KEEP IT SIMPLE, STUPID

We're learning more and more about the corruption of the president, his associates, and his enablers. There's this:

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had several phone calls with President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, Rudolph Giuliani, toward the end of March, weeks before U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch was unceremoniously recalled from her post, according to documents released under court order late Friday.

And this:

A lawyer for an indicted associate of Rudy Giuliani tells CNN that his client is willing to tell Congress about meetings the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee had in Vienna last year with a former Ukrainian prosecutor to discuss digging up dirt on Joe Biden.

The attorney, Joseph A. Bondy, represents Lev Parnas, the recently indicted Soviet-born American who worked with Giuliani to push claims of Democratic corruption in Ukraine. Bondy said that Parnas was told directly by the former Ukrainian official that he met last year in Vienna with Rep. Devin Nunes.

"Mr. Parnas learned from former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Victor Shokin that Nunes had met with Shokin in Vienna last December," said Bondy.

Shokin was ousted from his position in 2016 after pressure from Western leaders, including then-vice president Biden, over concerns that Shokin was not pursuing corruption cases.

And ... well, I'm sure you've been following all the twists and turns, as the story becomes more and more complex.

But we were originally told that pursuing the Ukraine allegations was politically shrewd because the story was easy for Americans to understand: Trump holds up foreign aid meant to counter Russian aggression, conditioning it on Ukrainian assistance for his campaign. Simple.

But it's becoming complicated. If you like following timelines and ever-evolving casts of characters, it's fun. But do most Americans enjoy that sort of thing? Do they have the time or energy or inclination to keep all the dots connected in their heads? Especially when most young and middle-aged people don't fear Russia the way we oldsters were trained to do in the Cold War. The Berlin Wall fell in 1989. It's been thirty years since the main narrative of American foreign policy was that U.S. citizens need to fear a country of white people. The threat Yovanovitch and Vindman and Hill have worked so hard to combat seems remote.

But it's the complexity of the story that I think is responsible for recent declines in support for impeachment -- that and the fact that the hearings, despite moments of drama, presented the facts in a meandering way.

Meanwhile, here's the Republican approach to all this, or at least one approach:

Rep. Mark Walker (R-NC), vice chairman of the House Republican Conference, is organizing an effort to allow the American public to send Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) lumps of coal for Christmas.

A not-yet-announced website reads, “Adam Schiff is on the naughty list this year for leading a sham impeachment!”

People can send Schiff a lump of coal by donating to Walker’s re-election campaign. Donation amounts can be as little as $10, though a $30 donation gets them a T-shirt with Schiff emblazoned on the front as the Grinch. “You’re a mean one Mr. Schiff,” the green T-shirts say.

Saul Alinsky was a lefty, but Republicans love his Rules for Radicals, especially the final rule:

Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.

That's what they're doing to Adam Schiff. It's simple -- it's primitive -- so it's not hard to understand.

Republicans caricature Trump's opponents with the phrase "Orange Man Bad." They think that's the message of all our criticism of the president. But it's pure projection. Their message about our side is always "Schiff Bad!" "Hillary Bad!" "Pelosi Bad!" "AOC Bad!" Our message, as a rule, comes with paragraphs of supporting material, and links and footnotes and chronologies and a lengthy cast of characters.

We'll see whether Democrats can get this case down to a nice, tight, compact presentation of facts. But we'll never keep it as simple, stupid -- or, simply, as stupid -- as Republicans will.