As readers here know, I have not watched a second of the “impeachment” (it is no longer an impeachment) “trial” (it does not comport with the Constitution’s prescription for a Senate trial of a President because I have an unruly sock drawer. There was never a chance that President Trump would be convicted of the manufactured charges rammed through the House when he was in office, and the effort to convict a private citizen or construct a Bill of Attainder to prevent a private citizen from running for office are unconstitutional. If either or both were successful, which is impossible, they would be over-turned by a conservative Supreme Court whose Chief Justice has already signaled his contempt for the partisan exercise by refusing to participate in it. (I hear Roberts’ sock drawer is immaculate).
I’ve read many articles over the last week speculating on what the Democrats are trying to accomplish. Here’s one from yesterday. It’s been pretty clear to me, though incredibly and damningly not the Trump Deranged, that what they are accomplishing is embarrassing and disgracing themselves, their party and the nation; weakening the Constitution and ensuring similar behavior from Republicans in retaliation; exacerbating dangerous division and cynicism among the public, and generally continuing their despicable series of plots over the last four years to reverse the results of the 20i6 election no matter what harm it does to our institutions.
Bias, as the Ethics Alarms motto goes, makes you stupid, and the impeachment charade/fiasco/debacle/ farce/shit-show—you pick your favorite—and hate, as Richard Nixon realized too late, will destroy you. The “trial” is an abject lesson in both truths.
I didn’t watch the any of the trial, but I could not resist watching the video above, not that any of it was a surprise or should have been to any Americans who were paying attention, as in, for example, actually reading the text of Trump’s speech to the protesters. There was no “incitement” in his words, and no one could have been convicted on such evidence, as many objective authorities have pointed out, and many biased professionals have denied, to their eternal shame. Inciting a riot is a crime of intent, and outside of some amateur mind-reading, no intent has been proven or could be. The “case” against Trump—there is no case—has been based on the the “resistance”;s news media allies ludicrously re-casting a riot, a minor one compared to those we have seen over the last decade, almost entirely from the Democratic base with official approval, as an “insurrection,” which it was not. This has been repeated daily since January 6, as if repetition makes it so. It wasn’t even an attempted insurrection, because even the dimmest bulb among the small minority of angry Trump supporters who actually stormed the Capitol could have thought for a millisecond that a couple hundred fools, dummies and clowns had a prayer of overcoming the government or even slowing it down.
Throughout the last four years and what Ethics Alarms has referred to as the 2016 Ethics Train Wreck, Democrats have been accusing President Trump of doing what they, in truth, have been guilty of: endangering democracy, defying the Constitution, debasing America, and undermining establishes and important norms. It has been the most spectacular episode of mass hypocrisy in U.S. history, and the claim that Donald Trump was doing when he urged on protesters to demonstrate peacefully was somehow impeachable when Democratic leaders and prominent figures in the party had explicitly encouraged violence, including the summer’s widespread Black Lives Matter rioting, is breathtaking in its audacity.
I think the President’s defense team should have showed the montage, and rested. There’s nothing more that needs to be said. Res ipsa loquitur. Fake case dismissed on the grounds of absurdity.
The response from Democrats has been a desperate chorus of “humina humina'”–Handel’s Huminahumina Chorus! There is really nothing they can say. My favorite is that Trump’s lawyers were employing an “Everybody Does It” defense, Rationalization #1. This is a really funny backflip for the party that used that rationalization as its prime defense of Bill Clinton: “Everybody lies about sex! Lots of Presidents have cheated!” but never mind that. The video’s unavoidable message is very different: Trump did not engage in the conduct he is accused of, but those accusing him have engaged in it, repeatedly, recently, and flagrantly.
Senators of either party who vote for conviction in the shadow of the video will have shown a lack of integrity, fairness, responsibility and respect for the Constitution that should disqualify them from elected office in perpetuity.
Ethics Alarms 
Hilarious.
I’m glad I watched it. Reductio ad absurdum. Very absurdum.
Can you imagine if, in a rape case, the state brought out Harvey Weinstein and Vinson Filyaw as prosecutors?
What the House did was equivalent to that.
Their motive is simple: DJT scares the hell out of them. Thus, they have to render him powerless. Won’t work, of course, but they think it will..
“Petrified” comes to mind.
Too true.
DD
It may be more insidious than taking down Trump. I suggest their goal is to terrorize any quality and ethical candidate from attempting to challenge their power. Imagine for a moment that someone with the charisma of Trump but without the negatives decides to take up the make America first mantle. That candidate will have an instant 75 million followers and can add many more because the candidate is more difficult to smear. That is what petrifies them.
I’ve probably said close to 100 times here that if it weren’t for double standards, the Democratic Party would have no standards at all. This country is becoming like pro sports, where you cheer your team because they are your team, and it’s perfectly ok for them to bend or even break the rules to win, but the minute the visiting team does anything even the least bit questionable, you’re the first to yell “Ref! Are ya blind!” It’s becoming more like the “sports entertainment” of pro wrestling. There are clear and cartoonish heroes and villains, both sides trash talk one another. Somehow the referee never sees when the “heel” gives the “face” an eye gouge or a thumb in the windpipe, or sneaks his hand out of view to cut off his wind, but is all over the face when he feigns being sick of this and decides to throw the rulebook out the window, the more to piss the audience off at the unfairness of it all. Somehow it always seems that the heel always wins by cheating and can’t win without breaking the rules, yet nothing ever happens to him until the angle is played out.
As far as the political parties are concerned at this point, they are the faces and the other side are the heels, and the Democrats are especially bad about it. Anything they do is justified and good, but anything the other party does is by nature bad. If they have to throw the rulebook out the window, then it’s perfectly ok, because if rules get in the way of good goals, then they really shouldn’t be there in the first place. BUT if the other side acts even a slight bit less than letter perfect, then suddenly they need to be punished swiftly and severely, because who do they think they are, breaking the rules? If the other side succeeds, then it’s in spite of themselves, but if they succeed, it was all them. If the other side points out the wrongs their leaders have committed, then it’s “stop the politics of personal destruction,” but when they dig up dirt on the other side, they are just trying to maintain integrity in government.
In fact, I wrote this on Trump’s inauguration day:
It was a good, seamless transition of power today, with the actual players acting professionally. Sorry, Michael Moore, your fantasy of forcing the swearing in indoors and maybe forcing it not to happen at all was a fail. Frankly it was an irresponsible fantasy to float. A few idiots acted like idiots…And a lot of them got arrested, no surprise. The real issue is what ‘s going to follow, since the progressive and artistic communities and most of the media have made it clear they are going to be unremittingly hostile.
This is just the final widening of the crack between right and left that started with the end of the Cold War into a full on Biblical great gulf like the one that separates Lazarus in Heaven from the rich man who ignored him in Hell. In the short term trading on division can bring political rewards, as all of these sectors came together on one thing: hatred of all things Republican and all things connected with GWB. In the long term it brought disaster as those hated united and turned on them. Now they are out of power, out of ideas, and out of luck…for the moment. Donald Trump’s victory did give these sectors ONE thing they need: a target to focus on. Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell can disappear into their caucuses, and governors are usually no bigger than their states. However, NOW they can agree to focus on one goal and one goal alone – destroy President Trump. It’s easier than you think, especially when you still control Hollywood and all but one of the major networks.
Every mistake he makes, make sure it leads the evening news and stays longer than it should. Everything he says that could be made to make him look bad, edit a clip to show only that soundbite and run it again and again, including getting it out there to share and retweet. Every questionable thing that emerges, no matter how long ago or how benign, turn it into a major scandal. Even if it’s a non-issue, like the Valerie Plame affair, turn it into the stubborn boil that never heals or the obnoxious party guest who just won’t leave. Even if it turns out to be unfounded, imply that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, it just means that someone lied, or someone got to someone, or someone covered his tracks too well.
In the meantime minimize his successes as they come. The economy starts to get off the ground again? It was already on its way there and he just rode the wave. ISIS is finally defeated? They were a house of cards that was ready to come down anyway. Better yet, attack his successes. Securing the border? Stopping the rising violence against the police? Raaaaacist! Make sure you keep that mantra going too – he’s a racist, he’s a hater, he’s a xenophobe, he’s a proto-fascist, he’s a sexist pig. Say it loud enough, confidently enough, and often enough, and people will start to believe it. Keep up the unfavorable comparisons with Obama too, how he was more popular, more loved, etc etc.
That’s just the role of the media. In the meantime, Hollywood needs to load up the theaters with endless movies about scrappy reporters, boy scout-like middle management guys and noble community activists who shout truth to power and bring down dangerous demagogues by whistleblowing or uncovering nefarious doings, then staying just one step ahead of the corrupt cops or military-intelligence-industrial axis. Throw in a few pseudohistorical productions about escapes from oppression, minority achievements, etc., and a few empowering princess cartoons for the girls. Those in the music end of things, put some clever anti-Trump insults or slogans to catchy tunes and make sure they get a lot of play.
The role of those not in the media or the entertainment industry – clog both the streets and the internet with endless protests and blogs, so that Joe Average can’t ignore you. Every address or public hearing, be there in force. Every public speech by anyone from the GOP, be there in force. Try to have enough of you to split into two groups, one to create a diversion and tie up security, and a second one to make your point after the first has done their job. Every parade, airshow, fleet week, anything that showcases the military or high officials, be there too, with legal observers (try the National Lawyers’ Guild) to wave signs, chant, and generally make a nuisance of yourself. Nothing sells like peaceful people getting pushed around.
Tell me what part, if any, of this, didn’t come to pass? What disgusts me is that we, the ordinary people of this country, knew this was coming and didn’t do a thing to stop it.
The mainstream media is, of course, saying that the video above has been ‘deceptively edited’, ‘taken out of context’, ‘has numerous lies’, and of course that there is a difference between what the Democrats said and what Trump said because there was no violence when the Democrats said it.
Lies are Truth
Weakness is Strength
Evil is Good
It isn’t like this hasn’t happened before. Malachi 2:17, Malachi 3:15,…OK, basically the whole book of Malachi is relevant here.
In 2001, we were rightly cautioned not to paint all Muslims with the terrorist label due to the “actions of a few” who killed 3,000 Americans.
No one deplatformed the Huffington Post in 2017 when they republished anti-Trump writer Jesse Benn’s piece called “Sorry Liberals, A Violent Response To Trump Is As Logical As Any” – a week before the Congressional baseball shooting in Alexandria. In Benn’s column, originally published in 2016, he wrote that anti-violence liberals were ignorant and misguided because they refuse to accept the proven value of violent resistance.
In 2017, we rightly didn’t condemn Bernie Sanders when the baseball site shooter turned out to be one of his big fans. The shooter’s Facebook pages included Bill Moyers’ Resistance plan along with words of Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Rachel Maddow, Robert Reich and Noam Chomsky. He was no fan of Trump or the Clintons and belonged to a FB group that wanted to “Terminate the Republican Party.”
Today however, we are told that anyone remotely supporting the former president is ok to attack, cancel, shame, fire and ban from society because of a few (out of tens of thousands peaceful protestors) who acted very inappropriately on January 6th. The resulting five deaths (causes of which are still in dispute for all but one) apparently justify pinning a white supremacist/terrorist label on anyone who doesn’t fully denounce the former president’s four years in office.
My head hurts.
Trump administration? What Trump administration?
I think this now coalescing jumbo needs to be given a lettered name in the Get Trump list. Incredibly Stalinist.
Trump was acquitted. The Democrats are now 0-2.
Meh. This was a fake “impeachment” designed to further damage Trump in the eyes of the public. In that it may have been a modest success, but it was never an “impeachment,” it was a vote in both houses to talk ill of the president so that maybe he’ll be too damaged to win again.
That’s all it was. It was bread and circuses, a dog and pony show, and Kabuki theater all wrapped up in one ugly, festering, unconstitutional package. A tale told by a couple hundred idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing except their contempt for the constitution and lust for revenge against a man they hated more than anything. It was, on balance, a profound waste of time for every single American who gave it even passing attention, especially those involved in the process.
If there is justice in this world, the price the AUC will pay for this outrage will be profound, lasting, and intensely horrible in a political sense. But bad people rarely get what they deserve, alas, and the public seems immune to anything but emo gobbledygook. Reason need not apply.
Still, it is said that hope springs eternal…
It was a masterful defense, pointing ouit how the Dems (and not just random crackpots) excused last summer’s rioting.
Here is a different point of view.
http://blogforarizona.net/trump-impeachment-defense-defending-the-indefensible/
I think we should carefully examine what has been happening while they kept us all focused on the bound to fail impeachment ‘trial’. There is obviously some other activity or event they wanted to sneak by the media and public.