God Help Us

"A republic, if you can keep it." -- Benjamin Franklin

This will be a short post. Others will write the history of this era, with lenses both short-term and expansive as time passes. Smarter, less lazy people than I will compile all of the dizzying details into cogent timelines and brutally revealing analysis. I write this only to get my personal feelings on the record, because I'm goddamned sure that I'm on the right side of history, and my ancestors need to know it.

America is broken.

Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) eulogized the version of it we knew when he said last night, "The question then is not whether the president did it, but whether the United States Senate or the American people should decide what to do about what he did." In other words, we know he's guilty, but we're not going to do anything about it.

Marco Rubio (R-FL) added today, "Just because actions meet a standard of impeachment does not mean it is in the best interest of the country to remove a President from office."

The fix was in from the beginning in the impeachment trial of President* Donald John Trump. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) summarized it succintly, saying, "What we have seen over the last couple of days is a descent into constitutional madness".

Our country is increasingly more culturally diverse, less religiously observant, and less, well, white than it ever has been. That simple group of facts and the eventual outcomes that they herald is a recipe for the death of the current power structure. And if there's one thing that history teaches us, it's that power always seeks to hold power, usually with disregard for morality, norms, and anything other than short-term gain.

In this sense, Trump is a symptom. Mitch McConnell is the disease.

The Senator from Kentucky is betting that Democrats won't have similar willingness to use raw power when they eventually regain control of its Constitutional levers, instead deferring to the norms of the last century of the American political story. He is probably right. His genius (demented, appalling, infuriating genius) lies in his utter disregard for precedent, fairness, and comity. Machiavelli worships at his feet.

He'll be dead soon enough. Most 77 year-olds have a limited shelf life. The damage he wrought, which reached a climax that may well be a plateau this week, will long hereafter haunt us.

“God help us,” said Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA).