What I Think Needs To Be Said About The Impeachment Trial
I think I should say something about the upcoming Impeachment trial. This will be short. First, is that it will not result in conviction. Second, is that it will have only a negligible effect on changing the outlook of anyone following it, on either side. Thirdly, is that regardless of outcome, it had to be done, to defend the rule of law, establish a precedent, and force the issue of accountability for everyone involved in aiding and abetting the Insurrection, and those who are still committed to doing more of it. The Congress and its members must be defended from such future attacks at all costs, so everyone involved at every level needs to feel the full weight of investigation and or prosecution.
Lost in the shuffle is what I consider primary, in terms of what drove the Democratic leadership to take this action. When Trump organized the riot and attack on Congress and the counting of the Electors, it became apparent to Speaker Pelosi (office pictured above) that Trump is personally insane. Insane in the most clinical and literal sense of the word. Anyone who disagrees with that assessment I will personally denounce as deluded.
That said, the two most immediately terrifying scenarios became the danger that Trump would try to invoke Martial Law, which some of his friends and advisors were pushing, in order to suspend and overthrow the Election. And in addition, that since someone that clinically insane was incapable of rational judgment, he could not be trusted with the Nuclear codes. So, steps were taken to put both the 25th Amendment and Impeachment into immediate play, to have that over Trump's head as a deterrent, so that he would pay the ultimate penalty in response to any signs of a threat to do either of those things. This came immediately after Pence was denounced as a Pussy by Trump in a White House conflict, and Pence narrowly escaped execution in the attack incited against him by Trump personally. Trump had reason to believe that Pence might turn on him and invoke the 25th, which ultimately he didn't for political reasons, after a week of letting Trump hear Pence's silence on the issue. Everything I just said was documented with valid news reporting as it was happening, in posts that you can review on my page.
The threat of invoking the 25th Amendment, combined with the Impeachment effectively shut Trump down, scared him enough that he deferred to the lawyers around him to stand down, video tape a statement, cease and desist. It worked. However, there is still the need to follow through with the trial for the sake of history, and salvaging some National dignity. It reminds me of the "Officers Plot" led by von Stauffenberg against Hitler, so that some semblance of honor for Germany would remain after the War, to show that someone resisted Hitler. Not that I'm comparing Impeachment with what von Stauffenberg did, except in the motivational aspect.
So I suggest that when Trump is acquitted in spite of the preponderance of evidence against him, don't get enraged, demoralized, hopeless, vengeful or despairing. The impeachment has already succeeded in it's most important respect, which was to insure an actual transition, secure the continued existence of our Democracy, and to put the spotlight of history on the perpetrators for Americans and the rest of the world, to demonstrate that we are now making a dramatic change of direction.
That change is what comes first before everything, and in my view has to be the central focus of our attention and energy. Anything aside from that amounts to Trump continuing to rent space inside our heads, enabling him to continue running us and the country, despite being thrown out in disgrace.
