The Mueller Report Settles Nothing

John Harris: “We can’t all seem to agree that it’s a good thing the president didn’t conspire with Russia, nor can we all admit that the Kremlin may have helped elect Trump.”

“Forty-five years ago, after Watergate resulted in Richard Nixon’s resignation, even Republicans joined in the ritual sermonizing about how the episode proved the primacy of law. No doubt even in those days there was ample pretense beneath the piety—of course Democrats were gloating and Republicans were plotting payback. But the very fact that they bothered to pretend revealed a basic respect that American political culture was on the level.”

“These days, the one point on which warring sides all seem to agree is that American political culture in the Trump era is fundamentally not on the level. The Trump-Russia episode proves the primacy not of law or even of politics, both of which are designed to reconcile conflicting values and lead to resolution. It shows the primacy of psychology, in which current events represent a nonstop Rorschach test — what does it look like to you? — and virtually no factual assertion can be embraced at face value. In this prism, the main purpose of argument is to show fidelity to the home team, and not to settle a matter but to keep it going.”