Each side has a well-articulated political strategy. The Democrats are calling for the full release of the report, citing historical precedent and the inalienable rights of the public to be fully informed. The Republican strategy is a little more nuanced. Every Republican in the House voted yes for a nonbinding resolution calling for the release of the report. However, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked the resolution from coming to the floor in the Senate.
The reality is Republicans want to appear to be for release but are not willing to take any steps to force the release. Politically, they don't want the public to see the report.
Here's where it gets interesting. Recent history, specifically the politics around Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr's famous 1998 report of his investigation of President Bill Clinton argues that both sides may be pursuing the exact wrong strategy. Purely as a matter of politics, the Republicans should be all for releasing the report and the Democrats should put up a fight, but a fight they actually want to lose.
Yes, I know this sounds crazy -- a little like noise from windmills causing cancer -- but I believe 1998 proves it right.
The day the Starr report was released, September 11, 1998, President Bill Clinton's approval rating stood at a strong 63%. The day he was impeached a little over three months later, President Clinton's approval rating shot up to the highest level it would reach in his 8-year term -- 73%.
Crucially, the wall-to-wall coverage of the Lewinsky scandal began to recede shortly after the release of the Starr report. The White House briefings were no longer carried live on cable networks as a matter of course. Presidential press availabilities were cut away from to go back to other stories. The fever of the Starr investigation began to break, if only a little bit at a time.
The reason is that, before the report was issued, the public had an intense, almost burning, interest in what had actually happened. What was the President's relationship with the intern Monica Lewinsky? What had he done to keep it quiet? Had he told the truth when he spoke to the grand jury? These were all important questions for the public, and the Starr Report gave every American the ability to make up their mind for themselves. People didn't have to rely on pundits, politicians or reporters to tell them what to think. They were able to make their own independent judgement.
And they did. After the report was released, the public became less interested in the Lewinsky affair. The impeachment process was viewed as a wholly political exercise, one that most Americans had little interest in. Once the facts were out, the inside-the -beltway maneuvering was seen as exactly what it was -- political power games.
So, what does that have to do with now? Well, everything. It's in the Republicans' interest to get all the facts from the Mueller report out, no matter how embarrassing or damaging they may be.
Knowing the facts in politics is almost always a better strategy than trying to conceal them. It's as simple as the old adage that the coverup is always worse than the crime.
Americans are smart, and they are forgiving. My guess is they've already factored in malfeasance from the President and his team and are willing to accept it as one factor, not the only factor in deciding whether he deserves another term. What they won't accept is a protracted attempt to keep information from them. The unknown is very often much more damaging than the known.
The best political strategy for Democrats is the one the Republicans are currently pursuing. Make a token effort to have the report released, then bludgeon the President politically for the next two years by railing against what the administration is hiding. And, now that Democrats have oversight power in the House, the have the perfect platform to pursue that strategy. Every day the public spends not knowing for sure what the President knew and when he knew it is a good day politically for the Democrats.
Do I expect either side to pursue a change in strategy? Absolutely not. But I can tell you that, as much as impeachment day stung as a White House staffer working for Clinton, it stung a whole lot less at 73% job approval than 63%. And 73% is clearly much stronger than President Trump's current job approval, which hovers around 40%.
The real lesson of the Starr report was that releasing the information was painful but cathartic. Covering up the information in the Mueller report will be just as painful in the end and politically devastating for the President and his party.
Bagikan Berita Ini
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