How Obama Can Unify Dems: Sue Trump

Courtesy of slate.com

The recent election for DNC Chair exposed a continued divide between establishment Democrats and progressives.  In an attempt to bring the factions together, Mr. Perez asked Rep. Ellison to be his deputy.  However, such a chasm, should it remain, will do little to alter the Democrats’ minority power in most state governments and the federal branches. #hocopolitics

Rallying against President Trump could be cathartic if not unifying. Would that alone be sufficient to win back the Senate, or House, or some of the governors’ mansions in 2017 or 2018?  The answer is no.

Aside from enunciating a rationale to unseat Republicans based on policy and connecting better with voters overall, the Democrats need to set aside their habitual in-fighting, get fired up emotionally, and increase voter turnout—something they historically have not done too well—in off-year elections. 

A catalyst for that to take place could lie in the actions taken by former President Barack Obama who remains the de facto leader of the Democratic Party and still commands enormous popularity.   

President Trump handed the Democrats a gift last Saturday when he launched a tweet storm charging without evidence that as president, Barack Obama had the phones tapped at Trump Tower prior to the election.  One tweet wasn’t enough; four were fired off saying essentially the same thing. 

Mr. Trump was said to have enjoyed how the media were consumed by these tweets rather than focusing on the increasingly sobering connections between Trump and his people have had with Russian officials.  Days later, Trump did not back down from the phone tapping charges and his aides have struggled to answer the barrage of demands for proof of these allegations.

Assuming the charges are not supportable by facts, it is quite possible that President Obama has been defamed.  Stating without equivocation that the former president engaged in a felonious act could cause damage to Mr. Obama’s reputation and degrade his ability to secure a financially beneficial post-president career. 

What Mr. Obama should do is sue Mr. Trump for libel and force the current president to back up the charges with proof.  Mr. Trump brags about the many lawsuits he has engaged in though they have largely not been successful.  He threatens everybody who gets in his way with a lawsuit (recall the women during the campaign who accused him of sexual assault).

 “[Trump is] basically stating that Mr. Obama committed crimes, and to state that somebody has committed a crime when it’s false is clearly defamatory,” said Benjamin Zipursky, who teaches defamation law at Fordham University Law School in New York.

“The question is: Is there enough evidence of serious reckless disregard to send that case to a jury?” Zipursky added. “I don't know what a court would decide on that, but there is some evidence of recklessness.”

A lawsuit for say, $50 million, could and should serve notice to the self-proclaimed billionaire that the amount of lies that Mr. Trump delivers with mind-boggling regularity would have consequences.

It would be a steep climb on several fronts.  Presidents are generally shielded from private lawsuits, but Mr. Trump’s tweet storm can be argued it was not part of the president’s official duties. 

Moreover, Mr. Obama has shown that he doesn’t have a combative temperament to launch such legal action nor would he be inclined to add more division to an already divided country.

That said, there have been reports that Mr. Obama was livid after learning of the tweets.  Keep in mind that despite the fact Mr. Trump accused Mr. Obama of not being a U.S. citizen and, therefore, disqualified from being president and calling him weak and incompetent during the recent campaign, Mr. Obama bent over backwards to help smooth the transition to the new administration.  This expression of gratitude from Mr. Trump in the form of wild, baseless accusations could be enough to piss him off to at least consider a lawsuit.

And think how Democrats would raucously cheer the former president on in such a quest.  It might even unite the Party.