Impeachment: An ugly word for the ugliest American

“Impeachment is an ugly world,” President Donald J. Trump said when he still had not come to terms with the certainty that soon he would be branded with that word for all time.

Like Hesther Prynne in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic American novel, The Scarlet Letter, Trump will carry around the stigma to his dying day and beyond. It will appear in every obituary written after his passing and in every historical account of his presidency.

Prynne was marked with an “A” for adultery by a puritanical, patriarchal society. Ironically, Trump could be tagged for the same sin, but that is a microscopic flaw in contrast to his real crimes. Trump’s scarlet letter is for betraying his country and its Constitution.

His “A” is also for being an abhorrent, abusive, abominable animal who likes to put kids in cages, to separate families, to build a wall that can tear flesh apart in a second and deliver an electric shock. Trump’s scarlet “A” stands for the antipathy he has earned by terrorizing and hurting the most vulnerable, cutting off their health care and food stamps.

That’s why I revel at the sight of Trump stomping around in open fury and ill-concealed pain, like a bull wounded by a banderilla. I apologize for that. Not for my schadenfreude—defined as the experience of pleasure, joy, or self-satisfaction that comes from learning of or witnessing the troubles, failures, or humiliation of another—but for the insult to the bull, a brave and noble animal, adjectives not associated with Donald J. Trump.

Karma

Let’s celebrate the wounding of the monster but also realize that the horror movie we have been living within since Trump came down from that famous escalator and began spewing his racist venom is not over. The first blow does not slay the vampire who comes back in the next reel bent on vengeance. And this vampire is not returning alone. He has with him the whole cast of the living brain dead, also known as his base, including his praetorian guard, the entire Republican Party armed with loopy lies and brimming with unrighteous indignation.

The Republican defense of Trump is so lame that even some of those who have supported him through profound and petty cruelties, thousands of lies, numerous personal misdeeds, self-enrichment and many other transgressions are breaking ranks.

In an editorial, The National Review, founded by William F. Buckley, a star of the conservative movement before conservatism became the ideology of choice of a sizable minority of Americans, and for decades the flagship publication of the right, said those pursuing removal of the president had passed four crucial tests required to justify throwing out a president.

Christianity Today, an evangelical publication, founded by Billy Graham no less, printed an editorial calling for the removal of the president from office:

“But the facts in this instance are unambiguous: The president of the United States attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of the president’s political opponents. That is not only a violation of the Constitution; more importantly, it is profoundly immoral.”

Christianity Today’s editorial wounded “Trump can do no wrong” Evangelicals and they counterattacked. The publication held its ground and stood by the editorial.

Trump is not the only Republican who is profoundly immoral. GOP Senators will keep defending Trump despite the evident facts even the National Review and Christianity Today can see clearly. Starting with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnel and Senator Lindsey Graham, Republicans have openly declared their intention to violate the oath they are required to take as jurors in an impeachment trial. That oath reads as follows:

“I solemnly swear (or affirm) that in all things appertaining to the trial of ____, now pending, I will do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws, so help me God.”

McConnel and Graham have said they will not be impartial. That’s clearly unethical but it is not clear if there are any legal consequences for such conduct. What can Democrats do to prevent or punish such a brazen abuse of power?

Perhaps the reason Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is delaying sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate is to figure that out.  The Constitution’s impeachment clause does not contemplate a circumstance like this in which a significant number of Senators are willing to act against fairness and the Constitution for purely political and ideological reasons.

We have reached a point at which the utter cynicism of the president is matched by the cynicism of the party he has appropriated and denatured so that it resembles a cult more than a modern political party. The very nature of the arguments they are using to protect Donald Trump are a travesty of common sense and logic.

As Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times has written, Republicans accuse Democrats of trying to negate the votes of the 63 million Americans who voted for Donald Trump in 2016. They never mention the more than 65 million citizens who voted for Hillary Clinton during the same election and whose votes were neutralized by an anachronistic undemocratic institution, the Electoral College, which the Republicans love because it is one of the few things they have going for them since they decided to become the party of the one percent masquerading as the party of white working class people.

It seems absurd to think that in 2020 enough voters will once again drink the poisoned Kool Aid the cult leader is selling and that he could win even under our rigged electoral system that represents states and their size rather than citizens and the places where they live.

But the election of someone like Donald Trump in the last election suggests that the perceived threat of turning from a nation historically dominated by whites to a nation without a default race or ethnicity produced a sort of collective madness. Temporary insanity or permanent derangement? We will know in less than a year.