Nobody is going to hold Donald Trump accountable for his alleged Ukrainian shenanigans because — as we’ve seen in his career and the first 32 months of his presidency — he’s too good at deflecting investigators, irate Democrats and pesky reporters.
To begin with, Trump suffers no shame when confronted with the outrages of his personal, professional and political lives. A normal fellow would blush crimson if caught paying a porn actress hush money after purportedly having sex with her. He’d cringe if confronted with the lascivious things he’d repeatedly said about his eldest daughter. He’d wear a mask to avoid being recognized if 17 women had accused him of sexual misbehavior. He would leave politics if captured on tape bragging about sexually assaulting women.
But not Trump.
A normal businessman would cower in disgrace if he had been accused of housing discrimination, having mafia ties, running a sham “university,” filing serial bankruptcies, stiffing contractors and suppliers, not to mention tax fraud or self-dealing through his personal foundation.
But not Trump.
Donald Trump’s dexterity at squeezing out of Robert S. Mueller’s trap had the effect of inoculating the president from future probes.
Your standard politician would be strong-armed into resigning by his own party if he did even one of the 40 things David Leonhardt accuses Trump of doing in the Monday New York Times: urging a foreign country to intervene in a U.S. election; giving classified information to Russia; denigrating U.S. intelligence while standing next to Vladimir Putin; obstructing justice; or calling for the imprisonment and investigation of his critics and opponent.
But hell no, not Trump. Not yesterday, not today, and certainly not tomorrow.
In the pre-Trump world, we depended on the forces of shame to convince public figures to surrender. But our president’s ability to repel shame and disregard political mores have moved the normal touchstones. Was Ralph Northam channeling the Trumpian model when he refused to resign over his blackface scandal and survived?
The Trump magic obviously doesn’t work on everybody. Press almost any Democrat and they’ll say Trump deserves impeachment for his many transgressions even if they don’t want to file articles against him right this minute. But for Republicans and Trump supporters (not always the same people), the president’s overwhelming negatives and his repeated escapes from close calls with the law and propriety don’t diminish him. Rather, they redound to his credit.
Trump uses his far-ranging skills at guile, treachery and humor to undermine the established order to get what he wants | Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images
Like the “trickster” figure in literature, Trump uses his far-ranging skills at guile, treachery and humor to undermine the established order to get what he wants. Each time he shatters the standard rules of behavior and persists, Trump resets what’s considered acceptable. This makes him a bigger villain to his foes. But he also makes him a bigger hero to his fans.
As Brian Bennett wrote in Time last spring, Trump’s dexterity at squeezing out of Robert S. Mueller III’s trap had the weird effect of inoculating the president from future probes. Like the brassy villain in a movie, Trump has taken everything the established rules of order could throw at him and has not just survived but thrived. If Mueller and his $32 million investigation and saturating press coverage couldn’t bring Trump down, can we really expect a Trump telephone conversation with a foreign president in which he urges the investigation of his political rival’s clan to break the hold he has on his supporters?
Well, you say, that’s not the full extent of controversy. The New York Times reports that the whistleblower’s complaint refers to a series of actions by Trump, which potentially expands Trump’s rap sheet. If so, the least the House of Representatives can do is commence impeachment proceedings to hobble the president with checks and balances.
But anything that doesn’t kill Trump makes him stronger. Like Brer Rabbit, the trickster of African-American lore, Trump has got to be hoping House Democrats toss him in the impeachment patch. No matter how the House votes, we can’t expect the Republican Senate to convict. Such an acquittal, following his “victory” over Mueller, would only magnify Trump’s martyrdom in the eyes of his followers. The Trump constituency has fully integrated their man’s negatives into their support of him, making any loose-lip phone call he might have made to foreign leaders a de minimis matter to them.
Anything that doesn’t kill Trump makes him stronger Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images
If Democrats hope to evict Trump from the White House, they’ll have to do better than bang their impeachment pots and pans outside his bedroom window. They’ll have go after his positives and his 2016 campaign promises. Has he made the economy stronger, as he claims? Maybe not. The Federal Reserve Bank just dropped rates to goose an economy feared to be entering a recession. Has he made America safer? More respected? Has he brought China to heel? Built the wall? Locked up Hillary Clinton?
Stop thinking you can thwart Trump. You can’t shame a man who won’t be shamed. You can only vote him out.
Jack Shafer is POLITICO’s senior media writer.