FEBRUARY 10, 2021 – I’ll not forget yesterday’s opening of Trump’s second impeachment trial. Managers Jamie Raskin (MD), Joe Neguse (CO), and David Cicilline (RI) exhibited what’s best about our representative democracy. These genuine, well-grounded, well-educated spokesmen for accountability gave us all—irrespective of political persuasion—hope that perhaps the nation can save itself.
As to the video presentation introduced by Raskin, any viewer with a trace of decency had to be shocked by how close we came to monumental catastrophe. Likewise, any viewer faintly grounded in reality had to grasp the connection between Trump’s provocation and the actual storming of democracy’s Bastille—thus placing Trump’s fighting words beyond the limits of the First Amendment.
I’d known of Raskin; seen him interviewed on cable news; read about him in news reportage; had a favorable impression of him, as an articulate, well-informed, reasonable politician. I had no idea, however, that he was a Constitutional scholar—a law professor for over thirty years. Sure, as an elected official, he’s definitionally a politician—just as is Tommy Tuberville, the know-nothing, former football coach, now junior senator from Alabama—but unlike “Tommy,” Raskin is a student of the Constitution. Though back in the day (Trump’s first impeachment trial), Adam Schiff displayed first-rate advocacy skills, this time around Democrats couldn’t have chosen a better lead manager than Jamie Raskin.
Add to Raskin’s skill and experience his heart-wrenching, personal, eye-and-ear-witness account of “a [second] day which will live in infamy,” and you have the definition of “inspirational performance.”
The best that the Republicans could do in response was the wholly unoriginal sound-byte, “[the impeachment] is politically motivated.” This lame non-argument doesn’t improve with repetition.
The best that Trump could do was retain Bruce Castor to provide a 48-minute stream of consciousness lacking any element of advocacy. But perhaps this criticism is unfair. If the facts and law are wholly against you, the only viable option—especially on the Senate floor—is pure “filibluster.”
Only six Republicans displayed the ounce of intellectual integrity necessary to vote in favor of the constitutionality of Trump’s second impeachment. Raise your hand if you don’t think the other 44 Republicans are . . . “politically motivated.” I have a box of free suckers. The Republicans’ position is indistinguishable from that of corrupt judge addressing a lawyer at the outset of a hearing, “Counsel, I don’t care what the law is, I’ve made up my mind that you lose, because that’s how my bread is buttered.”
If the surficial problem in the senate is lack of intellectual honesty on the part of Republican senators, the deeper concern is their “political motivation.” According to journalists who’ve spoken directly with a number of Republican senators on the condition of anonymity, if the latter didn’t face the threat of Trump’s base voting them out of office, at least 17 would vote for Trump’s conviction and political banishment. However, “political motivation”—the desire to retain their seats—outweighs intellectual honesty.
And that, my friend, is the low end of representative democracy.
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© 2021 by Eric Nilsson
