Not With a Bang, but a Whimper
Impeachment Trial Ends
Because both sides in the impeachment trial of Donald Trump (Part Deux) reflect the decaying, declining state of American civil society, the proceeding came to an end Saturday after the Senate voted to call witnesses, and then remembered that they were due to be out of session next week if there were not a trial, and so reversed itself. No witnesses, onto closing statements, the predictable vote, end of story. Donald Trump once again escapes conviction for impeachable offenses that he did in fact commit, and our political system is again revealed to be groaning under the weight of its cowardice and dysfunction.
Doing the hard, right, thing is …well, hard. And so, it is often not chosen. The hard, right, thing here would have been to call witnesses, adjourn for depositions, start again in two weeks or so, and take this thing through. Yes, the ex-President’s witnesses would be designed to turn the trial into a three-ring circus. That would be on the D’s in the Senate, as every witness would have to be voted on. Yes, it is almost certain that there would not be 17 Republicans voting to convict at the end of the process. Yes, it would to some extent take away from the White House’s desire to move forward on its own agenda. The pure number of arguments that can be made against going forward with the trial greatly outnumbers those for pressing on. But that does not matter, as these questions should be evaluated by weight, not number. And the weight of the case for going forward is significant, so significant as to render the other considerations irrelevant.
Put simply, whether Trump is convicted and barred pales in comparison to the importance of getting facts onto the record designed to slowly move whatever number of convincible Americans back to reality who have been ensorcelled by Trump’s lies and their amplification by dupes, toadies, and pliant media. The Senators in the GOP are not the audience; they have revealed their lack of integrity already. It is the American people who must be reached. There is a serious problem in this country of people who have stopped believing in facts and truth, and the way to overcome this is through more facts and more truth. The President left his Vice President twisting in the wind before a murderous crowd of thugs because THAT WAS WHAT THE ENTIRE DAY WAS DESIGNED TO DO. The President told the House Minority Leader to sod off because the riot that was threatening his safety WAS WHAT THE ENTIRE DAY WAS DESIGNED TO DO. From May of 2020 right up through the afternoon of the insurrection, the President of the United States planned and executed a strategy designed to ensure that he remained in office irrespective of the vote of the people.
He laid the predicate by stating for six full months that the only way he could lose was if the election were stolen. Before the vote was even held, he undercut American confidence in state-run elections. On the night of the election, he said he won, and continued to say so through five dozen court defeats, and 50 separate state election certifications that indicated otherwise. He selected the day of Congressional Electoral College Certification to summon the mob, he instructed them on what to do, and he looked the other way while they sought out American political leaders with murderous intent.
If there are fact witnesses to testify to not only the fact that the President orchestrated this riot, but that his actions/inaction was motivated not by incompetence, but malevolence, those people should be deposed. They should testify. Those facts should be brought forward because the country needs to know just how corrupt Donald J. Trump was.
We know this not only because it is true, but because the Senate Minority leader tells us it is. That is right. After Mitch McConnell skillfully guided the Senate to not take up the impeachment article while he was in the Majority and Trump was in office, and then (along with the rest of the Senate GOP) claimed the trial was unconstitutional because Trump was no longer President, McConnell took to the floor of the Senate to deliver a speech that was every bit as effective as the case brought by the House Managers in impugning the President. His speech, which can be watched in its entirety here, constitutes a damning listing of Presidential failures and corruption that would BEST have been explored with additional witnesses. Because that would have been inconvenient to many members of his team, it did not happen that way. But McConnell—ever the sly and strategic operator—made it clear that the questions SHOULD be asked, and that they quite likely ought to be asked in criminal court proceedings. So, while witnesses, conviction, and disbarment from further office would have been the desired method by which the goal of more widely educating the public against Trump’s lies would be achieved, McConnell clearly recognized that within the GOP voter base, exactly such truth-telling must occur if his party is to put Trump behind it. And McConnell very much wants Trump behind him.
Parting Shots
I am finding it easier to leave them there these days.