From Nixon's Watergate: "It's never the crime, it's the cover up."
"But there is one big, dispiriting difference between the scandal unfolding now and the one that unseated Nixon. Four decades ago, Nixon was forced to resign because Republicans in Congress deserted him. [...] This time, the picture is very different."
"Sure, Republican senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham vow to hold Trump to account. But the rest of them are profiles in moral weakness, prepared to turn two blind eyes to the actions of the president simply because he wears the right party colours."
"But we can’t just point the finger at, and pray for the downfall of, Donald Trump. He is merely the face of a deeper Republican malaise. The hypocrisies he embodies extend far beyond him."
"It’s natural to direct our fury at Trump and to want to see him gone. But it was the wider American right that, over more than two decades, feasted on bigotry, ignorance and contempt for science, facts and the compromises required by democratic governance – it was that right that incubated Trump and Trumpism. If impeachment and removal from office are ever to be more than a fantasy, it will be Republicans who will have to make it happen. And that will require them to do more than change a president. They will have to change themselves."
The Guardian. Jonathan Freedland