Trump’s impeachment

Jan 21, 2020 Editorial

This process and trial in the United States Senate, has already degraded before it has started into a comedy shrouded in travesty and teetering towards tragedy. It is a bad joke conducted in bad taste with bad actors. It is sure to result in an extremely bad outcome. Such is the sordid levels to which integrity and personal honour have fallen in the noble US Senate.
This is not about bitter partisanship anymore, but of hyper-partisanship at an unprecedented degree. At this commencement of a trial with foregone conclusions obvious, the advanced and sophisticated world power that is the United States of America resembles rather closely and eerily, the ugliness that prevails in backwater, medieval, political Guyana.
It is that rancid and that ramshackle, and the resolutions of the US Senate would not bring closure, but merely rent aside the scars and lay bare the deep, decayed flesh and wounds that linger below the surface in today’s America.
Minds are made up, and no one should pay any attention to the pious promises, solemn countenances, and sacred oaths required by the US Constitution to render “impartial justice.” Where is that? In which of these fabled 100 senators is impartial justice to be found? And if, indeed, it was there, who would believe, given their own irreversible warp and unchanging bent?
Now battle lines are drawn, and loud are the shrill war cries that curdle any contemplation of listening, of parsing the evidence, of questioning the implications, and of weighing the provisions of the much-vaunted Constitution.
A cross section of voices in the heaving American political landscape identifies how far things have gone, as to how incurable they stand. It does not matter that all the world is watching in fascinated disbelief, while all the childish chatter about integrity and the honor of the august Senate itself stands impeached before the jury box of watchers.
What is promised from today are predetermined positions (regardless of the representations) and already settled outcomes (despite the lofty rhetoric sure to follow).
First among those voices were David Mastio and Jill Lawrence in an opinion in USA Today dated January 19, which summed up the proceedings neatly and completely: “Get ready for the Trump impeachment trial as partisan farce.”
At this early stage, that is the conclusion reached by these commentators, as captured in this excerpt: “There is no question that bucking the president and his loyalists would make a senator’s life miserable, even a senator who is not running for reelection.”
The two opinion contributors believe that it would have to be “by some miracle” for the incumbent Chief Executive “to be convicted and removed by the Senate…” In America, the age of miracles has passed.
Additionally, nearly a week ago, two other USA Today contributors voiced skepticism about the Senate’s `impeachment process, trial, and result, rather similarly in an article titled, “Can senators who have already voiced opinions do ‘impartial justice’ at Trump’s impeachment trial?”
Commentators Ledyard King and Maureen Groppe pointed out on January 16 that, “Sen. Mazie D-Hawaii, has said that she is ready to convict President Donald Trump at his impeachment trial that starts next week.”
And that, “Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C. is a staunch ally of the president who has called the charges a ‘sham.’” Clearly some minds are closed, regardless of whatever else is uncovered. It is the equivalent of jurors (100 of them) going into a trial with immovable positions as to the guilt or innocence of the accused.
Next, was Laurie Roberts in the Arizona Republic, where she tabled this telling question on January 18: “How can Martha McSally claim to be impartial after bragging about her liberal hack rant?”
The secondary follow-up inquiry to that caption was: “Is there anyone in the world who believes that Senator Martha McSally can be impartial about President Donald Trump?”
The larger question that this paper asks at this trial of American democracy is whether any (or only the required number) of the honorable hundred senators sworn to uphold the US Constitution can just do that, and that alone, for the benefit of the Republic.
Regrettably, we are forced to take a negative position on this.