Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from> around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
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Paul Krugman: The Legacy of Destructive Austerity
The deficit obsession of 2010-2015 did permanent damage.
A decade ago, the world was living in the aftermath of the worst economic crisis since the 1930s. Financial markets had stabilized, but the real economy was still in terrible shape, with around 40 million European and North American workers unemployed. [..]
But why does this history matter? After all, at this point unemployment rates in both the United States and Europe are near or below pre-crisis levels. Maybe there was a lot of unnecessary pain along the way, but aren’t we O.K. now?
No, we aren’t. The austerity years left many lasting scars, especially on politics.
There are multiple explanations for the populist rage that has put democracy at risk across the Western world, but the side effects of austerity rank high on the list.
Greg Sargent: Trump is openly calling for his trial to be as corrupt as possible
One of the thorniest challenges of this moment is the difficulty of finding language adequate to capturing President Trump’s actual, openly stated positions. They are often so profoundly ridiculous or nakedly corrupt, or so audaciously saturated with bad faith, that we struggle to find ways to clearly convey what he’s genuinely telling us.
Case in point: Trump is now openly calling for his impeachment trial to be converted into something that is purely devoted to serving his own political needs — one that only includes witnesses that will help him keep smearing potential 2020 opponent Joe Biden, but has no meaningful relevance whatsoever to the corrupt conduct for which he has been impeached.
Incredibly, this comes as Senate Republicans push for a trial that features none of the witnesses who actually do have direct knowledge of that very same corrupt conduct.
Trump is again suggesting he wants Biden to testify — he has repeatedly called for testimony from Biden and his son Hunter — and claiming Democrats don’t want a trial because they fear this outcome.
This is utter nonsense: House Democrats have not sent the impeachment articles to the Senate because they first want to see what sort of procedure Trump and his GOP enablers will accept.
The ones who actually fear witnesses are Senate GOP leaders, who are refusing Democratic demands for testimony from those with the most direct knowledge of Trump’s freezing of military aid to extort Ukraine into announcing an investigation of the Bidens. They are doing this to protect Trump — and themselves — because he’s guilty as charged, and they know it.
Catherine Rampell: Here are four suggested New Year’s resolutions for the media
New Year’s resolutions can be hard to keep. At least, they are for this humble columnist. To counteract that, this year I’m proposing some pledges not just for myself but for the entire news media, in the hopes that professional solidarity and peer pressure will keep me (and us) on task.
So, dear fellow producers and consumers of news, here are four suggested New Year’s resolutions for the media. I hope others in my industry will adopt them — and call me out if I don’t.
1. Make sure we’re in the information business, not the disinformation business. [..]
2. Related: Don’t spend more time analyzing an idea that the president proposes than he spent coming up with it. [..]
3. Spend more time talking about the things the government actually does and less time covering what government officials say or who’s ahead in the horse race. [..]
4. Remember that just because the president did (or proposed) it doesn’t mean it’s bad; inversely, just because one of the president’s perceived opponents did (or proposed) it doesn’t mean it’s good. [..]
If journalists are ever to rebuild public trust in our work, we must begin by helping the public evaluate ideas and actions on their own merits, whoever their architects may be.
Doug Jones: Every trial is a pursuit of truth. Will my colleagues in the Senate uphold that?
“Verdict,” from the Latin “veredictum,” means “to say the truth.”
Soon, my colleagues in the Senate and I will be called on to fulfill a solemn constitutional duty: to render verdicts — to say the truth — in the impeachment trial of President Donald J. Trump. Our decision will have enormous consequences, not just for President Trump, but for future presidencies and Congresses, and our national security.
For Americans to have confidence in the impeachment process, the Senate must conduct a full, fair and complete trial with all relevant evidence regarding the president’s conduct. I fear, however, that we are headed toward a trial that is not intended to find the whole truth. For the sake of the country, this must change.
Procedures in prior impeachment trials set no precedents because each is unique to its particular set of facts. Unlike what happened during the investigation of President Bill Clinton, Trump has blocked both the production of virtually all relevant documents and the testimony of witnesses who have firsthand knowledge of the facts. The evidence we do have may be sufficient to make a judgment, but it is clearly incomplete. [..]
Every trial is a pursuit of the truth. That’s all I want. It’s all each of us should want. Now that it’s the Senate’s time to fulfill its duty, my final question is: Will a majority of senators pursue the truth over all else?
Glenn Kirschner: Trump tweets that impeachment is a ‘coup.’ He’s almost right — but not in the way he thinks.
We either have three co-equal branches of government or we have something that looks more like a dictatorship and less like a democracy.
President Donald Trump has taken to referring to his impeachment as a “coup.” In October, for example, he tweeted: “As I learn more and more each day, I am coming to the conclusion that what is taking place is not an impeachment, it is a COUP intended to take away the power of the……..People.” (That tweet is copied out verbatim, excessive ellipses included.) In his irate letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Dec. 17, Trump echoed the same sentiments: “this [attempted impeachment] is nothing more than an illegal, partisan coup that will, based on recent sentiment, badly fail at the voting booth.”
I’m not sure the president is entirely wrong to use the word “coup” to describe what’s taking place. Just not in the way he intends it. [..]
But what happens when one co-equal branch of government is delegitimized by another, not violently or suddenly or even with the vanquished branch putting up much of a fight? It may not look like a traditional overthrowing of a government, but it does feel like a coup of sorts: Call it a partial coup, maybe. Given Trump’s aggressive stonewalling of legislative branch oversight and impeachment hearings, along with Congress’ ineffectiveness in dealing with said stonewalling, it feels like we are in the midst of a slow-moving, intra-governmental takeover.
