O Say Can You Please Entry 20

O Say Can You Please Entry 20: Trial By Error

    The impeachment trial of President Trump has gone swimmingly… for the Republicans in lock step with him, anyway. For everyone else, let’s just say that it went less well. The Dems rushed impeaching Trump in the first place, so their case wasn’t that strong. Meanwhile, the GOP somehow had their heads in the sand and up their bottoms at the same time. As a result, the whole affair was predictable and boring, which is why it wasn’t covered sooner. However, now that it’s effectively over already, I figured now’s a good time to explain why both sides really fouled this up.

    Let’s start with the Democrats, because they put together this case in the House and really should’ve built it better. Nancy Pelosi is the Speaker of the House, and therefore the nominal leader here. However, the real frontman of this effort was House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, and I realize now that “frontman” is not a term that makes sense for both of them for obvious reasons. All joking aside, Schiff had a lot of time to build a strong case, but he rushed the process out of pure hubris and the nation is worse off for it. The Democrats could have pulled this off with more time and a stronger argument, but as it stands, they conked it big-time.

    All the Republicans had to do to counter that argument was to stick to one defense. However, throughout the process, bombshell reports seemingly confirmed Trump’s involvement in what the Dems were trying to remove him for. However, the Republicans wisely saw gaps in the Dems’ evidence that grew more apparent with each report. As a result, they essenitally cornered the other party… by denying them witnesses and access to new evidence. Those means are certainly questionable and probably illegal, but whatever works, I guess.

    However, the most troubling ideas came from Trump’s defense team, who hopped around between ludicrous defenses faster than a squirrel looking for its nuts fittingly enough. Alan Dershowitz, in particular, had a crazy argument. The argument, and I quote The Hill, is, "If a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment.” There are many problems with this argument, the biggest one being that politicians generally see their re-election as in the public interest whether they are corrupt or not. Essentially, this is calling anything rooted in corruption practically unimpeachable.

Source: Tumblr

    The kind of argument Dershowitz made is one a wannabe dictator would make to justify their abuses of power. Dershowitz is saying that selling out the Land of the Free to the highest bidder is perfectly acceptable, which sounds awfully sketchy considering what the guy who hired him has been accused of in years past. He is saying that if the President does something, even if he carries out a murder on Fifth Avenue, it is OK. He is calling the President above the law in almost any situation, and that is how democracy dies. This may not have been a TED talk, but I hope that whoever’s reading this now understands that America stands on the brink, with the threat of a President having absolute power coming into being for the first time ever. We must act now, or face the end of our great experiment with liberty.