New York Magazine October 14-27, 2019

1 For New York’s latest cover story (“Was It Worth It?,” September 30–October 13), 22 women and men talked about what happened after they came forward with accounts of sexual harassment and assault. Bruce Karp wrote, “This article made me wonder how we’ve gotten to the point where people who do wrong manage to suffer no consequences, while those who try to do the right thing end up being the ones who suffer consequences.” Soraya Chemaly, author of Rage Becomes Her, wrote, “Everywhere I go, women talk about this, and the double bind of coming forward.” The filmmaker and first partner of California, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, added, “It’s time we start paying more attention to the women who said #MeToo than the men whose lives are ‘ruined’ by the consequences…

ON TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24—in a move that was either months overdue or dangerously premature, depending on whom you ask—House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a formal impeachment inquiry. In the weeks since, public polling has continued to climb in its favor, but that doesn’t mean the Democrats are about to smoothly “impeach the motherfucker,” as Representative Rashida Tlaib declared the night she was sworn in to Congress. The impeachment proceedings of the past were divisive national theater, and that was before Twitter and Facebook and a conspiracy-theorist president superpowered the country’s partisanship. Are we headed for a full-fledged constitutional crisis by Christmas? A survey of this high-stakes moment, from the Democrats’ war room to the Republicans’ bunker (and what it has felt like for the rest of us).…

NANCY PELOSI HAS NOT had a simple job since the Democrats won back the House last year, having to, most prominently, swat away an ill-fated attempt to replace her as Speaker, navigate uncharted political waters with the emergence of the progressive “Squad,” and try to negotiate with Donald Trump. But on no single issue has she faced a more persistent drumbeat from assorted members of her caucus than the impeachment of the president, whom her entire party regards as a criminal but whom far fewer have believed it wise, politically, to prosecute. Suddenly, though, almost her entire caucus is behind her, and Pelosi’s months of caution (years, really, since Maxine Waters and Al Green first started calling for impeachment) look something like strategic prescience. It’s true that the Ukraine story…

THE CRIMES FOR WHICH IMPEACHMENT is the prescribed punishment are notoriously undefined. And that’s for a reason: Presidential powers are vast, and it’s impossible to design laws to cover every possible abuse of the office’s authority. House Democrats have calculated that an impeachment focused narrowly on the Ukraine scandal will make the strongest legal case against President Trump. But that’s not Trump’s only impeachable offense. A full accounting would include a wide array of dangerous and authoritarian acts—82, to be precise. His violations fall into seven broad categories of potentially impeachable misconduct that should be weighed, if not by the House, then at least by history. I. ABUSING POWER FOR POLITICAL GAIN EXPLANATION ➝ The single most dangerous threat to any democratic system is that the ruling party will use…

IT’S HARD TO BE WORRIED when you don’t really like the guy.” That’s what one senior Republican Senate aide had to say when I asked how concerned conservatives are about Donald Trump’s fate. The truth is Trump fatigue is a condition that knows no party, and many Republicans are as tired of this shit as anybody else. That’s not to say they’re outraged or motivated to Make a Difference. They’re just tired. You can live inside the right-wing bubble in a state of depression, resigned to the fact that, yeah, every five minutes or so the president is probably going to do something norm shattering or potentially impeachable, and, no, you probably won’t or can’t do anything to change that. Sad! “I’m totally bored by the story,” one person who…

WE’VE ACTUALLY BEEN talking about how eating here tonight is kind of festive,” Jacob, a community manager who recently moved to New York from Chicago, tells me while standing on the corner of Second Avenue and East 9th Street on the first Saturday night in October. In Washington, lawmakers are digesting reports that Trump will stonewall the impeachment inquiry until a full House vote. Jacob and his sister, meanwhile, are waiting for a table at Veselka, New York’s iconic Ukrainian diner, which serves pierogi, borscht, and pancakes of both the refined-white-flour and potato varieties all day, every day. “Are we celebrating? Are we eating in shame?,” Jacob asks. He’s not sure. Jacob’s friend Frank is staying abreast of the news: “You know what? It’s not a lot. Trump literally used…