Dear America,
The impeachment trial doesn't start until next week, but what will happen is entirely predictable. The Republicans will harp incessantly about Trump's 63 million votes and claim that the proceedings are an attempted coup, not an impeachment. But if the Democrats are smart, they will anticipate the Republicans and point out from the beginning that Trump got ONLY 63 million votes. The real coup occurred in the electoral college a month after the popular election of Hillary Clinton when the electors voted not for the choice of The People but for the candidate who either more effectively contrived to get elected, even with less than a plurality of the vote, or who had the dumb luck to do so. No matter which description applies to Trump's "victory," he became president by hook or by crook, not by mandate or merit.
But regardless of what is said or proven in the weeks to come, Trump will not likely be convicted or removed from office. However, all of his devices will be on the record and everyone will get to know just how corrupt he is, which has implications for the 2020 elections anyway. Once the American people know what Trump did and why, the vote of the Republicans to acquit Trump will be seen by many as naked partisanship at best. And those votes will also be seen as insincere fealty to someone other than themselves, and possibly a dereliction of duty. The majority of the American people--73 million of them voted against Trump--are already inclined to get rid of him as they didn't want him in the first place. But of the 63 million who did vote for Trump, many will see the Republican capitulation as a betrayal of the public trust that their senators were given when their constituents elected them. Many Republicans will vote for Democrats because they will know that their incumbent senators put party loyalty first...before the common good.
So this is what I predict. Trump will be acquitted and the Republicans will rave and fulminate about the now-manifested injustice in the Democrats' almost completely partisan attempt to destroy good President Trump's administration and name. But the people...even many Republicans...will say partisan or not, the Democrats demonstrated that President Trump is anything but good. They will come to understand, at least a significant number of them will, that Donald Trump isn't just conniving and corrupt; he is a menace and a threat to democracy. His admired best friends--Putin, Kim and Erdogan--conspire to be rulers for life, and Trump thinks that he is entitled to what each of those friends has. He thinks he is superior and that he should have power for life because he is a solipsistic egomaniac. Once the voters realize that, they will understand that Trump's primary mission if he gets reelected will be to have the 22nd Amendment, which is the one that limits presidents to only two terms, repealed. That is essentially what Putin has done over the past two decades and what he now schemes to cement in perpetuity. Trump sees the Machiavellian instincts of these men as virtues, and he believes himself to be at least as virtuous as they are. For Trump, power is emblematic of superiority, and he wants to believe that he is superior.
So, the risk of putting a megalomaniac in office for who knows how long, and of voting into office a cadre of supporting toadies will prevail. The American people will recognize that they are standing on the edge of a precipice and are being pushed from behind by a president and senators who are so sanctimonious and self-righteous that they think of themselves as rulers by right, and that such is in the best interest of The People. Their paternalism is like that of men like Alexander Hamilton and the other founding fathers who created a senate that was originally appointed by state legislatures presumably constituted of only community leaders...in other words local oligarchs...and an electoral college that actually elected the president with the popular vote being no more than a guideline.
But paternalism is really nothing but disdain. And oligarchy is not democracy...maybe it suffices in Russia, but it doesn't suffice here. So The People--you, America--will rise up and in the parlance of the thirties, throw the bums out. That's what I predict.
Your friend,
Mike
Leave a comment