Julius Caesar’s Guide to Impeachment

”We all know how this is going to go…”

When the House of Representatives announced an “Impeachment Inquiry” into President Trump in late September of 2019, there were few on either side of the political spectrum who did not respond with similar certainty:

“We all know how this is going to go. The inquiry will lead to the Democrats passing a vote in the House of Representatives, the Republicans in the Senate will acquit, and we’ll all move on from there.”

As much as I hoped this wouldn’t be the case, the first prediction proved accurate. No amount of transparent partisanship, contradictory evidence, or regard for setting dangerous precedents prevented the House from moving forward with impeachment. What was once a forgone conclusion became a bygone event, and on December 18th, 2019, two formal articles were passed: Abuse of Power, and Obstruction of Congress. Nevermind the fact that neither of these is an actual crime, or that Obstruction of Congress is a fabricated notion they came up with on the spot. The articles themselves were merely a formality, as many had been working toward this goal since inauguration day. You know what they say about hard work paying off, and to their credit, many Democrats were so committed to this goal that little else seemed to take priority over this most pressing of causes. “Hillary was supposed to win. This is not normal. We will never legitimize this election. Tantrum mode: activated.”

To bring the class up to speed on the technicalities of what took place during proceedings in the House of Representatives, Democrats insisted on expediting Trump’s impeachment, claiming that it could not wait, and that he gave them “no choice” but to act, and act quickly. Adam Schiff even justified their haste in a preemptive defense of “Obstruction of Congress,” which essentially boils down to the House not waiting for the courts to adjudicate subpoenas for witness testimony. The House of Representatives literally turned a normal process of checks and balances into an impeachment charge, rather than wait for the courts to decide if the witnesses that had been subpoenaed were valid or not. According to Schiff, allowing this process to play out would be tantamount to saying “Why not let him cheat one more time?” Besides, there was “overwhelming evidence” of criminal misconduct, and the House had “more than enough evidence” to justify impeachment. According to Representative Schiff and Speaker Pelosi, the case for impeachment was “clear and obvious,” even without the testimony of their desired witnesses.

Yet during all of this, something strange happened. The more the Left ratcheted up the rhetoric on impeachment, and the mainstream media parroted the talking points put forward by Democrats such as Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler, and Nancy Pelosi, the less the American public seemed to care. From inquiry to articles, very little changed in terms of public support for the impeachment. The Democrats even focus-tested using the vernacular of “bribery” and “extortion” rather than “quid pro quo” to see if it would help boost public support for the proceedings. It did not. The newly-adopted lingo was en vogue for all of ten seconds, until Regina George finally hit Adam Schiff with the hard truth: “Stop trying to make ‘bribery’ happen. It’s never going to happen.”

Similar to Baker Mayfield’s first professional season with the Cleveland Browns, what was hyped as something interesting that many had their eye on, ended up as a total dud. Folks like myself who initially said “Let’s see if there’s something here,” quickly moved on once it was determined that this whole thing was, in fact, a drill. However, once Speaker Pelosi uttered the words “impeachment,” she was irreversibly committed. Just as the new Star Wars movies are made to please current fans rather than create new ones, Pelosi had to appease what she perceives as their base, not necessarily win over new supporters. Hopefully three pop culture references in five sentences is enough to communicate the point: this impeachment is for the base, not the middle. When it became evident there was nothing there, they should have moved on. They didn’t. Instead, they tried to convince the American public that this time, the wolf is real. As previously noted, the efforts seemed to display an inverse relationship with public interest. This reality was clearly reflected in the polls taken the week articles of impeachment were passed in the House, when President Trump found himself with his highest approval ratings to date.

In summation, the gambit had seemed to fail. The fact that “we all know how this is going to go” isn’t tremendously relevant if the end result is an American public that blames Trump for the chaos. However, if they blame the Left, it will only diminish the prospects of a Democrat victory in 2020, as their increasingly weak field of candidates must grapple with a booming economy, and a party clearly split over whether to fully commit to Communism or not. For what it’s worth, the jury still appears to be out on that one.

What would you do in Nancy Pelosi’s situation? You’re already committed to the impeachment. Your PR campaign during proceedings in the House failed to move the needle of support. Your hopes of uncovering anything truly damning were dashed, but your commitment to impeachment necessitated you come up with *something* plausible, even if anyone with a passing understanding of the legal process would see through it. So you come up with two articles vague enough to potentially gain support, but with the substance of a bag of pork rinds. That wouldn’t matter if you were succeeding in what you had always hoped this would be: a victory in the court of public opinion. But you can see the American people’s eyes glaze over every time impeachment is mentioned, and Trump seems more popular than ever. What would you do? I mean, “we all know how this is going to go…”

Following Congress’s vote to pass articles of impeachment against President Trump, news began to trickle in that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was not committed to actually sending the articles over to the Senate for a formal vote. From CNN, just a week after the vote in the House:

“A week since the impeachment vote, there is no sign of a break in the Christmas impasse over how and when his impeachment trial will transpire. Democrats have demanded to know the parameters of the trial before sending over their articles of impeachment, and have made clear they believe it should include witnesses.

Republicans, meanwhile, are largely opposed to calling witnesses, believing a quick trial is the best way to avoid further fallout from the impeachment drama.”

Even at age 79, Speaker Pelosi can throw a decent curveball. After all, what on earth is she talking about? Why is the Senate on the hook for witnesses the House of Representatives didn’t have the patience to wait to hear testimony from? If the evidence presented in the House was so “overwhelming,” why should the Senate need any additional witness testimony? More importantly, why is Pelosi trying to present the trial in the Senate like some sort of non-political process? To summarize Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the process in the House of Representatives was clearly partisan and political, and will likely be conducted in a similar manner in the Senate. Regardless of your feelings about Senator McConnell, he is plainly correct in observing the absurd irony in the House of Representatives conducting a transparently sloppy and partisan impeachment inquiry, only to turn around and demand an arbitrarily defined objectivity in the Senate.

For my part, I wrote a sarcasm-drenched piece highlighting the abject hypocrisy of Pelosi’s claims. I was not alone in my incredulity, and many conservative and centrists commentators (basically anyone not called CNN, MSNBC, NPR, etc.) were quick to criticize Pelosi’s actions, with several proclaiming her tactics here to be “stupid” and “pointless.” Ultimately the legislature went into holiday recess at this puzzling impasse, and that is where it remains. When the Senate reconvened on January 3rd, both Majority Leader McConnell and Minority Leader Schumer resumed their previous positions. McConnell said they couldn’t proceed without the Articles of Impeachment being sent over from the House, and Schumer insisted Articles could not be sent until there was a guarantee that witnesses would be called, to ensure a “fair trial.”

Though partisan stalemates are far from new, this one actually interests me. The further down this path we go, the less convinced I am that Pelosi’s actions are as pointless as they appear. In fact, I think they might actually be brilliant. The unexpected decision to *not* send the Articles of Impeachment over to the Senate reminds me of another unexpected strategic move, this one done by none other than Julius Caesar.

”Caesar had three options…”

The year was 52 BCE. Julius Caesar was dealing with a coordinated uprising in Gall, led by a man named Vercingetorix. Caesar had followed Vercingetorix to a fortified position called Alesia, where he knew Vercingetorix’s superior numbers would eventually grow even more with the impending arrival of Gallic reinforcements. Vercingetorix had the high ground, he had time, and he had numbers. He was better supplied for the time being, and did not have the same concerns facing Caesar, who was deep within enemy territory. Vercingetorix knew Caesar had three options:

1. Impulsively attack Alesia, and face an all but certain loss
2. Wait around in an attempted siege, and face the inevitable reinforcements flocking to Vercingetorix
3. Retreat

This is where Caesar’s genius comes in to focus. Instead of choosing one of the three obvious options, he opted to create a fourth. His army cleared massive amounts of forrest, and constructed an inward-facing wall that spanned the eighteen-kilometer perimeter of Alesia. This was no shoddy structure- it was two stories tall, with all the defensive towers and platforms you would expect on a serious military stronghold. Caesar’s army then created an outward-facing wall of the same magnitude around the first wall, effectively creating a giant fort around Alesia, capable of defending attacks from Vercingetorix, as well as any reinforcements that arrived.

Caesar took an impossible situation with predetermined options, and surprised his opponent by creating a fourth option. Once Gallic reinforcements arrived, Caesar spent the next several days engaging in a two-front battle, that ultimately ended in Vercingetorix’s surrender. The Battle of Alesia was over, and any questions about the brilliance of Caesar’s military strategies were forever silenced.

I remember the first time I heard about this battle, as it was vaguely described to me by a friend during a long car ride. Sometime later, I decided to look up the specifics of this fascinating show of strategic prowess. One of the sources I stumbled upon was a YouTube video by the channel Historia Civilis, which plainly laid out the events in an engaged, concise manner. The narrator also laid out how the battle served as an illustration of Caesar’s tactics in general.

“Caesar stole Vercingetorix’s tactical advantage right out from under him. Now, if Vercingetorix wanted out, *he* was going to have to assault Caesar’s well-defended position. Now you see what Caesar was able to accomplish when he was put in an impossible tactical situation, and you can get a hint at how his brain worked. He wasn’t necessarily concerned with fancy formations, complicated maneuvers, or set-piece battles… his thinking was always focused on bigger issues:

-Where does the enemy have an advantage? How can I mitigate that?

-Where am I strong? How can I maximize that?

-How can I make the enemy tired?

-How can I make sure the enemy has the sun in their eyes?

-How can I make them miss breakfast?

-How can I make them fight in the mud?

His military talent, and you could say his political talent, lie with opportunism. He would take a situation and squeeze every conceivable advantage out of it, until there was nothing left. And then, he’d roll the dice.”

Let the record show that I am not comparing Nancy Pelosi’s political prowess the brilliance of Julius Caesar. However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t wisdom to be gleaned from this example. With that in mind, let’s go back to Nancy Pelosi’s situation, and take a second look at her circumstances.

You’re the Speaker of the House for the Democrat Party. You have a wing of your base that has literally been calling for the President’s impeachment since Day 1. You thought you might have something with the Mueller Report, but it turned out to be a bust. There was a case to be made for Obstruction of Justice, but since the President didn’t commit any actual crimes, there wasn’t much to obstruct. You hold out hope for the 2020 election, but as the field of primary candidates begins to crystalize, you realize that the odds of your party winning are far from certain. In fact, as time goes on, it appears less and less certain, as conflicts between these candidates also exposes a widening and serious rift in your party between moderates and radicals. Enthusiasm is waning, and the strength of the economy doesn’t help your case, either. You need a win in the court of public opinion, and news that the President might have sought to coerce a foreign leader into investigating a political opponent might be just what the doctor ordered.

However, pulling the trigger on this is a gamble. Public support for ongoing investigations into the President is dwindling, and people are exhausted with partisan theatrics. If you go down this road, you risk further alienating undecided voters, and handing the election to the president. But if you uncover wrongdoing, you all but guarantee your party’s success in both the Presidential and Senate races of 2020. You do the math, and conclude it’s worth it to follow through with impeachment. Unfortunately, it quickly becomes evident that you overplayed your hand. The case for explicit quid pro quo is shaky at best, and there seems to be evidence that the President actually had good reasons to do what he did. Unfortunately, your base won’t allow anything other than a full-throated impeachment. Your House of Representatives conducts a rushed impeachment inquiry, including the witness testimony of several highly partisan “experts” on the subject of impeachment. You pass through two vague, dubius Articles of Impeachment just before the end of year legislative recess, and in time to learn that the President’s numbers are stronger than ever. The gambit to further the public perception of chaos seemed to only move the needle towards the President and away from your Democrats. The Articles of Impeachment had been passed, and would soon be in the Senate, where “everyone knows what’s going to happen here.”

How can we filter this scenario through the lens of Caesar at Alesia?

Enemy advantages:

-There is no spotlight on the Republicans, and the outcome of the Senate trial has already been framed as a forgone conclusion in the public psyche.

-There is no scrutiny on the actions of Senate Republicans. People expect them to acquit, and have reason to think they would do otherwise.

Allied advantages:

-Little to lose in terms of further exhausting the public. Support in the direction of the president has limits.

-Security and confidence that the mainstream media will uncritically parrot whatever talking points you issue.

-Imminent holiday recess allows for a brief buffer period to restrategize, and potentially reframe the public perception of the impeachment hearing.

How do you mitigate the enemy advantages? Find a way to put the spotlight on the Senate, and reframe the nature of Senate proceedings. Instead of the outcome being a forgone conclusion, make it an issue of fairness and impartiality. Maximize your advantage of media fealty by using rhetoric that frames the Senate hearing as an actual trial. Make it seem like a big deal that Mitch McConnel said he wasn’t “impartial.” Rest in the confidence that the overt and publicly stated bias of Democrat senators will not be brought up by your allies in the media. Do all this before the holiday recess, and allow the media to spend the next couple of weeks reframing the circumstances of the Senate proceedings. Buy yourself time to strategize with your fellow Democrats, knowing this delay will do little, if anything, to further frustrate or exhaust the public.

In other words, *Create a new option.*

By not sending the Articles of Impeachment to the Senate for a vote, Pelosi is rhetorically transferring accountability for relevant action to the Republicans. “No, YOU call the witnesses. If this is really fair, and not a cover-up, you’ll do what we demand. Otherwise, we can’t trust you with the Articles of Impeachment.”

This move by Pelosi far from guarantees a different outcome in the Senate. Again, the vote in 2020 will ultimately come down to who the exhausted middle of the country blame for the chaos. Pelosi knows this. But she also knows there is little downside to reframing the Senate hearings. It is highly unlikely that this will exhaust more voters in the middle, and direct any more frustration at the Democrats for this, but it does have the potential to make them reconsider who they blame. Pelosi knows that most people haven’t the slightest clue what the Senate hearing is supposed to entail. With the help of the mainstream media, she can frame it as analogous to an actually legal trial, and turn the tables on Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans. Doing so before the holidays also pushes the embarrassing proceedings in the House back in the public memory, and allows the new year to begin with a spotlight on how things *will* be in the Senate, rather than how they *were* in the House.

As a rule, when your opponent does something unexpected that lacks no obvious benefit *or* cost, it is foolish to dismiss their move outright. Imagine what Vercingetorix thought when Caesar first began to cut down trees and construct his fortifications. He probably assumed Caesar was creating some type of small fortifications, which would be of no help whatsoever in a siege, or when Gallic reinforcements arrived. For a considerable amount of time, Vercingetorix had absolutely no idea what was actually going on. He might have been tempted to say “This is idiotic. We all know how this is going to go. Why is he wasting his time cutting down all these trees?” History tells us how wrong such assumptions would have been. The same prudence that should have told Vercingetorix to take Caesar seriously, and to seriously engage in his actions then, should inform how we view Pelosi’s actions today. I have absolutely no idea what is going to result from this. The one thing I am certain of is that “We all know how this will go” has become “What the hell is going on?” In fact, “We all know how this is going to go” has proven to be completely wrong. We are now in totally uncharted Constitutional territory. *No one* knows how this is going to go from here. That’s the point. This is why it’s not just naive to dismiss what Pelosi, a seasoned politician, is up to here- it’s flat out dangerous.

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(This story was adapted from part of my weekly YouTube podcast, originally aired 12/29/2019)