A Zoomed-out Version of the Impeachment

I watched a livestream of most of the impeachment proceedings this week, although I completely missed several hours at its beginning, and my attention was divided at many other times.  The most recent thing I watched was Mitch McConnell's speech after the conclusion of the process in which he had voted to acquit the president of the charges.  Essentially the speech was an explanation of his vote.  

McConnell was until recently the majority leader of the Senate.  He is a Republican who has been at times referred to as being the most powerful person in the world--even more so than the US president, because he could control what legislation made it onto the Senate floor.  I did not know until recently that his wife was a cabinet-level official in the Trump administration.  She was one of several who resigned abruptly in the aftermath of January 6.  

McConnell said almost nothing publicly during the Trump administration that countered him, but he was furious about the events of January 6 and promised to consider [impeachment] .  I'm not actually sure that he used that word; hence the brackets.  It was clearly a switch from his earlier "go along to get along" habits.  After the Georgia run-off elections for the US Senate, when the Democratic candidates won both contests, McConnell lost his position, since the chairman always comes from the party with the most members in the Senate.  In this case, since the number is a 50/50 split, the majority leader comes from the same party as the president of the United States (it's actually the same party as the VP, since that is the person officially presiding over the Senate), so Charles Schumer replaced Mitch McConnell. McConnell is now the minority leader of the Senate.  

McConnell's speech after the vote that resulted in acquittal was not only a statement of his own position, but was widely regarded as the official word on where he hopes to direct the Republican Party in the future.  He clearly hopes that the Republican Party completely cuts away from Trump, going forward.  He denounced Trump's actions in strong terms. He explained in technical terms the seeming contradiction between blaming Trump and casting a vote for acquittal during the impeachment hearings, saying that Trump could not be impeached because it was too late to do so, although, had he still been in office it would have been appropriate.  

This argument falls pretty flat to those of us who remember that McConnell was the one most single-handedly responsible for the fact that the impeachment hearings were not conducted sooner.  He had specifically said that if someone from the House sent impeachment papers to the Senate, he would turn them back at the door.  This ensured that the trial would not happen while Trump was still in office.  It seems disingenuous for McConnell to cite a situation of his own creation as the condition that prevents impeachment from being legal--a conclusion that most constitutional scholars take issue with.   It served his purposes  nicely, however.

From a purely political standpoint McConnell's maneuverings make perfect sense.  He is trying very hard to do at least two things at once.  He wants to steer away from Trump because many business leaders who typically donate big money to Republican Party machinery announced after January 6 that they would no longer contribute to the party.  In other words, they can't stand Trump anymore.  This loss of funding strikes at the core of McConnell's goals to keep the party in an ascendant position, and he wants to prevent this money drain at all costs.  The second thing he is trying to do is hang on to the future votes of Trump loyalists.  Too many of them exist for him to risk alienating them by voting to convict the former president.  The Party needs their votes in the next election.  McConnell tried to thread the needle by both denouncing Trump and voting to acquit him.  I think he looked long enough to land on a legal argument that he thought could provide him some cover.  

I'm not convinced that it will work as McConnell obviously hopes it does.  He clearly wants a robust Republican party without Trump playing any part in it.  I suspect that what will happen instead is that the party will effectively split, with some leaving the party entirely, and others choosing either the Trump camp or the McConnell camp--for lack of a better term.  I understand that a group composed of former Republican office holders has already formed for the purpose of promoting a Republican primary challenger in every election where a Trump-loyalist is running.  This would align with what I am calling the McConnell camp.

The fact of the matter is that the count of former Republicans has been growing fast since January 6.  In plain words, the Republican voter pool has shrunk because of Trump.  Among these people, McConnell's actions have likely solidified their conviction that this is no longer their party of choice.  These are people who no doubt hoped that McConnell would vote to convict Trump.  If this had happened, they might have found a reason to stay.  As it is, they're done with being part of the circus.  

Meanwhile, die-hard Trump fans are doubling down.  I see them celebrating the acquittal.  I see people I know excoriating on Facebook people like McConnell for not being a true Republican.  One person I know begged him publicly to leave the party, presumably to keep it safe again for Trump lovers.  From seeing how others link their desire for revival in America to Trump's political successes, I presume these people too see the acquittal as a God-ordained victory.  I can't find any way to think well of these sentiments. 

If the die-hard Trump fans would think about this a little longer, maybe they would see too that sticking with Trump is a vote--not for traditional Republican values like fiscal conservatism, law and order, limited government, etc.  It is, instead, a move toward authoritarianism, which will be essential to quell the lawlessness and chaos that results from the loose-cannon style of governance that we've seen during the Trump administration.  Many of the safeguards against tyranny that were built into the American system of laws and institutions were violated and destroyed during the Trump years.  He regularly fired civil servants and his own hand-picked underlings and appointed people to take their place who were more loyal to him than those he ousted.  Other positions were simply left unfilled, in this way ensuring that no one could use their power in those positions to oppose him.  These are authoritarian tactics--plain and simple--and unprecedented (to this degree) in the American presidency.  

Too many people don't seem to see that authoritarianism poses a far bigger and more immediate threat to freedom than socialism does.  In fact, what some decry now as movement toward socialism is largely affirming the same ideals that were once held by Republicans, Lincoln, T. Roosevelt, and Eisenhower among them.  The central element in old-style Republicanism is that government has a role to play in promoting the good of the common people.  Coalescing the Republican Party around Trump means solidifying the promotion of an authoritarian style of governance that benefits the already-wealthy more than it does those who work for them.  I think McConnell sees this, as do Mitt Romney and a few others in Republican congressional office.  I'm sure that this is not what any of my friends truly wants, but this is what I think they'll get if they get what they want now:  a Trump-styled party.  

*****************

Watching the impeachment proceedings was both a pleasure and a trial for me.  I watched heartfelt and human expressions coupled with masterful and convincing presentations.  The evidence supporting the charge was simply irrefutable, as McConnell and others affirmed.  The presenters on the impeachment team were a diverse group.  Several were Caucasian, at least one of them Jewish, and another a woman from Pennsylvania.  One was from the Virgin Islands (she was a non-voting member of Congress) and there was at least one each who had Asian, Ethiopian, and Hispanic immigrant parents.  The  lead impeachment manager was US Representative Jamie Raskin, a professor of constitutional law.  He seemed at once polished and humble.  He is also dealing right now with personal grief.  On January 5 was the funeral of his 25-year-old son, who had committed suicide on December 31.  The trivia of a most unusual very sizeable bald spot on the back of his head is garnering almost as much publicity as the fly on Pence's snow-white hair did earlier.  When you see him only from the front, he appears to have a full head of thick brown curly hair.  I think the world is still trying to figure out why.  Would wearing a yarmulke do that?

The defense team was composed of white men.  Period.  From one of them I saw heated and snarling rhetoric (yes, literally, complete with narrowed eyes, curled lips and loud and fast spitting words). Lies were uttered.  I was underwhelmed.  I felt a little sick actually.  

The whole process reinforced for me that politics is a terribly messy business, full of hard work if you're going to do it well, and staying very far away from involvement in it is a perfectly reasonable choice.  I have no doubt that uppermost in the minds of at least 44 senators was what a vote against Trump would mean for their chances of prevailing during the next election cycle.  For some of them this is happening in two years.  They voted in keeping with what looked like the best option for being re-elected.  In this calculation, they didn't need to stick around to hear the evidence, but they still showed up to vote in keeping with the result of their calculation earlier.  To McConnell's credit, he did stick around and listen--unlike about 18 others from his party, at one point at least.

I do have a profound respect for anyone who can operate with integrity in the political sphere.  More than anything, I marvel that God's purposes can be accomplished, regardless of what happens in the political world.  Unlike what happens with individuals whose fortunes may rise and fall depending on who is in charge politically, God's reign is secure.  Those who stand with Him will be on the right side of history--the zoomed-out version for sure.   They'll also be on the right side when they face judgement at the end of life.  At that point, the next election cycle will mean nothing at all. 

********************

Quote of the Day:  Rarely has a politician been more blatant in attempting the impossible feat of running with the foxes and hunting with the hounds.--E. J. Dionne, speaking of Mitch McConnell.  (Washington Post, Opinion:  "The beginning of the end of Trumpism,"  Feb. 14, 2021)