Round Two

So yesterday opened the process by which Donald Trump finds himself caught yet a second time.  Will the Republicans vote to convict?  Doesn't look like it.

Your Crusading Blogger partnered, before the fall elections, with the Lincoln Project.  The Lincoln Project is a group of former Republicans who see "Trumpism" as this blogger does, a very dangerous movement, and an affront to true Conservatism.  True Conservatism being what true Conservatives see as a necessary counterbalance to excessive Liberalism.  Those in the Lincoln Project have dedicated themselves to Trumpism's defeat.  And to the holding accountable of Trump and his enablers.  You can check them out here.  And also here:

There is, of course, the question of the constitutionality of impeaching a president who is no longer in office.  My common sense tells me we must determine for future reference who has the authority to make this decision, once and for all, and this decision should be made forthwith!  This blogger opines that if this impeachment is unconstitutional, then the Constitution should be amended.  If you stole from your workplace (a violation of the rules of every workplace), your workplace would fire you.  But they would still have the option (and would choose to execute that option if your offense is egregious enough, like stealing or inciting insurrection) of prosecuting you, even though you no longer work there.  They would have, and would exercise this option, in order to hold you accountable for stealing, to receive recompense, and to show any and all present and future employees that we do not steal from Claudia's Cod Cannery, for example.

Apparently we have reached a point in our republic where we must spell out that a president cannot commit crimes in the last weeks of his term, and expect to escape unpunished because some feel "it is unconstitutional to prosecute someone who is no longer serving as president".   It is also worth remembering that these folks were prosecuted for war crimes in some cases 70+ years after they committed them.  Why should the leader of the free world get off any easier for inciting insurrection?  And if we have any doubt that the events in the Capitol January 6 were at the behest of Donald J Trump, all we need to do is read this.

I understand that there are some who feel that the US did not hold a fair election in November.  There are those who believe that Trump is still our legitimate president, despite his attorneys not presenting a shred of credible evidence of election fraud in (61 repudiated of) 62 total lawsuits.  Sadly there is no way to satisfy these folks.  Ultimately, history will prove them wrong.  But right now, they believe something was stolen from them.  They don't feel that Republican leadership enabled Trump by echoing and repeating his election lies endlessly, because they don't believe they are lies.  And they don't believe that Trump's exhortations to the Capitol crowd January 6 to fight was inciting the crowd to insurrection and violence because obviously we should fight (non-violently, in a legal manner) when something has been stolen from us.

This is why it is necessary to hold a trial, so that the truth comes out.  And I doubt we are prepared for the truths that are going to come out when some movers and shakers write "the inside story" of these times.   But I digress...

Some folks, mostly those on the right hand side of the aisle, seem to want to gloss over the consequences of these recent events, for the sake of "unity".  And this is what gets me the most, and it is something I want to address.

In America most of us are raised to do right.  We are told that if we do right, generally, we will be rewarded.  And if we do wrong, we are told, we can expect to be punished, so that we will learn to do right in the future.  This is what we are told, in general it is what we experience, and it is what we expect to see happen when someone else does wrong.  Whenever something else occurs, our sense of justice is outraged.

I remember in the early 80's the first time I talked about being molested by my stepfather.  My mother wanted him punished and we talked about it with her divorce attorney.  From him we learned that I would have to go up in front of a judge, answer a lot of unpleasant questions and remember events I really wanted to forget.  And that in all likelihood, John would not see much, if any jail time.  It seemed like all the impetus would be upon me, with very little rate of return.  I decided I had been through enough and passed.  After all, I reasoned, he was gone from my life, wasn't he?  It was all over.

(Wishful thinking.  In my 20's and 30's I worked hard to get through the trauma of my childhood.  I cannot possibly overstate the struggle.  I read, watched, listened to everything I could about alcoholism, child abuse, molestation, wife battering and verbal abuse, all of which my mother and I experienced in 13 years with my stepfather.  I still suffer from anxiety, depression and PTSD.  My cortisol has evidently always been high, no end in sight.  I have health issues traceable to my childhood).

In the late 80's, I was very angry.  It seemed to me that through no fault of my own I had been made to suffer.  Meanwhile, as far as I could see, my abuser had gotten off scot-free.  (As you read on this blog in December, I know now it was more complicated than that).  The legal system in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania had never held my stepfather accountable.  Bad things happen when people aren't held accountable for grievous wrongs.  I found that I wasn't the first person my stepfather molested.  Or the last.  How responsible I felt when I found that out!  How guilty.  Now mind you, no one had ever told me that John was likely to re-offend when I was making the decision not to prosecute.  If they had, I would had been more courageous.  Taken the long view.  I would have run the gamut to hold my stepfather accountable and see to it that he received whatever punishment the law was willing to mete out.  And worked with those who make the laws to make sure in the future, the punishment fit the crime.  Just to give us all a fighting chance that by holding my stepfather accountable, he would not re-offend.  Or at very least to provide a mechanism by which to warn potential victims and their families, and to clue law enforcement in to the concept of keeping an eye on him.  Now we have Megan's Law but back then we had nothing.

That's what we need the Senate to do now.  This country needs to stand for justice.  For the victims.  Who are the victims here?  Those killed and injured, and their families.  Democracy.  The health of our republic.

Hold 'em accountable, the whole lot!  Trump, his cohorts in dishonesty, and those that went down to DC on their say-so and did a little Kristallnacht.  It's not right to only punish the last group.  This needs to be done as a catharsis for those of us who watched the ugly events of January 6, 2021, and to take our country back to where we were before we got off course.  Before we get more off course.  Or, God forbid, witness a repeat.