It’s Not Watergate, It’s Reconstruction

November 25, 2019 9:16 AM

“But history does not actually repeat itself, and the differences between that era and ours are perhaps even more important than the similarities. Reading Wineapple’s book, one is struck by the degree to which the Radical Republicans controlling Congress (in the House, especially) were not cowed by the prospect of reprisal at Johnson’s hands. Congress repeatedly acted aggressively and decisively, with no cringing fear of backlash. A Johnson-supporting lawyer, Charles Woolley, refused to cooperate with a House committee investigation into possible corruption in the impeachment vote itself. So the House arrested him for contempt of Congress and locked him in the basement of the Capitol.“ Making Impeachment Matter (New Republic)
posted by The Whelk (8 comments total)

Ooh, I thought this post might be about the totally fantastic podcast 1865, which is a radio drama style series about what happened after Lincoln's assassination. It is basically The West Wing set during Reconstruction. There are so many parallels. We are still fighting so many of the same fights as 150+ yrs ago. Thank you for this, fascinating stuff.
posted by selfmedicating at 2:12 PM on November 25, 2019 [2 favorites]

basically The West Wing set during Reconstruction.

The original Reconstruction had the same problem.
posted by Rust Moranis at 2:49 PM on November 25, 2019

The most interesting difference between the Nixon impeachment and Trump impeachment to me is that Nixon tried to hide his crimes and Trump tries to tout them.
posted by xammerboy at 2:54 PM on November 25, 2019 [7 favorites]

“I’m sure [the Democrats] will be excited to be here sitting in their chairs, not able to say anything.”

-Sen. Mitch “Yertle” McConnel
posted by snuffleupagus at 5:31 PM on November 25, 2019

Oh man. Never realized asshole exonerated every confederate after we failed to throw him out. And now we still live with that failure, as a country, centuries later.

I knew the stakes were high, you have to convict these types. Italians hung Mussolini for good reason, Americans are much too naive. Nothing even happened to Bush, or Cheney, and this latest is the fruit of that.
posted by eustatic at 5:44 PM on November 25, 2019 [14 favorites]

"In America, extremism in defense of equality is always a vice."

posted by ZeusHumms at 8:14 PM on November 25, 2019

There need to be preparations underway for mass demonstrations for when Mitch tries to turn the Senate trial into a summary proceeding that is submitted to a partisan vote as rapidly as possible, as he is literally and openly promising to do.

Surely that is a precondition to any form of "making impeachment matter" in any pragmatic sense.
It disturbs me that there seem to be no plans for that, or even any discussion.
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:04 AM on November 26, 2019 [2 favorites]

Not Watergate, it’s Iran-Contra
posted by The Whelk at 10:59 AM on December 3, 2019