Milbank: Restraint is key for Democrats

Nadler mentioned neither impeachment nor contempt, and he managed to keep the Democratic side — including the gadfly who brought fried chicken to a previous hearing as a prop — quiet.

Then came Nadler’s Republican counterpart, Rep. Douglas Collins of Georgia, who practically yelled out his statement and fired off taunts so quickly that those of us in the room struggled to understand him, and the transcript designated several sections as unintelligible. The words that did come through were mostly caustic and personal. Nadler “rushed to maximize headlines,” was “politically expedient,” issued an “illegal subpoena,” “orchestrated” a “spectacle,” and is “more interested in the fight than fact-finding.” Collins further accused Nadler and the Democrats of “harangues,” and warned of “running roughshod over the Constitution.”

Watching this disparity in demeanor, I tried to imagine how things might look if Hillary Clinton had won the presidency, and, two years later:

• Five of her campaign advisers had been convicted of crimes — one of them implicating her — and a sixth indicted.

• A prosecutor documented numerous instances in which Clinton had interfered with investigators.

• Clinton refused to let aides cooperate with subpoenas and dismissed an unfavorable court ruling as “crazy” and partisan.

• She directed the Justice Department to investigate the front-runner for the Republicans’ 2020 nomination.

• She directed the White House counsel to lie about her deceit, then ordered him not to testify.

Can anybody imagine, in those circumstances, a Republican speaker of the House resisting calls for impeachment?

Certainly, Trump has earned impeachment; Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., has said as much. But with no chance of removing Trump, Democrats can instead show the country that our problem isn’t polarization; it’s that one side has gone bonkers, and the other side is trying to restore adult supervision.

Americans, even reluctant Trump supporters, hunger to end the madness. This is likely why former vice president Joe Biden holds a commanding lead, even though he’s out of sync with the party base ideologically and demographically. And generally, the 2020 Democrats seem to grasp the need for normal. I had feared that, after Trump, Democrats would conclude there’s no penalty for lying. Instead, “anecdotally, I think they are trying harder to be more factually accurate,” The Washington Post’s Fact Checker, Glenn Kessler, tells me.

This is an encouraging sign, as is party leadership’s efforts to resist an impeachment stampede. Impeachment may be inevitable if Trump continues to stiff-arm all inquiries. But Democrats are right not to emulate his insults, falsehoods and extreme partisanship as they go about their inquiries.

Maybe such restraint will be proved wrong in 2020, and voters will reward the insult hurlers. But if Americans don’t desire a return to stability, honesty and decency, our democracy is already lost.