Merrick Garland “fears no person,” says legal scholar Norm Eisen — and he’s coming for Trump
Merrick Garland “fears no person,” says legal scholar Norm Eisen — and he’s coming for Trump
Author of “Overcoming Trumpery” says “methodical” Garland is still building a case against Trump and his regime
By CHAUNCEY DEVEGA
PUBLISHED MAY 30, 2022 10:00AM (EDT)
Merrick Garland and Donald Trump (Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images)
Like other forms of fascism, authoritarianism and reactionary politics, Donald Trump’s so-called movement is a symptom of deeper problems in society, not the cause. Trumpism is not a boil that can be lanced, thereby ending the infection. It’s more like a tumor growing from the bones.
It’s not exactly true that the Republican Party was conquered or “taken over” by the Trump movement, as many observers still perceive it. The seeds of Trumpism were planted in Republican soil decades ago, and found it a hospitable environment. It’s more accurate to perceive Trumpism as the next evolutionary (or, more properly, devolutionary) stage of the Republican Party and the overall conservative movement. It’s where right-wing politics were going in America, whether leading conservatives understood that or not.
To discuss the current state of the Trump movement and America’s efforts to defeat it, I recently reached out to Norman Eisen, a senior fellow in governance at the Brookings Institution. He served as special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during Donald Trump’s first impeachment, and is the author of the new book “Overcoming Trumpery: How to Restore Ethics, the Rule of Law, and Democracy.”
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In this conversation, Eisen describes the power of “Trumpery,” as he calls it — a combination of disdain for ethical restrictions, assault on the rule of law, incessant falsehood and disinformation, the shameless pursuit of personal and political interest, not the public interest, the exploitation and exacerbation of political division, and attacks on democracy itself. He also discusses why the Republican Party so enthusiastically mated with Trumpism in its quest for autocratic and near-dictatorial power and control over American government and society.
Eisen also discusses why so many members of America’s mainstream news media remain in denial about the danger posed by Trump and his Republican-fascist movement and remain locked into to obsolete patterns of “both-sides-ism,” “balance” and “neutrality” that are entirely inadequate to the country’s worsening democracy crisis.
Toward the end of this conversation, Eisen counsels patience with Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Justice Department, suggesting and that the upcoming House committee hearings on the events of Jan. 6, 2021, will be crucial in holding Donald Trump and his cabal accountable for their obvious or likely crimes against democracy.
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This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
How are you feeling now, given America’s democracy crisis and all the other challenges we face as a country and people?
Everybody has their own way of medicating their anxieties about our country’s democracy. One of my forms of self-medication is to write books. “Overcoming Trumpery” is my fourth book, and this one was really born out of the alarm that I felt when I realized that Donald Trump may be out of the White House, but Trumpery was still with us. Moreover, Trumpery might even be more dangerous now than when Trump was in office. Trumpery is running amok in the GOP. It has really conquered one of our major political parties.
Why is it so challenging for many people to accept — especially the mainstream news media and other Beltway types — that the problem is much bigger than Donald Trump? That the real problem is not just Trump personally, but what he represents and what he has unleashed?
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