The Impeachment Trial: It's Over

The Senate acquitted Trump today on an article of impeachment for inciting a riot.  The vote was 57-43, ten short of conviction, and Senators William Cassidy of Louisiana and Richard Burr of North Carolina joined the five Republicans voting for conviction (Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania) who had also voted with the Democrats to hold the trial on the grounds that it was constitutional to try a former President.  But the result was still ten votes short of the two-thirds majority needed for conviction.

Some observers are already declaring that this spells doom for the party, and I don't mean the Republicans.  The Democrats are being taken to task for backing off on plans to call witnesses when it was suggested that Senate Republicans would filibuster President Biden's agenda if they did.  The Trump base, we are told, has been energized by the acquittal and are even more motivated to take back Congress for the Republicans in 2022, and thanks to slim Democratic majorities in both houses, potential district gerrymandering by Republican state legislatures, and new voter-suppression tactics, it's all but certain to happen.  The only glimmer of integrity from the Republican side came from, of all people, Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell, who voted to acquit Trump on the basis of the fact that Trump was no longer President but still excoriated Trump for inciting the riot and letting it happen.

Such comments, aimed at placating Republican donors, would have had much more sincerity from a man who refused to call the Senate back in session for a trial when he was Majority Leader until after Trump was out of office.  

And that's one more reason why non-Senators Cal Cunningham and Sara Gideon should, like all losing Democratic Senate candidates, should be forced to wear scarlet "L"s (for loser) on their clothes and never be allowed to run again.  (And Amy McGrath deserves two of them.)  If the Democrats had won a Senate majority before the Georgia runoffs, Charles Schumer would have been in a position to have the trial started when Trump was still in office.

But it wouldn't have made a difference.  Not enough Republicans would have voted to convict Trump if the trial had started before January 20.  For that reason, House impeachment manager Jamie Raskin's  not to call witnesses was probably the right call.  Because again, the outcome would not have changed.

I think the acquittal has brought the United States to rock bottom, a point we've been sliding toward for forty years.  Maybe now we have nowhere to go but up.  After all, this conviction vote was the most bipartisan conviction vote against a President in Senate history.  A majority of Americans thought that Trump should have been convicted.  New evidence that Trump tried to bully House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy has proved to be especially damning. President Biden has managed to escape being drawn into this mess.  And with COVID numbers slowly receding, the President now has a chance to get his agenda through and turn this ship of state around.  And Trump will more likely than not be convicted in a criminal court, with ongoing investigations in two states for business and election law violations.  President Biden's Department of Justice  - which still doesn't have a confirmed Attorney General - is under pressure to investigate Trump, but the DOJ probably won't have to do a thing.

So why don't we all take a deep breath, get a rest during the Presidents' Day holiday (without any irony whatsoever), and get ready to climb out of this hole?