A Final Test For US Democracy: Trump's Firing Of Mueller

A friendly reader complained the other day that I wrote about the same things again and again. And there is probably some truth to that analysis. But, as the Republican party has successfully shown over the last few decades, repeating the same thing over and over is actually a highly effective strategy for making sure your message is actually heard and eventually convincing (or brainwashing) people of the truth of what you are saying.

When I started writing on a regular basis about 18 months ago, I was more focused on how the failures of the political elites in both Europe and the US to deal effectively with the aftermath of the financial crisis was leading to populist revolt on both sides of the Atlantic. This was reflected in the rise of the far-right and anti-EU fervor in Europe and the emergence of both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump as viable candidates for their respective party's nomination. But the refusal to even provide a hearing to Merrick Garland made me realize just how desperately Republicans were determined to cling to power, at virtually any cost. And as it became more and more likely that Trump would win the GOP nomination, it also became more and more clear that the Republican party was relying on the tactic of gerrymandering and voter suppression and intimidation that they had honed for the last six years to win in 2016. And that's when I began to focus more on the disturbingly anti-democratic nature of the modern Republican party.

A little over a year later, our democracy is teetering on the brink. As the pressure mounts on Trump in the Mueller investigation, the cries among his most fervent supporters and in the right wing media echo chamber for Mueller's firing grow louder and louder. Republicans in Congress, including so-called "moderates" like Lindsey Graham, are already working to discredit the Mueller investigation and lay the groundwork for his firing by Trump. The summertime talk of passing legislation to protect Mueller from getting fired has given way to the usual Congressional response to Trump's abuses, namely no action at all. Fox and the Wall Street Journal get ever more strident in their denunciation of Mueller and the FBI, with Jeanine Pirro essentially calling for a Soviet-like purge. As Chait writes, "It is almost a maxim of the Trump era that the bounds of the unthinkable continuously shrink". And when Trump does fire Mueller, what might be the last battle to save our democracy will begin.