The Institutionalist

Frank Foer thinks Merrick Garland is going to indict Donald Trump for crimes against the United States of America, no later than this coming spring. Foer’s argument is careful and nuanced, and deserves to be taken seriously, so I’m not going to try to summarize it.

This passage, however, is interesting on its own terms:

At one point during my June visit, I called Garland an “institutionalist,” which I thought was an unobjectionable description of his political temperament. Upon hearing this, he turned to his aides, “I don’t think I’ve ever used the word to describe myself.” If I wanted, they would check, he said. But he was certain he had never uttered it.

I was surprised he would resist the term. I think he wanted me to understand that he is alive to the perils facing democracy—and isn’t naive about what it will take to defeat them. Norms alone are not enough to stop a determined authoritarian. It wasn’t quite a reversal in his thinking; radicalizing Merrick Garland would be impossible. But it was an evolution. His faith in institutions had begun to wobble.

For the institutionalist, institutionalism is the unmarked category, the water that the fish does not perceive as wet, the way things simply are.

Foer argues that the last two years have changed Garland, and that in the end he will reach the conclusion that attempting to enforce the law is a more compelling consideration than galaxy-brained calculations about the ultimate political consequences of doing so.

I hope he’s right.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –

I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me.