How Bill Clinton's resignation would have changed history

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand's comment this week that Bill Clinton should have resigned amid the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal has ignited a firestorm of debate within the Democratic Party, and a backlash against the New York senator who now holds Hillary Clinton's former seat and has long-standing ties to the Clintons.

For what it's worth, as someone who voted for Bill Clinton twice, I believed then and today that he should have resigned for the good of the country. His salacious conduct was unbecoming of the president of the United States and a betrayal to voters who twice looked past various allegations of sexual misconduct on his part to elect him to the White House. But most importantly, his resignation would have spared the country a long impeachment battle, lifted the cloud from his presidency, and allowed the country to move forward in confronting its various challenges, not least of which was the growing threat of terrorism.
Regardless of what people think about what Clinton should have done in 1998, it's interesting to speculate how the history of the past 20 years would have been different had he stepped down and not served out the remainder of his second term. We'll never know for sure, but my guess is that the country would have been better off as a result.
Here's a look at some key historical questions to ask about the events that would have followed Clinton's resignation:

• Who would have one the 2000 presidential election? 
• Would the 9/11 terrorist attacks still have happened?
• Would the United States have ultimately gone to war with Iraq?
• Would the 2008 financial crisis have occurred?
• Would Barack Obama and Donald Trump eventually been elected president?

Let's look first at the most obvious question. Would the outcome of the contested 2000 presidential election been different? It's far from guaranteed, but I think it's highly likely that Al Gore would have won the 2000 election running as an incumbent president who had restored a sense of order and normalcy to the White House following the Lewinsky sex scandal. Given the fact he would have almost certainly continued Clinton's core policies, Gore likely would have enjoyed an approval rating similar to the one Clinton had upon leaving office (66 percent). He would have avoided the uncomfortable dilemma of having to run on the Clinton record while distancing himself from Clinton's personal conduct, as he would have had nearly two years to build his own record. Given the razor-thin margin by which he lost the election (a few hundred votes in Florida), I think these factors together would have easily put Gore over the top. There's no way to know for sure what an Al Gore presidency would have brought, but the results most likely would have been better than the disastrous George W. Bush presidency, which included the worst terrorist attack in the nation's history, a misguided war in Iraq, and the beginning of the Great Recession. 

Which brings us to the next big question. Would the 9/11 attacks have unfolded the way they did? My guess is probably they would have, but the chances are at least marginally higher that they would have been foiled had Clinton resigned. For one thing, the year that was consumed with the sex scandal and resulting impeachment battle coincided with the time period when the 9/11 attacks were being planned. If not for the distractions that accompanied Clinton's scandal, the White House and Congress obviously could have focused more centrally on the looming terrorist threat. Of course, there's no guarantee that would have happened (they could have simply shifted their focus to other matters, and battles), but the impeachment drama certainly didn't help in keeping the country focused on what Osama bin Laden was doing in the desert of Afghanistan. Then there's the question of whether a Gore administration would have succeeded in preventing the attacks that a Bush administration failed to. Again, I think it's unlikely, but possible. A Gore presidency would have brought continuity in the fight against terrorism, and there's strong evidence that the new Bush administration didn't view the threat with the same urgency that existed under Clinton. It's hard to argue that the intelligence agencies that failed to prevent the attacks would have acted in a significantly different fashion had Gore occupied the White House, but we'll never know.

One thing that is safe to assume, however, is if Gore had been president during 9/11, there would have been no Iraq War. This was by far the most controversial, and misguided, decision of the Bush presidency. If Gore had been president, as I believe he would have had Clinton resigned, he would have focused on extinguishing bin Laden and his band of terrorists in Afghanistan and not gotten sidetracked in Iraq. 

But what would have become of the Gore presidency had he been elected and the 9/11 attacks still occurred? I think it's likely Gore would have been a one-term president. Of course, much would have depended on how he executed the war against terror and led the nation in the aftermath of 9/11, but he would have faced a stiffer challenge than Bush in maintaining the public's support. He would have received more blame for the attacks than Bush ultimately received as a relatively new president. Gore's critics would have been able to argue that he was part of the administration that had been in power during the years in which Al Qaeda grew as a threat and plotted the attacks, and had failed to take strong enough action to stop it. Bush's supporters could say that he had been president for less than 8 months when the attacks occurred, and that most of the planning for the attacks took place on Clinton's watch. 

So let's say Clinton resigned, Gore became president in 1998, won in 2000, then lost in 2004, likely to Sen. John McCain. That's my best guess on what would have happened in the years following a Clinton resignation. After that, the hypotheticals grow cloudy. How would a President McCain had executed the war against terrorism, assuming 9/11 had occurred? Would a war in Iraq eventually resulted? And would the 2008 financial crisis had played out the same way? Not knowing how Gore's and McCain's economic policies would have differed from Bush's, it's difficult to say, but many of the factors that led to the economic collapse were structural and beyond the relatively limited scope of any actions different presidents, or their administrations, would have taken in the preceding years (Congress likely would have remained in the hands of the Republicans during the majority of this period). So let's say the economic collapse would have occurred regardless of whether Bush, Gore or McCain were president in 2008. It likely would have doomed any re-election prospects for whichever party held the presidency at the time (I'm guessing McCain, but it's possible Gore would have won re-election). So perhaps Barack Obama would have been elected president in 2008 and Trump in 2016 regardless.

But the one wild card in all this is how a Bill Clinton resignation would have affected Hillary Clinton's political career. The fact that Bill was able to prevail in the impeachment battle and serve out his term certainly made it easier for Hillary to run for and win her Senate race in 2000. But would she have run and won even if her husband had resigned? My guess is yes. Voters largely absolved her of any blame during the Lewinsky scandal, and her standing in voters' eyes actually improved as she became a sympathetic figure, and the scandal shifted focus away from her own controversies, specifically the Whitewater ordeal. But while I think she would have run for and won the Senate seat regardless, I think it's much more doubtful she would have been able to mount a presidential campaign. The Democratic Party's views toward the Clintons and the Bill Clinton presidency would have shifted dramatically had he resigned from office in disgrace, and it's highly doubtful that the Clintons would have been able to maintain their powerful position within the party, particularly if Gore had won election in his own right. And if there had been no Hillary Clinton foil for Donald Trump in 2016, the chances are very high his campaign would have crashed and burned. 

So there you have it. Bill Clinton should have resigned in 1998 not only because it was the right thing to do, but because it likely would have spared us the disastrous presidency of George W. Bush, possibly prevented the 9/11 attacks and the Iraq War, and ultimately kept Donald Trump far away from the White House. 

At least that's my best guess. 

The strange parallels between the presidencies of Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, and what it could mean

One of my favorite Google searches since January has been "Donald Trump's approval rating." Much was made of the fact that no president since polling began saw his approval drop so precipitously after taking office. The gap between where Trump's approval stood during the early months of his presidency and that of his predecessors during their honeymoon period was strikingly enormous. For those who believe Trump is a disaster for the country (I'm one of them), his dismal approval ratings have provided a ray of hope.

Clinton vs. Trump approval ratings from FiveThirtyEight.com

But as I've followed his approval ratings in recent months, I've noticed an interesting trend. It has largely flatlined in the high 30s, which of course is awful for any president, and particularly for one in his first year in office when presidents typically see some of their highest ratings. Nevertheless, comparing his approval rating to past presidents at the same point in their presidencies , we see that Trump is largely holding steady, while other recent presidents saw their ratings drop precipitously after their honeymoon period.

Of all the recent presidents, Trump's current average approval of 37.3% is closest to Bill Clinton (44%) at the same point in his presidency. In fact, Clinton's approval actually fell lower than Trump's was 134 days into both presidencies (36.8% for Clinton vs. 39.6% for Trump). Meanwhile, while George W. Bush and Barack Obama both began their presidencies with generally high approval ratings, by this point in their first years, both were hovering around 51% approval (Obama would drift under 50% as his first year continued, while Bush saw a huge spike after 9/11).

For those who continue to count on Trump's presidency to implode, or at the very least for him to last only one term, this trend poses both cause for concern, and optimism. First, the concern. The similarities between Bill Clinton and Trump stretch beyond their generally rocky presidential starts and low approval ratings in their first year. Both ran campaigns that almost from the start were engulfed in scandal and controversy and seemed poised to implode at various points. Of course, there were the sexual-related scandals (Gennifer Flowers for Clinton, the Access Hollywood tape for Trump). But it's easy for forget that with Clinton, there was a lot more (accusations of draft dodging and the Whitewater land deal to name a few). Time magazine ran a cover of Donald Trump melting down during last year's campaign when it appeared he had offended his way out of the race; but how many people remember the Time magazine cover of candidate Clinton's face shown through a negative photo image of him, to highlight his broader image problem. Almost from the moment his presidency began, it was under investigation for one thing or another, or at the least clouded by controversy and questions about his moral and ethical compass.

We all know what eventually happened with Clinton. Despite the scandals and low early approval ratings, he would easily win re-election and end his presidency as one of the most popular presidents in modern history -- despite being impeached. Few people would have predicted at this point in his first year as president that he would coast to re-election; in fact, by 1994, there were rumblings about whether he should be dumped from Democratic ticket in 1996 so that his more presidential-looking vice president (Al Gore) could take his place. The scandals never left Clinton, but the low approval ratings did. The reason was simple. The economy soared during the 1990s, the country largely avoided foreign entanglements and wars, and most people in the country were generally happy with their lot in life. Hence, they were more than willing to overlook their president's personal shortcomings and give him credit for what was going right in America. By almost every measure, Obama had nowhere near Clinton's baggage weighing him down, but he never approached Clinton's popularity, because the economy under Obama never approached its glory days under Clinton (few people seemed willing to give Obama credit for preventing another Great Depression, which many thought possible when he took office).

Could the same thing happen with Trump? Could voters ultimately overlook the Russian election tampering, the never-ending lies and self-absorption (and everything else), and reward Trump with a second term if the economy grows even more healthy and the country avoids international crises?

I think the answer is yes, but not likely. If unemployment stays low, the stock market continues to advance and things stay calm the next three years, there is a chance that Trump's approval rating could inch higher, especially if he finally decides to act somewhat presidential, and the Russia investigation bears no fruit. But I also believe the upside for him is much lower than it was for Clinton. For all his faults, Clinton was not nearly as polarizing and divisive as Trump has been, he was an intellectual heavyweight, and he acted presidential (at least much of the time). Enough people had an open mind about Clinton that when things started to look up in the country, and optimism about the future grew, there was lots of room for his popularity to soar. Trump, on the other hand, has offended so many people so quickly, has acted so unpresidential in so many ways, that a large segment of the American population simply will never change their opinion about him. The fact that his current approval rating is so dismal even though the economy is generally healthy, and even though he hasn't yet completely botched any domestic or international crisis, is a telling sign that  people are paying more attention to him (which seems to be his ultimate goal) than what's happening in the country as large.

Nevertheless, the Clinton example should be sobering for those who believe it's just a matter of time before the Trump nightmare ends. If the economy falters in the next year or so, or something else goes wrong, and Trump has no accomplishments to show for his time in office, his base could begin to desert him, and his approval could sink toward the 20s. But if that doesn't happen, it's not hard to see a scenario where his approval rating starts to inch back into the 40s and maybe even approach 50%. And as Bush and Obama showed, an incumbent who can keep about half the electorate behind him has a great chance at re-election.

It's hard to image at this point Trump's approval rating ever approaching the level it would need to be to give him a realistic chance at re-election (or even being renominated). But then again, the Clinton presidency also was shaping up as a disaster for much of his first term. Things can change quickly in a country where people largely judge their president based not on how they feel about him, but how they feel about their own lives.

Why did Catholics go for Trump? A Catholic wants to know

When it comes to political ambivalence, no religious group can touch us Catholics. Trying to come to terms with how to vote in any given presidential election can be an excruciating experience worthy of the confessional.

Jews overwhelmingly tend to vote for Democrats; evangelical Christians are even more fervent in their loyalty to Republicans. African-American protestants are liberal, white protestants conservative.

Catholics? We seem to blow with the wind, and in this election we helped blow Donald Trump to victory (though not this one).

The exit polls showed that Catholics favored Trump 52-45 percent on Nov. 8. It's likely that advantage played a pivotal role in putting him over the top in the Catholic-heavy Rust Belt states that tipped the election.

But why? Catholics favored Barack Obama in both 2008 (54-45) and 2012 (50-48). They also went for Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996 and Al Gore in 2000. The only other time in the past quarter century the Catholic vote went for a Republican was in 2004, when Catholics favored George Bush over the man who was trying to become only the second Catholic president in U.S. history, John Kerry.

At least we know now that Catholics aren't inherently biased against Catholic presidential candidates.

So why is it that our vote is consistently so up for grabs? As a former altar boy who has heard more than a few politically tinged sermons over the years, I have a few ideas.

Three types of Catholics

In my experience, there are three distinct types of Catholics: Conservative Catholics who adhere strictly to church doctrine and tradition, and for whom abortion is the defining moral and political issue of our time (hence the conservative priests who argued that John Kerry should be denied communion because of his pro-choice position); progressive Catholics who take a much more holistic and far-reaching view of social-justice issues and tend to focus on ones where they can have a more immediate impact, such as violence, climate change and immigration; and secular, or pragmatic Catholics, for whom faith is but one aspect of their lives but not a defining one, and who are most likely to separate their religious beliefs from their political views.

In any given election, any one of those three groups can play a pivotal role in determining which candidate gets the Catholic vote. My guess is that the secular Catholics were the decisive block in backing Bill Clinton in the 1990s and the progressive Catholics went for Obama in 2008 and 2012.

My hunch is that this year the conservative Catholics tipped the balance, and I think it may have had a lot to do with the third presidential debate. I think the conservative block is the minority among the three but perhaps the most politically passionate and certainly most likely to base their vote on the singular issue of abortion.

Trump appealed directly to them by taking on abortion head-on in the third debate, a contrast from mainstream Republicans have who have largely tried to steer clear of the topic in recent years even as Democrats have become more absolute in their pro-choice positions. When Trump said outright in the third debate that he would nominate pro-life justices to the Supreme Court and condemned in graphic (if inaccurate) terms late-stage abortions, I wonder if that was the tipping point for older, socially conservative Catholic voters in the Rust Belt who believe firmly that abortion is tantamount to murder.

Hillary Clinton's response was to toe the traditional Democratic line, which has become increasingly inflexible over the years. Abortion, for them, is in no way a moral issue, it is entirely a personal one. Whereas her husband once declared his belief that abortion should be safe, legal and rare, Hillary Clinton and the rest of the Democratic Party long  ago dropped the "rare" part of that equation.

The problem is that for many other Americans, abortion is an issue that generates a degree of ambivalence and internal conflict that neither political party seems willing to acknowledge or address. I've heard many talks about abortion in church over the years, though not nearly as many as I once did because of the progressive nature of my current parish, but the most powerful one came a few years ago from a priest who decried the positions of both the left and the right on the issue and blamed both for failing to address it in practical terms: the pro-life movement that seems to believe the only answer is repealing Roe. V. Wade and fails to recognize how conservative economic policies actually encourage abortion and that coercion is not the only, or best, answer; and the pro-choice movement whose entire focus is preserving Roe. V. Wade while ignoring the broader moral implications of abortion, or any effort to focus on ways to help women in this difficult situation to choose life. Progressive Catholics believe abortion is a sin but one best addressed through compassion rather than coercion.

Because neither party is interested in deviating from its rigid ideological positions, it is the minority of voters on the extremes who can tip a close election in one direction or the other. When enough voters feel that Roe V. Wade is at real risk, pro-choice voters are most likely to turn out in big numbers for the Democrat. But when pro-life voters feel they have a champion, they are the ones energized to turn out. That may be what happened in 2016.

The unfortunate thing about the politics of abortion is there's never any real hope to find common ground on a core social and moral issue that continues to divide America and cause anguish for those most directly affected.

How powerful is the most powerful person in the world? As powerful as we make him

One of the sentiments I've heard most often in the days following the election is that people feel largely powerless to stop Donald Trump and the Republican Party from carrying out their vision (repealing Obamacare, building walls, deporting millions of immigrants, pulling out of climate deals, blocking common-sense gun regulations).
Don't be so sure.
It's easy to forget how powerless the most powerful man in the world can quickly become when he lacks public support and approval for his agenda. It's one of the brilliant aspects of the checks-and-balances systems the forefathers enshrined in our Constitution.

George W. Bush's approval ratings as president

Be careful what you wish for

A little history. The success of presidents whose party controls Congress in carrying out their agenda has been largely checkered, particularly in modern times. Jimmy Carter's party controlled both houses of Congress for all four years of his presidency, and he had among the worst relationships with Congress of any modern president, accomplishing little. Bill Clinton's party controlled Congress the first two years of his presidency, and his (and Hillary's) health care plan went up in smoke, before the Republican Revolution of 1994 that left him to argue he was still relevant (remember "the Constitution makes me relevant"). George W. Bush famously said after the 2004 election that he was going to use the "political capital" from his re-election to push the privatization of Social Security through a Republican-controlled Congress. It went nowhere, and two years later the Democrats seized control of both houses, laying the foundation for Barack Obama's rise two years after that. Even Obama nearly failed to pass the Affordable Care Act, succeeding by only the slimmest of margins when he lost his filibuster-proof Senate, before his lukewarm approval numbers cost the Democrats the House in 2010 and the Senate in 2014..

Power from the people

Why have so many presidents failed when they seemingly had free rein to push their legislative program through a friendly Congress? It all comes down to popularity and approval ratings. Carter, Clinton, Bush and even Obama all suffered from lackluster approval ratings when their party controlled Congress, and that cost them the "capital" they needed to deliver on their plans. Every member of Congress is thinking about the next election, or that of their successor. When the president is popular with the American people, regardless of party, they are likely to go along with large parts of his agenda (think Ronald Reagan's tax cuts). When he is not, regardless of party, they are likely to run for the hills.
What Donald Trump is, or is not, able to do over the next four years will largely depend on his popularity with you and me. Given where he stands now, he has Mt. Everest to climb.