Good morning,
Impeachment Trial…
UPDATED: The Senate impeachment trial has just taken a right hand turn as a vote has taken place to call witnesses. Witnesses will be called, primarily because of a report that the House Republican leader McCarthy had a shouting match with Trump the day of the riot, demanding Trump call off the violence.
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/02/12/politics/trump-mccarthy-shouting-match-details/index.html
I am writing this from London, having watched hours of the impeachment trial and wondering how Americans are processing this moment in their countries history. Not a moment as in a minute, but this moment between a transition to a new President and the hangover from the last which has been several months in the making. The impeachment is a nasty affair, where you see on lurid display of the political venom of America between Democrats and Republicans.
I think the Dems made a good case for the impeachment showing Trumps years of soft messaging on white supremacists, and his wink and a nod towards violence through rallies and tweets. And you see in Trump’s defense, the framing of the left as embracing the same political “fight” language he used, but the moment was very different as Trump punctuated months of false election fraud claims with using the word “fight” in front of what he knew was an armed and angry mob.
Trump defense claims the march was highjacked by a few bad people, but it was a particular crowd called to Washington for a specific reason to pressure and push the Senate, including his Vice President from formally receiving the election results and closing a horrible chapter on the 2020 election.
Senators asked “exactly when did President Trump learn of the breach of the Capitol? And what specific actions did he take to bring the rioting to an end? And when did he take them? Please be as detailed as possible.”
The response by the lawyer was to blame the House managers for not answering that question but clearly Trump knows the answer and refused to testify. Did Trump sit gleefully watching the violence in The White House, refusing to call it all off? Did he know V.P. Pence and others were in danger? Can the answer be anything but yes? And he is still not admitting an election loss in which dozens of courts viewed as free and fair.
Trump failed to bully State representatives like those in Georgia to come up with extra votes, which as a foreign correspondent who has covered elections in pretend democracies, I would call a disgusting and blatant attempt at vote rigging. And the criminal investigations should proceed to indict what cannot be accepted in a normal functioning state. Trump tried to hold onto power at any cost, placing him in the despot category along with the likes of Vladimir Putin.
But again writing this from across the Atlantic, I can honestly say few us knew how low the political debate had sunk in a country I deeply respect and care for. American political discourse echoed and amplified by idiotic cable news hosts, has plunged to dangerous levels not seen in most civilized nations and I can only hope the rest of the World turns away from it, rather than embraces any of it. I hope many Americans realize the impeachment process which should have led to justice, didn’t take the country anywhere except deeper into the mud of political division that Trump tapped into and nurtured for personal political gain, as did cable news outlets, and now there’s even more right wing channels to feed the angry flock.
From Europe most people view Trump as a disturbing aberration and hope the memory of his presence on twitter and on the world stage will fade quickly. More than 70 per cent of Europeans in polling late last year, viewed Joe Biden as favourable, and only 14 per cent liked Trump. While a recent Pew research poll found U.S. favourability ratings in European Nations at their lowest in decades – 41 percent in Britain, 31 percent in France, and 26 percent in Germany.
No doubt a new European poll would reflect a hope, Trump will not ever run or hold office again, which I suspect would yield smaller margins, but similar over all opinions in The USA.
The vote on the impeachment trial will now not take place today. Witnesses will be called, although how many and in what time frame is not known as I write this, but now all bets are off and anything can happen in this impeachment.
Have a good weekend everyone.