The Impeachment Trial Is Bigger Than Trump

Ostensibly the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump is focused on Trump's role and guilt in inciting the insurrection against Congress on January 6, 2021, and the sacking of the U.S. Capitol by traitors and insurrectionist allied with Der Trumpenfuhrer.  But the trial has a wider scope inasmuch as it by extension is a trial of Republicans, particularly Congressional Republicans who aided, abetted and served as apologists for Trump over four years of  horrific behavior that foreshadowed the events on January 6, 2021.  Think Trump's racist language when he launched his campaign in 2015, think of Trump's kind words r neo-Nazis and white supremacists following the domestic terror events in Charlottesville in August, 2017, and, of course, Trump's words at the "rally" immediately prior to the assault on the U.S. Capitol. The track record of demagoguery, calls for violence, and the sowing of lies and hates is in plain view.  Yet, as CNN is reporting, three GOP Senators - Mike Lee, Lindsey Graham, a/k/a Lady G, and Ted Cruz - met with Trump's defense team even as they are cast as jurors who must judge Trump.  In the regular legal realm, such behavior would lead to disqualification or disbarment (something that needs to happen to Cruz).  A column in the Washington Post by a former Republican looks at this wider scope of the trial.  Here are highlights:

The impeachment case against Donald Trump is difficult to answer because its essence is unanswerable. Trump’s main problem is not incompetent counsel; it is damning reality.

The Capitol attackers were not only motivated by the big lie of a stolen election. They were also told by then-President Trump that Jan. 6 was the day to gather and intimidate Vice President Mike Pence and elected Republicans into taking unconstitutional action to overturn the November election’s outcome. The prosecution has pressed an element of its case with righteous tenacity: If Trump did not intend the assault, why did he wait for hours to respond to it? Why did he continue to incite the crowd against Pence after the attack began? Why did he refuse to criticize the attackers in any way? Why did he celebrate their lawless accomplishment afterward?

Republican senators are running out of fig leaves. Many still cling to the weak procedural argument that former presidents can escape justice because they have left office. But history does not offer an out this easy. A vote on jurisdiction has already been taken. A vote for acquittal will properly be regarded as “not guilty.”

So what are we to make of the intransigence of Republican senators in the face of compelling evidence?

A few (see Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz) seek to surf the wave of anger Trump has created. In a choice between their ambition and the health of the republic, the republic doesn’t stand a chance.

But this category does not cover most Senate Republicans. They simply want to avoid being political piñatas. Why become a MAGA target to punish a political figure who has already left office?

We can’t expect routine heroism from public officials. But this time, heroism is the only honorable response.

Above all else, senators are determining the role of threats and intimidation in American politics. Trump gathered his misfit army to try to scare members of Congress into obedience. Now he threatens retribution against any elected Republican who calls him to account. His language often has overtones of violence, as it did in his speech on Jan. 6. His followers accurately interpreted his words, which repeatedly urged them to “fight,” to show “strength” and to intimidate disloyal members of Congress. This is politics as organized thuggery.

There is a stage of democratic decline in which political movements become attached to gangs and militias, and physical threats begin to replace civil discourse. Trump has brought American politics to this point. . . . The attack of Jan. 6 was the culmination of his strategic brutality.

The impeachment trial is not a useless or irrelevant exercise for a simple reason: Trump remains the single largest threat to the health of American democracy. A second Trump administration would be liberated from even establishment Republican constraints. During his last months in office, Trump was getting the knack of placing cronies in strategic positions at the Departments of Justice and Defense. He was attempting to use his power to target enemies. He has allied his movement to armed radicals. He has shown the ability to turn the fanaticism of his supporters into a tool of political and physical intimidation. And his bitterness and sense of grievance are bottomless.

In this circumstance, a failure of duty is not understandable. It would be the evidence of moral cowardice at a consequential moment of national testing.

Everyone strives to be the hero of his or her own story. Who really wants to play a bit part in the deterioration of the constitutional order? Republican senators who refuse to hold Trump to account would be complicit in the advance of political violence. If they wilt under Trump’s continuing promises of political retribution, they would be pitiful custodians of the American ideal.

But the opposite is also true. A well-timed act of political courage can be the most valued possession of a political lifetime. In this case, it would honor an oath, inspire others, and push our politics toward peace and sanity. This is entirely unlikely, but completely necessary.