The I-word goes public

Things are not, unfortunately, quite that simple. Polls show more Americans favoring Democratic control of Congress than Republican, but that does not mean they can make it so. Redistricting along partisan lines means that most House seats are safe for one party or another; as the Center for Voting and Democracy found in a 2005 report, "The past two House elections were the least competitive in American history by most standards. In each of the four national elections since 1996, more than 98 percent of incumbents have won, and more than 90 percent of all races have been won by non-competitive margins of more than 10 percent."

Electoral maps that pack liberal, urban voters together have put Democrats at a structural disadvantage that is unlikely to be overcome by either exhortations about people power or disenchantment with Republican rule. As Steven Hill, author of "Fixing Elections: The Failure of America's Winner Take All Politics," wrote in Mother Jones last year, "Even when the Democrats win more votes, they don't necessarily win more seats. That's true in the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House, and the Electoral College." In the House, he wrote, "When the two sides are tied nationally, the Republicans end up winning about 50 more House districts than the Democrats."

The Senate is even more distorted; the fact that small, sparsely populated states have the same representation as large states with big cities gives a huge advantage to rural voters, who tend to be more conservative. According to Hill, "In 2004, over 51 percent of votes cast were for Democratic senatorial candidates, yet Republicans elected 19 of the 34 contested seats."

With enough of a groundswell, of course, the Democrats' disadvantage could be surmounted. But it seems almost willfully naive to talk about mustering a congressional majority for impeachment without grappling with the deformation of our democracy that must be overcome first.

Moreover, as Ratner noted, even if the Democrats regained control of Congress, it is far from clear that they could summon the political will to mount an impeachment drive.

It's understandable, of course, that few wanted to dwell on how unlikely impeachment is under current conditions, both now and after November. The forum was a blast of civic outrage and a call to arms, not a sober exercise in political strategizing. In that way, it served its function: Just talking about impeachment in a respectable public forum legitimizes it. Still, if Bush must be impeached to save the republic, and if Bush almost certainly will not be impeached, where does that leave us?

Some of the panelists argued that if Bush is not removed, America's very foundations would rot beyond repair. "The American people are finally going to get it, I hope, about President Bush," said Holtzman. "And if they don't get it, what democracy will we have left?" Ratner spoke with similar urgency. "We're talking about moving from a republic to tyranny," he said. "It's getting too late. If this doesn't happen now, if we can't hold him accountable now, we're not going to get our liberty back."

Toward the end of the event, the gravity of America's dilemma led Lapham to speculate that even insurrection might be possible. It came in response to a question from an audience member who asked, "Are you willing to discuss the alternative that the American people have if they're faced with an illegal government because impeachment doesn't work? That alternative of course is for the people to overthrow the illegal government by the means that they consider necessary."

"I do think that it could easily get to the revolutionary stage, because I would expect the fight to be extremely ugly," Lapham said. "It might come to that. I don't think you're going to keep your democratic republic easily."

It was hard to tell if the applause that followed represented a flash of militant hope, or an acknowledgment of despair.

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