Donald Trump is no longer the President of the United States, Hallelujah, Hallelujah!!<\/em> He\u2019s sequestered away at his Mara Lago Resort, taking out his frustrations on the fairways and putting greens instead of Twitter and the Department of Justice. And, to quote a very different song lyric (from Hamilton, <\/em>of course) That Would be Enough<\/em>. But of course, it\u2019s not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The evidence continues to grow that Donald Trump was in the process of an overthrow of the Constitution. He tried to subvert the mandated transition of power to a new President. Trump did it with the long discredited \u201celection fraud\u201d campaign. He did by attempting to suborn election fraud in Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Michigan (and probably Arizona, Wisconsin and Nevada). We have the actual call to Georgia, when he demanded that the election authorities \u201cfind\u201d 11,780 votes to change the outcome. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He did it by bringing his partisans to Washington on January 6th<\/sup> for the express purpose of stopping the Electoral Vote certification. We have that speech as well, and those of his apologists who are hiding behind the one\u2014word fig leaf of \u201cpeacefully\u201d, ignore almost an hour of haranguing the crowd, firing them up to march to the Capitol and \u201cfight, fight, fight\u201d. This isn\u2019t a \u201cperfect\u201d speech, Georgia wasn\u2019t a \u201cperfect\u201d phone call, and neither was the one to the Ukrainian President.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And Friday night we discovered that President Trump made the decision to fire his acting Attorney General. He wanted to replace him with a lesser Assistant who, in the assistant\u2019s own words, spent \u201c\u2026a lot of time on the internet\u201d and believed in the \u201cstop the steal\u201d fraud.\u00a0\u00a0Only the willingness of the rest of the leadership in the Justice Department to quit in protest, gave the President enough pause to change his mind.\u00a0\u00a0And it really wasn\u2019t that potential \u201cmassacre\u201d that stopped him.\u00a0\u00a0It was two days before the January 6th<\/sup>\u00a0assemblage on the National Mall. Trump thought he had a better chance of “winning” there, and didn\u2019t need the distraction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And now reporting shows that while the mob was storming the Capitol, and Congressmen hid in fear, Donald Trump was watching on television. He was almost gleeful, getting what he wanted: pressure on the Congress to deny the legal election results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Who knows what other actions will be revealed in the coming days? Who knows how close our Republic was to irrevocable damage? A government of the people, by the people and for the people was on a thin thread, and the more we learn, the more frayed and narrowed that thread becomes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So impeaching the President while he remained in office was really a \u201cno brainer\u201d. It was the only reasonable course that the House of Representatives could take, a pure measure of real self-defense. That only ten Republicans chose to participate says so much more about the rest: politics reigned supreme over principles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But he is no longer in office, exiled to the sunny golf courses of the Sunshine State. So why bother with a trial in the Senate? Goodbye and good riddance. Let us move onto the crises of the present: COVID and the economy, racial justice and the climate threat. But like putting a new coat of paint over rust, those last actions of Trump cannot be ignored. The new will flake off to reveal that the old rust is simply growing, the problem worse from the neglect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We know that \u201c\u2026if you give a mouse a cookie, he\u2019ll ask for a glass of milk\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0We learned that over and over from Donald Trump.\u00a0\u00a0The more he acted outside the \u201clines\u201d, the farther he passed the boundaries of American mores and norms. \u00a0\u00a0Senator Susan Collins of Maine assured us he \u201clearned his lesson\u201d after the first impeachment and trial. But of course we now know the only lesson he learned was \u2013 forge ahead and no one will stop him.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n So the Senate trial of the former President is more than just a \u201cshow trial\u201d for the slim Democratic majority. In their heart-of-hearts, they wish they could \u201cleave him be\u201d on the golf course. But they know, he has the cookie, and the glass of milk, and he will come back for much, much more. And even if Donald Trump chooses to not exert himself and return to the fray, his progeny and those that strive to gain his mantle (Graham, Hawley, Cruz, et al) must know that there are consequences for insurrection, malfeasance and misfeasance in office, and for trying to subject the United States to authoritarian rule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sure, the new Department of Justice will have their say as well. Federal prosecutors must be examining those last few weeks, trying to determine whether to charge felonies of incitement of insurrection, sedition and election fraud. But there is a difference between \u201clegal\u201d consequences and \u201cpolitical\u201d consequences. And the legislative branch, granted the Constitutional authority to enact political consequences for unconstitutional acts, must weigh in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are two punishments for conviction after impeachment. The first, and most obvious, is removal from office. That box is already check-marked, the people of the United States have made that clear. And for doubters, the precedent is already set for trying a \u201chigh official\u201d who has left office, it was done in the ugly time after the Civil War. It\u2019s been done before; it can be done again. But why do it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The second Constitutional consequence of conviction is the opportunity, a choice, to ban the offender from any future \u201cposition of trust\u201d. And it is that statement that the offended legislative branch must make to the man, and his followers, who attempted to use the executive branch to violently overthrow them. Like the House of Representatives, the Senate must rise to its own defense, and not just depend on a third branch, the judiciary, for protection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The statement must be loud and clear \u2013 attempt to overthrow the Constitution, and you forfeit the right to earn the trust of America again.\u00a0\u00a0The Senate must stand for itself, and for the nation.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sunday Night Massacre<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Self Defense<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Milk and Cookies<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Political Consequence<\/h3>\n\n\n\n