After Impeachment, It’s Up to the States to Advance Democracy

Pelosi doesn’t want to hand over The Articles of Impeachment, which were fraudulently produced by corrupt politicians like Shifty Schiff in the first place, because after all of these years of investigations and persecution, they show no crimes and are a joke and a scam!- Donald Trump, Jan 9, 2020

Should they whisper false of you, never trouble to deny. Should the words they say be true, weep and storm and swear they lie! — Dorothy Parker

© goodmenproject

Although the focus of the political world, if not the public itself, is on the impeachment hearings, the consequences of this seemingly historical moment are inversely proportionate to the attention received. Only two things are inarguably accurate: first, the President abused his office in a banally corrupt manner, seeking foreign interference to smear an electoral opponent in a brazen attempt to benefit himself in the upcoming election; and second, that despite the first, at the conclusion of the impeachment saga he will remain in office, unbound and unbowed by the charges laid out against him. No matter the facts, the rhetoric, or the determination of the House managers, a substantial minority of the country regards the President as an impenetrable shield against the vision of an America they fear and disdain. Trump’s defenders in the impeachment trial have little but anger and bluster to defend his conduct, but when paired with 53 votes of raw power, they need no more. Metaphorically, Trump has shot the Constitution on 5th Avenue, but no matter: unlike Trump’s aim, impeachment is a bullet pre-determined to miss the target.

The conclusion of the trial, therefore, will impart no new era other than that of a chief executive unconstrained by the one theory of Constitutionalism that exists to deny him the abuses of which he has so cravenly availed himself. This will not be 1974- our long national nightmare will not be over, and no healing mechanism for the country is riding over the horizon.

The country will move on to the election, but no election can solve the massive schism which increasingly widens beneath our feet. Quite the converse, in fact; whatever the result, one side of the country will view the results with the dire portent of onrushing doom, rather than the rough but acceptable give and take of…