Biden called for reconciliation.
Republicans are angered that Democrats are pursuing impeachment.
To impeach or not to impeach.
America faces a risk that we will create a new myth of a "lost cause" with Donald Trump as hero.
Other Republicans said in private that of course Trump's claims were nonsense, but their base voters believed it, and therefore they would act on the reality of Republican voters' belief in fraud, rather than in any serious indication of fraud. People of faith deserve an advocate. That is the position taken by Senators Cruz and Hawley before and after the January 6 attack.
One cannot argue with faith. Republican voters believed Trump and there was no apparent consequence for encouraging them. After all, the idea of a grand conspiracy of fraud made Republicans angry with Biden. What's the harm?
Republican politicians were treating their constituents like children who are deeply and happily invested in the idea of Santa Claus. One cannot prove Santa Claus isn't real, even if his workshop hasn't been found at the North Pole and flying reindeer seem improbable when examined under audit. And you get anti-abortion judges under the tree--a prize worth the belief. Some Republicans stood up to spill the beans on Santa, but it was politically costly for them. Trump blasted them. Local partisan committees passed censure motions. It was better to go along, either as a participant or in silence. The potential credible voices of Republicans--business and professional leaders plus Republican mayors, county clerks, sheriffs, District Attorneys--were silent.
Democrats face a dilemma. An incumbent president carried out a plan to overthrow an election in plain sight. People were killed and elected officials threatened. This happened. If this is tolerated, then power belongs to whoever controls the military and police forces, not to voters.
The dilemma comes from the reality that Trump did not act alone. Trump leads a movement. Most Republican politicians went along. If an impeachment defines Trump's behavior as wrong, then it means defining the people who believe in Trump as wrong. Republican politicians who might be happy to be rid of Trump himself don't want to be seen disapproving of Trump voters. Trump has created a myth of the Grand Fraud. Reconciliation allows the myth to persist and fester.
America has some experience with this.
Truth and Reconciliation. Histories of the U.S. Civil War and Reconstruction era observe a very powerful emotion that had arisen by the end of the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant: Exhaustion and a desire for reconciliation. Soldiers of the North and South met in reconciliation events, federal troops left the South, the freed slaves went back into full legal oppression under Black Codes. As the story got remembered in the South, black slaves were happy in servitude and the war was all about states' rights. They were the good guys.
In the glow of memory and reconciliation, Southern leaders became understood as men of courage, who stood unbowed on behalf of a noble but lost cause of a virtuous southern way of life. In reconciliation the South turned its eye from the hard fact that the leaders fought in a rebellion to maintain slavery.
Impeachment continues disunion, but reconciliation risks making Trump the new "lost cause." An un-judged Trump allows the Santa Claus myth to persist. Maybe, possibly, Trump was cheated. We cannot find Santa, but it is delicious to think that one's hero is unbowed and one's enemies are thieves, and your suspicions were right all along. Could a defiant, un-judged Trump possibly be seen as heroic in steadfastness rather than as an enemy of democracy? Yes. That is what happened to Robert E. Lee, who had statues built all over the South.
This could end badly. Democrats want impeachment to set a standard that might endure: We elect our leaders. They don't perpetuate themselves. But Republicans say it will cause continued disunion. It would be easier in the short run if the country ignored and forgot Trump, rather than to judge him.
I expect the worst of all outcomes: a divisive impeachment and then acquittal by the Senate. I don't expect enough Republican senators to vote to impeach to convict. It is safer to complain about the process--he's out of office, for Gosh sakes, you can't impeach a guy who is already gone! The real problem for them is that they cannot isolate Trump as a self-dealing autocrat because he got overt or silent consent from nearly all of them.
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| Robert E. Lee, in Richmond, Virginia |
5 comments:
I think this gets easier if you ask; "What's best for the Republic?"
It's a mistake to frame Trumpism in political terms, this has crossed the line into legal or, dare I say, criminal territory. Political maneuvering is frustrating. Republican ethical and moral failings, while nauseating, are not illegal. It's ironic that a con man can be prosecuted for selling a fake watch, but one who deludes a million can escape judgement because he conned a lot of people.
The definition of "mob" includes both "a large and disorderly crowd of people" and "a criminal set". Are Republicans accomplices to a mob in both senses? Looks like it from here.
Politicians who cross the line all too easily cry "political persecution", but it's the responsibility of those in power to protect the system from abuse. Anything less is invites extortion.
What's best for the Republic?
Uphold the rule of law, and swiftly. That's the duty of the oaths taken yesterday, or it will happen again.
Conciliation my ass! Trump encouraged a mob bent on overturning a legitimate
election without a scintilla of evidence concerning election fraud. It was a simple "putsch" fashioned after the Nazi take over of Germany in 1933.
Lincoln, the dreame,r was rewarded with a bullet in his head for his generous forgiveness. After the end of the Civil War we tried "conciliation" and four years ago that policy achieved its culmination with the election of
an ignorant, deeply flawed caricature of a human being as president of the United States. Our nation is in desperate need of two credible political parties to make democracy function and we don't have that because Republican politicians find it easier to "suck-up" to a bunch of ignoramuses that masquerade as Republicans. If, after the Civil War those who engaged in treason by violating their oaths had been hanged by the neck (I am particularly aiming at the sainted Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis) and had been summarily executed for their treasonous acts we would never have had to undergo the recent outrage that occurred in our capitol a few short days ago. Reconciliation is for sissies, I say hang the bastards!
Bob Warren
Macy Pelosi must not wait any longer to send over the articles of impeachment to the senate. The spin cycle on FOX News has reached centrifuge speeds. Democrats can’t have it both ways - they let Anti- Fascists ruin these great american cities why should Trump be treated any different. Well he should be tried and convicted because the House found grounds to impeach him on the charge of insurrection. Every elected member of the House and Senate should be fearful that it will happen again unless the crime is exposed and punishment prescribed that fits the seriousness of his actions. It is the quickest and cleanest way the purge the GOP of Trumpism.
He's impeached ! Try him, now, not in 100 days not in 30 days. McConnell drug his feet to lay a minefield for Schumer, so take the challenge, try him, convict him and remove him from political life forever. And remove any and all Benefits reserved for Presudentsxwho actually deserved the title.
Unfortunately, I don't think we could hang him, even if it is what he deserves.
The democratic Lynch Mob should focus blame on legislative collaborators, Cruz and Hawley to begin with. Either dominate the news cycle or continue to exacerbate Trump derangement syndrome.
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