At some point on Saturday, while watching the impeachment trial on cable TV, I heard (on either CNN or MSNBC, as I was switching back and forth) that Democrats on the left were erupting on Twitter because the House managers had withdrawn their request to call a witness.
I’m not on Twitter, but it has been easy enough to find objections along these lines on the web. I'll weigh in on the comments of a couple of journalists.
After acknowledging that Jamie Raskin et al. did a "fantastic job" for the most part, Andrew Prokop transitions to the conclusion that they "ended the trial with a surrender." He designates (in "1 winner and 5 losers from Trump's second impeachment trial") the House managers as losers because after demanding and winning a vote to grant witnesses, they dropped their demand.
Walter Shapiro’s assessment is also damning. In a piece titled, “The Botched Democratic Effort to Convict Donald Trump,” he suggests that “what the last day of the impeachment trial will mostly be remembered for is Democratic disarray on the vital question of calling witnesses.”
In my view both of these critiques are wrongheaded. Prokop’s assessment suggests that "it’s unclear why Raskin pushed forward if he was just going to quickly back down. All it ended up doing was raising the hopes of the Democratic base, and then dashing them, politically botching the end of what had been an overall strong performance."
I hope folks in the Democratic base (among millions of others who might be persuaded to vote Democratic in the future) were watching, or (for most of them, who haven’t been watching) will learn what happened in the Senate this past week. Their understanding is critical for our future. The words and exhibits of the House managers comprised a devastating judgment of Trump (no matter that he escaped conviction).
The comment about hopes raised and dashed, however, sounds like a concern, not of the broad Democratic base, but of a smaller group of Twitter fans, avid spectators of political theater (including journalists), and partisans itching for a fight with Republicans at every opportunity (even when the fight lacks strategic import beyond proving that our side is ready for a fight).
Shapiro objects that “the Democrats never asked themselves the obvious strategic question: Why were Republicans so afraid of witnesses, particularly GOP witnesses?” In my view, it's unlikely that Democrats have overlooked any obvious strategic questions; furthermore, riled up Republicans expressing outrage, angry at losing a vote (and watching a handful of Republicans contribute to their loss), making threats, and ready for a fight may not actually be “afraid.” And, even if they were, it is not a tautology that Republicans are afraid of witnesses, therefore, Democrats should insist on witnesses.
Both Prokop and Shapiro express puzzlement at the back and forth: demand witnesses, win the demand, then drop the demand. I’m prepared, in this instance, to accept the most straightforward answer, which also happens to be the one the House managers offered: Congressman Raskin asked to call witnesses because he sought to elicit the testimony of Jaime Herrera Beutler; he succeeded in getting her statement entered into the record. He withdrew the request.
Unlike Shapiro, I’m hardly convinced that, “Just a three-minute news clip of Herrera Beutler telling the Kevin McCarthy story to the Senate would have had more emotional wallop than all the eloquence of the impeachment managers.” Nor am I convinced that the downsides of insisting (without assurance of victory) on getting her on tape would have outweighed whatever was gained by that three-minute clip.
And perhaps I was more impressed by the House managers’ eloquence than Shapiro was.
These folks stepped up, making a vivid, persuasive case against Trump. They weren’t losers. The deal they made behind the scenes on Saturday didn’t eclipse their achievement.
Although the House managers lost a vote in the Senate 57 to 43 (ten short of two-thirds), that vote constituted an indelible, historic rebuke of the former president. Donald Trump must live (and die) with this disgrace. So too the Senators who refused to hold him to account. For that, we can applaud the powerful, moving presentations of the House impeachment managers.
This is cause for celebration, though tinged with disappointment in the Senate's failure to convict and with trepidation for the future because the GOP is still under Trump's thumb. Not every victory is comprehensive. Other battles lie ahead. This was a significant victory nonetheless.
And if Shapiro wants a clip with a wallop for TV, we’ve got -- as a start -- Mitch McConnell, Liz Cheney, and Kevin McCarthy on tape clearly condemning Trump.