatchet job on their own intelligence services”.

Trump also, according to the Washington Post on Nov. 6, asked Barr to hold a news conference stating that the Trump/Zelensky phone call was not illegal, though Barr refused.

Republican leaders have to make a decision. Either they ally themselves with Trump at all costs, without qualifying their statements, whatever the evidence against him, or they forgo Trump's good will. A middle-of-the-road, wait-and-see position, such as that attempted by Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) — who said that Trump's attempted quid pro quo was "not appropriate" yet isn't "impeachable" — is both "gutless" and "ultimately foolhardy, since Trump will view it as an attack," as Michelangelo Signorile wrote on Oct. 30. Signorile said: "There’s no one left in the White House with good instincts who has any influence on him. He’s making all of the decisions now — decisions that even Republicans admit are terrible," and he "no longer has anyone competent to speak for him either, and the GOP knows this too."

Indeed — supporting Signorile's point — Lindsey Graham says that Trump is too incompetent to do anything corrupt and therefore cannot be impeached.

"It was incoherent," Sen @LindseyGrahamSC
says of Trump's Ukraine policy.

"They seem to be *incapable* of forming a quid pro quo." pic.twitter.com/rdZxyIazNj

— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) November 6, 2019

Sen. Lindsey Graham, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, is determined to cultivate his own incompetence by referring to the impeachment inquiry as "B.S." while admitting not having read the materials.

Reporter asks @LindseyGrahamSC if he plans on reading the released testimony transcripts.

Graham: No.

On the impeachment investigation, Graham says: I've written the whole process off. I've written him [Schiff] off, I think this is a bunch of B.S.”

— @alizaslav

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) November 5, 2019

"I'm not going to read these transcripts," @LindseyGrahamSC says of transcripts of depositions from House impeachment inquiry.

Refusing to even look at the evidence is a disgrace.

pic.twitter.com/PoZiZs1Epu

— Holly Lee (@LeeHolly81) November 7, 2019

Future juror says he won’t pay attention to evidence https://t.co/vf1aa6GTFs

— Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) November 13, 2019

Graham also insists that the impeachment inquiry is invalid unless the original whistleblower's identity is outed and the whistleblower testifies before Congress. "It's impossible to bring this case forward in my view fairly," he said, "without us knowing who the whistleblower is and having a chance to cross examine them about any biases they may have. So if they don't call the whistleblower in the House, this thing is dead on arrival in the Senate." To the contrary, however, there are laws to protect the identity of whistleblowers.

This is just the stupidest, most vapid argument imaginable—and if you believe it, I’m sorry to say that you are an idiot. It’s like saying “you have to release the criminal until we get to the bottom of who called 911!” The crime matters, not the person who alerted us to it. https://t.co/2CKWNXQ7AW

— Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) November 11, 2019

It is not necessary to cross-examine the person who reported the crime. And it is a little strange that the defendant would want another one of his accusers to testify, when so many of them have already spoken against him. Outing the whistleblower would simply place the whistleblower at personal risk. It is to Trump's media advantage to paint the idea that he has an anonymous enemy in the government and that this enemy is untrustworthy and can be discredited simply because he or she is anonymous. Accordingly, Trump refused the whistleblower's offer of written testimony. He doesn't want to know what the whistleblower has to say; he wants the whistleblower to reveal his or her face.

Also, while a criminal defendant has a Sixth Amendment right to question their accuser at trial, it is also the generally held legal opinion that a sitting president cannot be indicted, which is to say that Trump is not a criminal defendant and it isn't clear that the Sixth Amendment right applies to him. Trump will go on trial by Senate on the question of whether he abused the power of his office and the consequence is that he may lose his job. That is not a criminal trial, and it isn't clear he has the right to cross-examine anyone.

He sows confusion with this line of argument. Demanding the whistleblower's identity (which legally can't be released) is a tactic to delay the process and divert the focus from other people's testimony. It also intimidates anyone else from reporting crimes in the future, anonymously or otherwise, about Trump or about anyone else.

Similarly, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) denies that Trump asked Ukraine to investigate the Bidens, which is fascinating, since going back to September, Trump himself has admitted doing that. He made a televised request apparently to Ukraine on Sept. 20 and to China on Oct. 3. From the time of the whistleblower's initial report in late September through early November, Trump tweeted about the Bidens over 50 times, generally alleging that they did something corrupt related to Ukraine. Trump is clearly asking Ukraine to investigate the Bidens. This is not in dispute.

Asked Thom Tillis earlier if it was OK for Trump to ask Ukraine to investigate the Bidens, and the GOP senator said: “I think that if you are going back to the discussions they had, I disagree on the characterization.” Then the elevator doors closed.

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) November 5, 2019

Sen. John Kennedy, standing next to Trump at a rally, had this disingenuously apologetic ad hominem for Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi for her attempt to impeach Trump: "I don’t mean any disrespect, but it must suck to be that dumb."

Senator John Kennedy on Nancy Pelosi: I don’t mean any disrespect but it must suck to be that dumb pic.twitter.com/Z9A9hTjrnC

— Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) November 7, 2019

Rand Paul, who once promoted whistleblower protections...

2014 Rand Paul: thinking about ways to "expand the whistleblower statute to government contractors."

“We’ve got so many millions of government contractors that when they see something wrong, they should be able to report it without repercussions,” https://t.co/pbqQ69lpyI

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) November 5, 2019

...now wants to out the whistleblower.

This is shocking. It would be one of the most shameful breaches a legislator could commit. It's the sort of thing you'd expect to see only in the world's most corrupt countries. Even suggesting he'll do it is a dangerous form of intimidation that will have lasting repercussions. https://t.co/UMsWduOkuI

— Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) November 6, 2019

Ultimately, Trump may be unable to stop people from testifying. As explained in a Huffington Post article on Nov. 15:

Someone who refuses to honor a congressional subpoena risks being held in contempt of Congress, which results in, at the very least, hefty legal bills. Someone who honors the subpoena risks being fired. The latter choice, though, can make the subpoenaed witness seem more sympathetic to the public while making the White House appear both vindictive and secretive.

'Aside from firing them or revoking their clearance, the president has no power to unilaterally do anything against these individuals,' [national security lawyer Bradley] Moss said.

The @StateDept documents recently released to American Oversight further confirms Ambassador Sondland's testimony that "everybody knew what we were doing and why."

Giuliani was not freelancing. Sondland was not freelancing. They were executing what @realDonaldTrump wanted. https://t.co/pzrIQLUnBf

— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) November 23, 2019

Opinions

"Anyone who followed the president’s directive to 'read the transcript'...knows that even this sanitized version of the President's call exposes the scheme to public view," Joyce White Vance wrote for Time. "Far from a perfect call, it was a scheme to have a foreign country intervene in our election. It was so far off the mark that when White House officials learned about it, they stashed the record of it on a highly classified server, apparently in hopes it wouldn’t come to light."

James Carville had said Trump appears to be "done." Premature, perhaps, but let's see.

How lovely, this dose of @JamesCarville is tonight, after Giuliani’s buffoonery and @SenCoryGardner ‘s ridiculous non-answer.

James’ laughter is the reaction ALL sane Americans should be having 😂

“That poor guy. I don’t think he’s vulnerable, I think he’s done.” 🔥#copolitics pic.twitter.com/kewoYjggqk

— Accountist 📣🗽🇺🇸🌎🎨⚜️ (@AccountistLisa) October 11, 2019

Nancy Gibbs suggested in October 2019 that Trump wants to be impeached because it lets him project an image that he is a victim.

"The polls are moving for a reason: Republicans and independents, even those serving in Congress, may not agree where the line is, but they know there’s one somewhere, and it does not involve a shooting on Fifth Avenue.

Consciously or not, might he conclude that impeachment and removal is his least bad option for escaping the 'great white jail'? Resigning is out; that’s for quitters. Defeat in 2020 is worse; losing is for losers. But being impeached and removed from office is the one outcome that preserves at least some ability to denounce the deep state and the quislings in the Senate who stabbed him in the back, maintain his bond with his tribe, depart the capital and launch a media business to compete with the ever more flaccid Fox News. (This all presumes that President Pence pardons him, for which there’s some precedent.) Impeachment lets him go down fighting, and he will call it rigged and unfair and illegitimate and a coup, all of which would be harder if the verdict was rendered next November by millions of voters."

Is he making maximal use of the messaging opportunity? No — he can't. He lacks "message discipline," meaning he changes his story every time he opens his mouth. Even Sen. Lindsey Graham cannot deny that the president is suffering from this critical personality flaw. At least when Bill Clinton was impeached, Graham pointed out, he had a team that was "on message every day."

Stephen Collinson's analysis for CNN on Oct. 25: "The President's wild attacks on witnesses — he blasted 'Never Trump Republicans' this week who criticize him as 'human scum' — may also be counterproductive and alienate undecided Americans."

"Trump has been behaving nearly hysterically in public, his language increasingly reckless and vulgar," Elizabeth Drew wrote on October 15. "And he’s made major foreign-policy errors that have enraged members of his own party." She added: "Trump’s defiance of Congress virtually guarantees that he will be impeached for obstruction, among other possible charges." Impeached, yes; but whether he will be convicted, or otherwise rejected by his own party, is another matter.

Former Republican Congressman Charlie Dent said on television: "People have to stand up and say...this is wrong.”

“People ask me why I push back against this administration and the president. Because my nose is not a heat-seeking missile for the president's backside. People have to stand up and say… this is wrong.” - Fmr GOP Congressman Charlie Dent on @NewDay pic.twitter.com/SmhOZriC2u

— Alli Hedges (@AllisonLHedges) October 23, 2019

Just before the first televised impeachment hearings began on Nov. 13, Stephen Collinson wrote of the president: "His fate will have sweeping consequences for the future understanding of powers vested within the presidency itself. The hearings will test whether the ancient machinery of US governance can effectively investigate a President who ignores the charges against him and fogs fact in defining a new post-truth political era."

The accusations

could hardly be more grave. He is effectively accused of committing a crime against the nation itself and the political system that guards its freedoms.

Specifically, Democrats charge Trump with conspiring with a foreign power to influence a US election, an offense many observers believe satisfies the impeachable standard of "Treason, Bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors."

The eventual case may encompass campaign finance offenses, the flouting of his presidential oath to uphold the law and the Constitution and allege obstruction over his withholding of witnesses and evidence. In more symbolic terms, it would validate the fears of America's founders of one of the greatest threats to their democratic experiment.

Stop w the observation that GOP Senators won’t convict and remove. It lets them off the hook. It absolves them of their constitutional and moral duty.

It doesn’t make you look knowing. It makes you complicit.

— Daniel Torday (@DanielTorday) November 22, 2019

Former Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.), who left Congress in 2018, told CNN on Nov. 29 that he'd spoken to many Republican members of Congress, and "they’re absolutely disgusted and exhausted by the president’s behavior...They resent being put in this position all the time." He said they believe they have to make a choice between winning the next election or looking good in the eyes of history.

---

July 17, 2023: Nope. His time was not up, and now he's seeking a second term. Philip Bump in The Washington Post:

"The idea is uncomplicated: Make the bureaucracy fully accountable to the president. The downsides to this should be obvious, from eliminating enormous institutional knowledge to reinventing key systems of government every four to eight years. But it’s also easy to see the appeal to Trump, whose autocratic instincts are unsubtle. It would turn him from a president — one who presides over government — into the CEO of a private organization once again, with all that entails."

Hear his lawyer say, on January 9, 2024, that he could order the military to assassinate a political rival and he wouldn't even be subject to prosecution unless the Senate impeached and convicted him first.

Speaking of rigged elections...

As Fox News releases some of Trump’s worst polling ever, the writer of a piece on his unpopularity explains why his coalition is imploding—and why his only way out is massive cheating. trib.al/OUZpva2

[image or embed]

— The New Republic (@newrepublic.com) May 24, 2026 at 12:42 PM