Politics: A Much Needed Post Trump Impeachment Trial Vote Rant

After the confirmation vote of Bret Kavanaugh, I felt that I had to do a long winded post where I do a huge rant about the horrible thing that just happened. Now that the senate has voted to acquit Trump with no Democrats voting in favor and all but one Republican doing that, I might as well get to doing this post. I’m under a time crunch and can hopefully cover everything that I want to as there is a lot to cover. Let’s get this done.

Many people want to bring up the past investigations of Trump, largely focusing on the Russia theory. In their world, the moment that Russia was disproven, we moved on to Ukraine, seeking to destroy the wonderful leadership of King Trump. But this is not the case. Sure, the Russia investigation never lead to back to Trump (yet at least), but many have already felt the sting of it. And it’s not like the Ukraine investigation appeared out of nowhere. It might not have even existed if Trump knew better.

Basically, Trump wanted the president of Ukraine to help dig up dirt on Joe and Hunter Biden. This is despite the fact that it is illegal for any US citizen running for office to ask for foreign help, be it financial or otherwise. There was a hold up of aid to Ukraine that became known that was only released because Trump was caught with his hand in the cookie jar. The air was no longer withheld and like a bad child you can’t ignore wrongdoing of anymore, the Democrats had it out with him by launching an impeachment inquire into him.

Republicans started throughout the process a whole misinformation campaign where they constantly and continuously spouted the same lies over and over again, hoping correctly that their side would latch on to their “facts” and not accept the truth. They claimed that only Democrats were at the closed door meetings that lead to the more opening hearings that could have failed at any point. This isn’t true, especially after Republicans illegally break into the secure room to make a point that, um, they should have the right to break the rules? Sadly, I can expect no other meaning behind things like that.

Another thing that the Republican like to talk about was the role of the Bidens in all this. Let’s make this all clear: the Bidens were not on trial. The Bidens did not withhold aid or ask for illegal help. And even if the Bidens had done wrong, that’s not relevant at Trump’s impeachment trial. I can’t believe that one of Trump’s lawyers spent valuable time at the impeachment trial talking about how Hunter and Joe should be on trial. If my lawyer thought the best defense for me was that other people are criminals potentially, I’d get a better lawyer. Of course, I’d probably be guilty in that case anyways and should be going to jail.

In addition to misdirection, there were various lies going on with impeachment. There was a lot of talk about it being a Democratic coup. But the vice-president, Mike Pence, who is next in the line of succession, would have become president if King Trump were ousted from office. They knew this yet loved to lie about it.

Another one of them that got on my nerves was the idea that Trump being impeached would overturn the results of the election. That’s complete shit and they know it. We can’t magically undo the Trump administration. A lot of people wanted Hillary Clinton as president, but unless she became president and got to undo all the judges that Trump put on the bench, his election would remain in place. Another thing worth noting is that Trump refused to allow witnesses at the House vote and Republicans refused to have them at the later vote as if Trump never had the chance to have witnesses there.

Not only were there outright lies with impeachment, there was also dubious hypocrisy regarding it. For one, Republicans were upset with the idea that Trump might not be on the ballot after the vote. But there are Republicans other than Trump running for president like Bill Weld. This very party that doesn’t want Trump removed from the ballot has no reservations about taking others off their own ballot and not letting the voters decide what goes on.

Perhaps they are also forgetting how not even two whole years ago, a Republican tried to steal a house race and when he was caught, he wasn’t allowed on the ballot for a do over election. Plus, it wasn’t certain that Trump wouldn’t have been on the ballot. Different possibilities that weren’t discussed were how Trump might be removed from office but remain on the ballot or stay in office but not be allowed on the ballot.

Another bit of hypocrisy was the speed of the whole process. Republicans said that they didn’t like how fast the process went. And these same Republicans also got annoyed by the gap in time that it took Nancy Pelosi from the time the house voted until she sent the articles to the senate for a vote. Which is it, then? Are the Democrats rushing through it too fast where we see more evidence come to light during the meantime or are they rushing as fast as they have to when they see an attempt at damaging the once sacred elections of our country? You can have one or the other, but you can’t have both.

The Republicans’ lenient attitude on the whole thing is what is most concerning about this. You see, they pretty much admitted that they don’t care if Trump is guilty and many of them even say that he is. They don’t think that he should suffer any consequence for it. This is so baffling stupid that I can’t imagine any parents or lawyers should be using it ever. Who does something bad, doesn’t suffer consequences for it, and learns a lesson? It doesn’t make sense.

There was an episode of The Simpsons where Bart did something bad but Homer helped ruin the chances of his son learning from it by not getting the punishment he deserves. When Bart misbehaved again, this time around, Homer knew what he should have done and came down with an even harsher punishment. This time, Bart learned his lesson and went on to become a renowned Supreme Court Justice. The Simpsons knew a better morality lesson than it would seem the Republicans of today understand. Trump has only learned that he can get away with anything he wants to and he’ll have a party on his side going along with it.

Alan Dertzowitz wants to proclaim that Democrats could not pass the shoe on the other foot test which claims that a party wouldn’t vote against someone in a different reality that they would in ours if that person were on the other party. If Hillary Clinton had done this, Democrats would have gotten rid of her. And so would have Republicans. He knows that it was Republicans who had failed the test. Ask Al Franken if a Democrat would turn on one of their own. Ask Rod Blagojevich who had nearly no one voting to keep him in office. And then ask Roy Moore why he wasn’t condemned by his party when there was a scandal against him.

Republicans were insistent that it was the Democrats who were being partisan when it was the Democrats who should be commended and applauded for doing what needed to be done. Plus, Mitt Romney proved that he could turn on one of his own. I like him. Trump openly called the Republicans who work against him “human scum.” I would gladly make and give Mitt a human scum t-shirt, not because I agree with Trump, but because people should embrace any and all kinds of insults Trumps gives.

What they should not accept is money or bribes from Trump. What many Republicans in the senate have done since their votes is shamelessly talk about how their states have earned money that they just happened to get after their votes on Trump’s side. I do worry about what all of the Republicans are guilty of now. I worry even more that white collar crime will now be a thing of the past. Not the actual wrongdoing part, but the part where this immoral behavior is no longer criminal. Is this something that we want: tons of crimes still going on but not being against the law in the end?

Something that people don’t seem to realize regarding this is that a majority of people wanted Trump to be impeached. Even a FOX News poll can show that. 53 senators voted against what the majority of Americans wanted. Also note that many talk about how this would negatively affect the Democrats. But the Democrats were doing what the majority of Americans wanted. I don’t see impeachment failing as a problem for the Democrats.

Now I’m thinking back to the Nixon case. Nixon was somehow more cooperative with the whole process in more ways than I realized before. Plus, Republicans were against him when they knew that he was responsible for the break-in at Watergate. They weren’t as lenient as the people in office today. If you look at the story of Nixon’s plumbers as they were called, they don’t seem that much different than some of what Trump has done with people who should know better who have even more authority than what Nixon’s plumbers did.

So many people, most infamous of them, Rand Paul, want to believe that the whistleblower is the one who is at fault here. They want us to believe that the person who calls out wrongdoing is the one who is wrong and guilty about things. What kind of backwards world do they live in? Why is the person who is wrong? The criminal, right? According to some people, it is those who dare call out any crimes among other people.

Going back to Rod Blagojevich, Trump has now commuted his sentence. Rod is now a free man. For some reason, he returned to Illinois where, oddly enough, people who support him came to visit him. I’ll have to keep track of some of what goes on with that situation. But now it seems that Trump commuted or pardoned many infamous people who would have stayed in jail. Rod is now after people of his own party, although he forgets that Republicans also voted to oust him. He is going to have to rationalize the criminal trial which got him in jail instead of just out of office where we don’t know the political affiliation of the jury. Will he continue to proclaim his innocence or try to proclaim that what he did shouldn’t have gotten him in trouble the way that Trump didn’t get in trouble? All I know is that people need to remember that investigations into Rod went back at least to 2006 and had more to it than just trying to sell a senate seat.

Note that what happened to Trump was not really acquittal. He will go to jail someday. The only two ways that he can avoid this are death and being pardoned. I don’t want him to die. I also do not want him pardoned, but don’t have to worry about that as long as a Democrat is the next president. That is why Trump should have wanted to be voted out of office because I cannot imagine a scenario where Pence doesn’t pardon Trump. I shouldn’t want Trump to go to jail, but he deserves it and I can just imagine him not wanting to leave office so he leaves the White House in handcuffs on January 20, 2021 when his term expires. We better hope that there is not more of a constitutional crisis in the future because of him than we have already had thus far.

One of the things that I heard on the Republican side of why Trump shouldn’t be impeached was that the founders didn’t include maladministration as a cause for impeachment. What I kept hearing from that argument and am entirely certain that they meant is that maladministration is totally okay and shouldn’t get someone removed from office. While I know that misdemeanors do not often result in jail time, people need to remember that impeachment does not need to have evidence of a crime to happen.

Speaking of which, so many of the people who are still around from back when Clinton was impeached no longer believe their old beliefs regarding impeachment that they had back then at the time. They completely changed their minds without giving their previous good thoughts a second thought. Maybe they should be doing it in the end.

There was a scene in the movie Courageous that I find relevant today. I don’t have the time to try to find the scene online, but I do own the movie and want to tell you a good line from the film as they raise a good point in it. “[Let’s say a criminal says] ‘Hey judge, I committed this crime, but I’ve done a lot of good in my life.’ If the judge let him go free, would you say that he was a good judge or a bad judge?” “A bad one.” “That’s right.” If you can find the film online, that might be a good thing to watch as a whole to understand this point. Perhaps the scene is online.

What’s worth remembering is the necessary and proper clause (Article 1 Section 8) of the US Constitution that states that Congress has the authority to do things not mentioned outside of the sentence regarding what Congress can cover. Thus, if you think of something that you could not in the first place, you wouldn’t have to keep writing the laws still to this day. For instance, the people then would not have been able to cover cybercrime then since it wasn’t a thing then, but the clause, also known as the elastic clause, would allow them to cover stuff that is not in the original Constitution and thus could cover more of what they could have originally regarding things like impeachment or other issues.

People kept saying that they should just let the voters decide. Well, I hope that the voters do decide. If your state is having an open primary where a Republican other than Trump is on the ballot, vote for that person, even if you are a Democrat. When it comes times for the general election, vote blue in 2020. Vote for any and every Democrat running for office. Whoever he or she might be, they wouldn’t turn a blind eye to justice or have any reason to keep one of their own in the end. Voters, remember that your Republican officials didn’t vote out Trump unless you live in Utah. So vote for Democrats in 2020 for every federal office since Republicans are so sure that they want voters to decide this.

As I close this post, there is one thing that I should note. If you want to do any of the terrible things that Trump does, don’t do it. Don’t let what others let him get away with be any reason why you should do what he does. I have no fucking clue why they let him get away with what they do. They shouldn’t and one can only hope that they live to regret this.