Thread by @julianzelizer

Several people have asked me about this smart @CNNOpinion piece by my esteemed colleagues. Years ago, I wrote a book on the history of politics and foreign policy, Arsenal of Democracy, which examined how politics rarely stops at the water’s edge./1 cnn.com/2019/10/02/opi…

@CNNOpinion So how do we think of Trump’s scandal in historical context?/2
amazon.com/Arsenal-Democr…

@CNNOpinion It is true, as some of the article’s critics say, that foreign policy decisions are rarely made in a political vacuum. But that doesn’t mean that Trump’s actions are not shocking, unprecedented, and dangerous./3

@CNNOpinion Three things to consider./4

@CNNOpinion First, other politicians have tried to sway policy to their direct advantage. The Chennault Affair is the most notorious. President Johnson called it “treason.”/5

@CNNOpinion Second, other presidents have a checkered record on policymaking. The Iran-Contra scandal stands as one of the most egregious examples of a White House circumventing the law. Other presidents, including George W. Bush, manipulated intelligence to launch deadly wars./6

@CNNOpinion Third, of course other presidents are influenced by political considerations when making foreign policy. Part of the reason the nation ended up in Vietnam had to do with Democratic fears being attacked as weak on defense. Nobody, including the authors of the article, deny this./7

@CNNOpinion But President Trump is in a new category, and that was the point of the article, in attempting to obtain very specific campaign information against a political opponent by leveraging diplomatic decisions./8

@CNNOpinion We are learning that he used his authority (which included government funds and government officials) for personal political gain. Unlike Nixon, Trump used presidential power. Unlike Reagan, Trump was asking foreign leaders to intervene in domestic election politics./9

@CNNOpinion Just as important, this race to the bottom of historical comparisons says a great deal about the president. Historians are debating how the Ukraine story compares to other worst moments in presidential history rather than comparable precedents of accomplishment./end

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