We thought we would always be that shining city on the hill, a beacon for all the world to see of peace, justice, and the American way of life. That beacon was extinguished on January 6 by Trump's legions of traitors. The question now is whether that heart can be resuscitated in our lifetimes.
The current impeachment trial – fated as it inescapably is to exonerate Donald Trump – is nonetheless a necessary first step in balming America's broken heart. The ringing clarity of the case against Trump, presented so brilliantly and poignantly by the impeachment managers, will be a lasting historical record of Trump's treason, and a solemn warning to Americans of decency and patriotism that we stand on a perpetually shifting political, social, and moral landscape and that, indeed, eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.
Jamie Raskin's heart has been doubly and even triply broken. On January 6 he buried his son, a tragic suicide, and the next day he feared for the lives of his daughter and son-in-law who were with him in the capitol on January 6. His daughter's statement that she didn't want to return to the capitol drove another icy wedge into his breaking heart. He broke down during the telling – understandably. And he shared with every decent lawmaker in that hallowed chamber the heartbreak of January 6. And he rose above that heartbreak to do his job, plain and simple, the job of presenting to the world insurmountable evidence that the former President of the United States is a traitor to the country he swore to protect. That is a heartbreaking fact.
In the manners and voices of the Democratic managers who acted as witnesses to the violence, hate, and rage of the terrible day was the deep and lasting fear that it has instilled among them, a fear – and a justified deep and lasting anger – that this could be the prelude to a worse and lasting treason if Donald Trump is allowed to remain free to again strike at America's heart.
From the instant the first slave set foot on American soil, this final breaking of America's heart has been inevitable. It took the unapologetic cruelty and evil of a monster like Trump to bring the pus from this boil searing into the nation's capitol and into the eyes of a mostly aghast nation. A terrible image, but true, this pus of treason.
Donald Trump “delighted” in this insurrection in all its fury and mayhem, according to people near him, and would not call a halt to the treason despite pleas even from someone so usually above any concerns about America as his daughter Ivanka.
The trial will end with Trump's acquittal – again – by a pack of craven Republican senators whose only interest is in their own political self-preservation. And while America reels under a death-dealing pandemic that is another tribute to the evil of Donald Trump, he will hover in his golden den, insanely convinced he is still president.
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