Watching "one of those shows" with my second cup of coffee, I see that Sen. Rand Paul, R-KY—or, as Nancy Pelosi would say, Q-KY—is complaining that if Trump's speech to his supporters on the Ellipse is going to be "criminalized," then Democratic mayors and others should be prosecuted for having encouraged BLM protests. The interviewer, alas, did not respond by observing that Trump isn't being charged with a criminal offense and that his speech therefore isn't being "criminalized." No matter what the Senate decides in the impeachment trial, Trump won't go to prison or incur any penalty provided for in the criminal law. Were he to be convicted, he'd be barred from holding federal office in the future. The individual senators get to decide what principles should guide their verdict—many of them describe their function as that of a juror when they are actually more like judges—but a plausible justification for a vote to convict would be that Trump violated his oath to see that our country's laws are faithfully executed.
Paul and others fail to comprehend the purpose of impeachment, which is prophylactic. It isn't that the defendant needs to be punished. It's that the country needs protection.
Nikki Haley, exhibiting the same misperception as Paul, complained to Laura Ingraham, on Fox News, that Democrats, by impeaching Trump, were mercilessly pursuing him beyond the bounds of propriety and
I mean, at some point, just give the man a break.
For some reason, her misperception just makes me laugh. I think it has to do with the gulf between the image and the reality. On the one hand, the Trumpists confront us with their strut, their swagger, their bombast, their curled lip, their sneers such as the one on the bumper of a pickup truck I fell in line behind recently: "Trump: fuck your bullshit." (Happily, the kids in the back seat were scrolling their phones.) On the other hand, this is just a pose to drown the sound of the whine, the perpetual whimpering complaint, the petty grievance, what Trumpists themselves call "snowflakery." It's funny when occasionally they let down their guard so that anyone can see the truth obscured by all the actual bullshit. "Stop being so strict!" "You're so unfair!" "Give the poor man a break!"
The House impeachment managers will try their case as they see fit, but if it were me I'd highlight Trump's behavior not only before the January 6 attack, the "incitement" that everyone talks about, but during, as he watched the riot with evident pleasure on TV, and also afterwards. For when it was over, after the Capitol had been invaded and vandalized, after his supporters had erected a gallows on the Capitol grounds and chanted "Hang Mike Pence," after they'd posed for selfies and brutally assaulted a cop by bludgeoning him about the head and neck with a fire extinguisher (he later died of his injuries), after that and more, the President of the United States passed judgment in a tweet that, for its odd mix of megalomania and whiny plaint, is for him representative:
These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!
You might either throw up or laugh, but voting to acquit on any ground, including that the poor guy needs a break—well, it's almost certain that he will be acquitted, and maybe it's better to laugh, but I feel a patriot would throw up first.
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