Stunned

I haven't written any of these Civic Duty columns for awhile. It's been sort of a writer's block of bounty – so many potential topics, all whirling around in my head in a maelstrom of possibilities with the result that I have not acted on any in a stupor of indecision. 

 

The operative word here is “stupor.” In a word, I have been stunned into silence by what I see and read and hear. I have to admit that after Trump went down, I slackened up a bit, thinking that maybe the job was done. More fool me. January 6 erased that kind of magical thinking on my part. That was a Philly left hook to any naivete here. And since then, the punches to our democracy have just kept coming, each one a stunner in its own right. Actually, it's been more like being punch drunk than any kind of highfallutin' writer's block.  

 

The initial shock of the insurrection was followed by the stunning vote of the Republicans whose lives had just been threatened by the howling Trump-fueled mob to nonetheless repudiate the presidency of Joe Biden. Stunning also was this scenario: the traitorous mob seeks to find and hang the vice president, who has been targeted by the president himself. Later the vice president will categorize this villainy as not “seeing eye to eye.”  

 

I am stunned that there are almost 400 bills in the various key states to limit voting access. They are like some kind of creeping political vine that the Republicans have carefully planted and now are nurturing into potential evil blossom. They are a contagion of potholes on the already bumpy road to democracy. And they are spreading to other crucial states. Yet I take some succor in the notion that there are activists out there – the Stacy Abrams of this world – striving to hold off this onslaught. I am nonetheless stunned that it has gone this far.          

The “audit” situation in Maricopa County in Arizona is stunning for its very brazenness. In front of the world, two-and-a-half million ballots are being counted by hand, voting machines are being irreparably damaged – and for what? Odds are that the errant fools behind this will come waltzing forward some time in August, when the “audit” is completed, with the earth-shattering news that Trump actually won. 

 

Maybe that has some connection with the stunning news from New Jersey that Trump believes he will be magically reinstated in August. The Pillow Guy said Trump got the idea from him because that is when Pillow Guy's case to the Supreme Court will overturn the election. Hmm … last anybody looked – about twenty minute ago – there is no provision in the Constitution or anywhere else for reinstating an ex-president. 

 

In the real world, it is truly stunning – although totally in character – that the Senate Republicans will not allow a bill to investigate January 6 in all its tragic dimensions and equally stunning that two Democratic senators will not vote to eliminate the filibuster, which would make the investigation possible and also allow lawmakers to move forward on bills to aid an America that is in desperate need.

 

Mitch McConnell's answer to all this is that he is “100 percent committed” to blocking any Biden legislation.

Trump Can't Write

by Susan Bergeron

I haven’t blogged about Trump the Killer in months. I was hoping that the bloated ex-Bloviator-In Chief would have popped and exploded like the Hindenburg, with shredded pieces of empty Trump Baby flapping away in my rearview mirror, headed for oblivion. But I am back blogging about this human roach because I will not be out-blogged by the likes of Trump. Who knew this moron would attempt to actually write? Tweeting is not writing. Posting is not writing. Although most of his speeches, as chief executive were written for him (as most presidents’ speeches are) you could always tell when he was going off script. That’s when the style of the speech suddenly took a dive. So, when all major social media platforms shut him down for inciting an insurrection on our nation’s Capital, he was confronted with this terrible fact: Because he had cheated his way through his entire school life, because he was dishonest and lazy and paid other people to do his work for him, he never mastered the English language well enough to write in it. 

After the white nationalist conned his way into the White House by creating a large enough coalition of racists to vote for him in 2016, Trump began to tout his education at the Wharton School of Business as proof of his business acumen and genius. Later it was revealed that his rich father bought his son’s way into Wharton for a two year program after Donny the Dunce had first spent two years slogging his way through the less prestigious Fordham University. Why it is that Trump demanded that his fixer Michael Cohen put all of his schools on notice that they were not to release his academic records to the public or they’d face litigation? Was he trying to hide his great genius?

Bill Clinton was a Rhodes Scholar. Clinton could write and Clinton could speak (in fact, he made quite a good living at it after leaving office.) Dean Rusk was a Rhodes Scholar. James Fulbright is a Rhodes Scholar. George Stephanopoulos and New Jersey Senator Cory Booker are Rhodes Scholars. Rachel Maddow is a Rhodes Scholar. Even Country Western star Kris Kristofferson is a Rhodes Scholar. Donald Trump IS NOT a Rhodes Scholar and this stupid ignorant racist never will be. And he can’t write. Barack Obama is not a Rhodes Scholar, although he is often mistakenly thought to be one, however, his education is impressive and he is definitely a writer and orator of stellar talents. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard Law School and headed up the Harvard Law Review, a feat no mental moron would likely be capable of.

For those who stayed awake in history class, they may remember that our founding fathers, those bewigged and fancifully dressed men featured in 18^th Century fine art, were the scholars and lawyers of our early republic. They were the wealthy landed gentry who could afford an education. These were the men who gathered and discussed and created---framed what is now our Constitution and the bones of our democratic government. They had what one would call a classic education, often educated at places like Oxford University in England, and were well versed in the history of the evolution of the laws of man. They brought that education with them to the New World from developed European nations, but chose to improve upon those laws and invent a better government system. They were talented writers, masters of English, and elegant orators with the gift of persuasion. Donald Trump did nothing to add to the long legacy of well educated, well-spoken presidents who had the gift of oration or writing. Trump cannot write.

When Trump was banned from all social media platforms for inciting violence and getting people killed he became so desperate to spew his mendacious poisonous narrative that he actually attempted blogging. “From the Desk of the 45^th President Donald Trump” was a total flop. Within thirty days Trump’s blog was shuttered “due to lack of interest.” Mainstream media now reports the real reason is that the thin-skinned Trump couldn’t take the critical heat; he had it shuttered because everyone was mocking his poor writing. But let’s be real. Either reason is embarrassing.

Blogging is tough work. Every word is carefully chosen. Sometimes many re-writes are required. There are lots of edits and sometimes, if it’s a collaborative effort, there are disagreements to be worked out with the publisher. Readers’ comments make the blogger a better writer. Blogging should invite discourse and an exchange of thoughts and ideas. Trump’s “writing” did neither and he did not allow comments on his blog. Of course not! He never could take criticism. He just wanted to bloviate on the web. And his huge narcissistic ego expected his cult members to hang on his every word. I suppose he expected the blog would blow up like his Twitter feed once did, when it once reached 82 Million people.Trump was often teased for not reading, not liking to read, and stumbling and bumbling over big words on the teleprompter while delivering speeches during his one term as president. But Trump’s failed blog exposed something else just as embarrassing for a former world leader: Trump can’t write. I don’t expect we’ll ever be seeing a presidential memoir written by Trump, or a Trump Library (God forbid.)

For four years Trump got away with imposing foreign policy, threatening war, firing cabinet members, opining on other world figures’ policies, and lying about 30,000 times by using social media and the bully pulpit of the Presidential Podium. The public joked and mocked the Former Guy for his bad spelling, bad grammar and inappropriate use of capital letters (I often referred to him as “Caps Lock Caligula” during the five years I wrote about Trump). 

Thank God we now have a president that can both read and write. It’s also refreshing that President Biden and his staff do not abuse the official Twitter account with illiterate self-serving Tweets meant only to divide and conquer the electorate.

Trump seems to have a problem with arithmetic, as well. He keeps inflating the number of votes he received in the 2020 election and claims he “got the most votes ever of any president.” Trump claims that he won the election, despite the fact that Biden received six million more popular votes than Trump, winning the prize of all time highest number of popular votes. The 306 votes Biden clinched in the Electoral College won him the election, having left Trump in the dust with only 232 votes.

Even in these unprecedented times of distance learning and the unorthodox methods necessary to keep our children studying and learning during a world pandemic, three things will never change: The basic foundation of all education will always have to include the three R’s---readin’ writin’ and ‘rithmetic! Trump provides a valuable lesson about what happens when you skip the three R’s. You end up a triple F---a big Fat Fucking Failure.  

Gloatgate

Of course, they're calling it Gaetzgate. And, of course, I'm having my own private Gloatgate.

 I am just gloating my ass off every time I see more sleazy revelations or even when I just think of what's going to happen to this gelled asshole after the media that helped create him gets through with him, which looks like it's going to be a long, long time. Not to mention what the justice system is going to do with his sorry, stupid ass. They're going to need a giant coop to hold the mega-flock of chickens that are coming home to roost. God, it feels good.

 

And the main reason it feels so good and gloatable is that finally, finally, finally one of the biggest and ugliest Trumpers is getting his comeuppance with absolutely no chance of Daddy Don bailing his butt out. Gloat. Gloat. No pardons, Matty. You did the crime, baby, and you're going to do the time all on your own – well, maybe not alone, jail being what it is, pretty boy. I think the term is “fresh meat.”

 

“The truth will prevail” he told a bunch of Trumpettes on Friday. He better hope not. The truth is Gaetz' enemy number one. The truth is going to hang him. Bet on it. Gloat. Gloat. 

 

He also said, “The best is yet to come.” I guess he's never heard the word “irony.”

 

I did a little test marketing re Gaetz on Facebook, asking folks to “Describe Matt Gaetz in one word.” Here are some words: “Excrement, Revolting, Hound, Deplorable (twice), Pervert (twice), Thug, Pedophile, Dickhead, Feh, Reptilian, Toast (twice), Hair, Gorp, Taint, Odious, Disgusting, Representative, Jerk, Slimeball, Rapist, Reprobate, Sleaze, Deviant, Branded, Goniff, Putz, Douchebag, Repub, Caricature, and Fecked” with more coming. Feel free to add your own.

 

Plus, he's stone on his own now, except for the high end lawyers he's hired, who let him go on in Florida in front of the Trumpettes. I guess to them – and Gaetz – silence is an admission of guilt. Makes you wonder about law schools. He should sit down and shut up, but that's not the Republican way any more.

 

Fox News and Trump, though, have shut up about this pomaded pervert. Uh, Matty, that should tell you something – like how does it feel to be on your own, no direction home? 

 

Even the Congress has opened an ethics investigation, weak tea as that usually turns out. Who cares? The entire weight of the federal investigating apparatus is focused on Gaetz, and the feds have nothing but time and man- and womanpower to spend. As the lawyer for his running buddy Joel Greenberg put it, “I am sure Matt Gaetz is not feeling very comfortable today.”

 

The dude is a master of understatement because Matt Gaetz should be shitting his pants now (did you notice he wore jeans when addressing the Trumpettes in an effort to be just one of the folks?).

 

Where he's going, being just one of the folks is a very dangerous place to be.

 

Gloat. Gloat.

Incredulous

I haven't written one of these Civic Duty columns since February 12, when Trump's second impeachment trial was underway.

 

I was winded – sad, and mad, too -- but mainly exhausted after four years  of rooting in the scummy detritus of Trump's presidency.

 

I really have no right to this luxury of silence because there is seemingly no end to the evil that he unleashed. It spirals on in so many ways. Civic duty did not end with his defeat. I see that now, and I also see that I was a little bit punch-drunk, and that I had to wait for my vision to clear enough for me to understand how I'm actually feeling now.

 

How I'm feeling is incredulous. First, I am incredulous that so many Americans have bought the Big Lie that Trump was cheated out of the presidency by mass election fraud, contrary to every ruling by every court where this lie was tested. It shouldn't be a surprise. He tapped deeply into the darkness that has always lurked in the American soul, a darkness of racism and misogyny and willful ignorance that is now openly manifesting itself.

 

Needless to say, the entire Trump saga was and is incredible in the worst possible way. How could this functional illiterate, a criminal to his core, have become president of the country that I never realized how much I loved until I saw him try to destroy it? Terror capitalism whelped him in all his monstrosity and he willfully has let a half million Americans die in the wake of his madness. 

 

On January 6, the entire civilized portion of America was incredulous at open insurrection in the sacred chambers of American democracy. Where were the police, the authorities? How could this happen? Incredible. At least as incredible was that so many of the men we had entrusted with protecting this country and its citizens filed back into those shambled halls and went about the business of supporting a man whose crazed minions had threatened their very lives scant hours before. Incredible. 

 

I am incredulous that Asian-Americans are being attacked day after day by white men – get that, white men – who have taken Trump's repetition of the Chy-na virus as gospel and acted upon it in the most violent and hateful ways.

 

I am incredulous that mass shootings have resumed as the country struggles to emerge from a pandemic that was aided and abetted month after month, death after death, by its president. 

 

I am incredulous that the state of Georgia has brazenly flown the Confederate battle flag again in its assault on voting rights. Beyond that, I am totally dumbfounded that Georgia has made it a crime to give waiting voters any kind of sustenance – water included. Madness.

 

I am incredulous that the governors of so many states have ignored and defiled rational mandates from health officials and have gone about the business of prematurely opening their states, leading to resurgence Covid outbreaks – and countless deaths. 

 

I am incredulous that so many of the young people in America have ignored any well-founded restrictions and flocked to maskless, crowded Spring Breaks across the country, particularly in Florida, whose craven and clueless governor has welcomed them, despite pleas from mayors of places like Miami Beach, where South Beach was swamped to the point of police intervention to enforce a desperate curfew.

 

 I guess I am naive to  be so incredulous about what has become so commonplace in this tottering country. But in my naivete and incredulity, there is the core of belief that we shall, indeed, overcome. 

 

Say It Ain’t So, Joe

By Susan Bergeron

February 28: Let’s put the discussion of “Guyana II”---or the gathering of the depraved and craven worshipers of the Golden Calf down in Orlando aside, and talk about another matter of greater importance to our nation’s political health just now, shall we? I’m talking about the freshly released CIA report that undeniably fingers Mohammed bin Salman, aka MBS---the heir apparent to the throne of Saudi Arabia---for the brutal 2018 murder and dismemberment of WAPO journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Our new President Joe Biden has made the unfortunate decision to follow the advice of his advisors and give the homicidal Prince a pass. At least Joe Biden didn’t follow it up with the disgusting Trumpian statement of 2018 “I saved his ass…” During a presser, after audio of the murder and dismemberment had already surfaced, in which bone saws were carried into the Saudi Consulate in Turkey by 15 members of an elite Saudi guard, Trump held up a large poster. The visual display featured various photos (something Trump always preferred to words) of all the expensive proprietary weapons the U.S. was engaged in selling to Saudi Arabia. Trump was making a desperate effort to convince the American public that it was in our best interest to court the favor of this nation, despite the horrendous actions of its heir apparent. Now we discover that former president Trump’s son in law Jared Kushner was involved in setting up an investment company that sought and, indeed, now has the financial backing of the Crown Prince. Kushner spent his final weeks of the Trump administration over in the Middle East feverishly lining up all his backers for the fund. It was always all about the Benjamins.

Even when the 116^th Congress had declared that the damning 2018 CIA report be released, Trump ignored that directive for the remaining two years of his term. But when President Biden’s new Director of Intelligence Avril Haines was confirmed she announced she would release the report, and on February 26^th she did, as promised. Journalists, defenders of the Fourth Estate and justice seekers everywhere had hoped that finally, after two long years, MBS would receive the punishment he so richly deserved. But sadly, it was not forthcoming. Our new President choked.

I’m not going to rip up my Biden tee shirts anytime soon, or cry myself to sleep on my old flat dollar store pillow, but I am going to speak truth to power. We supporters of the new President, and those who voted for Biden must not make the mistakes of the previous followers of our last president. We must not become sycophants, deniers, apologists or blindly allow bad decisions to be made by our new government without speaking out. All of us, from the janitor that mops the floor at the local Shop-Rite to the lawmaker in Congress must participate in this new government and protect it from veering off track. Every one of us has an important voice and if we’re going to keep our democracy intact we must use it. We’ve seen the terrible result of not speaking truth to power.

Our relationship with Saudi Arabia presents a complicated situation. But perhaps it’s time the United States re-evaluated that relationship. How much do we really need our alliance with Saudi Arabia anymore? We have become much less dependent on fossil fuels. We are ending the endless wars in the Middle East, and we should continue down that track. The new administration is committed to rejoining the global community and ending the isolationist policies of the Trump administration. That involves re-committing to calling out human rights violations. Saudi Arabia claims they are on a new path toward giving women their rights and ending human rights violations, but if you do a deeper dive into how it’s really going in that country, and if you talk to Saudi women you will find a lot of their “new” policies are merely lip service. And what about the plight of the LGBTQ community in this strict Muslim country? This is why Kashoggi was murdered. He worked for the Washington Post and also was Editor In Chief of the Arab News Channel. He uncovered hypocrisies depravities and corruption, such as human sex trafficking that were still going on in the Kingdom. The Prince didn’t like that. The Prince wanted Kashoggi’s voice silenced and he wanted to make him an example.

Nick Kristof wrote a scathing editorial in the New York Times on Friday and, I’m sorry Mr. President, but I had to agree with him. You blew it on this one. Presidents aren’t always going to get it right every time. As the saying goes, “Heavy is the head.”  I wondered what President Biden said in his phone call to the King of Saudi Arabia on Friday, just before the report was released to the public. He telephoned King Salman bin Abdulaziz, not the Prince. While a curious world waited to find out the details of the call (he never did spill) I wondered if Biden was explaining: “I’m sorry, King Abdulaziz, but the evidence on your son is undeniable. We’re going to have to punish him for his terrible deeds. As one father to another I’m very sorry and wish I didn’t have to do this, but you have made him the next King of your country. What are we to do? We will not be able to have dealings with him if he is a murderer. We will lose your country as our longtime friend and ally unless you choose to punish him yourself.” But no, that conversation never happened. Our president apparently reassured the King he needn’t worry, his son was still safe.

President Biden has a tremendous number of challenges facing him as he comes into office. The disgraceful and infamously corrupt former administration made it as hard as possible for him to hit the ground running during a massive surge of a world pandemic, climate emergencies, violent domestic threats and terrible division in our country. He’s doing the best he can. In many ways he’s doing a terrific job, particularly in regards to straightening out the vaccine distribution system left unattended by Trump. But he blew it on this one and I hope he reconsiders how to deal with Prince Mohammed Bone Saw. President Biden’s decision on this matter sends a terrible message. Especially so soon after our own Senate has just absolved our former president of inciting insurrection at our national capitol, where murder and violence occurred.

Burn Notice

By Sue Bergeron

February 13: On the eve of the second impeachment decision of the worst president ever to occupy the Oval Office (I can’t even believe I’m saying “second” next to impeachment here) I thought I’d share a few thoughts. Recently, certain things have been taking up space rent-free in my weary head. Now that Joe has won the election I see his agenda unfolding in a smooth and methodical way I could never have imagined, considering all the sand the Trump administration threw into the gears during the transition. I often revisit my early days inside the Biden campaign. 

As the election approached I suffered from terrible anxiety. I feared that if the Teflon Don pulled off what I feared was coming---what actually did just happen---he would be successful in becoming our country’s first dictator. His MAGA army would succeed in starting a Second Civil War and attain the resultant secession they were itching for. Fortunately, the insurrection at our citadel of freedom was thwarted and the government was not successfully overthrown. 

One guy in particular, a Trump supporter in his 80’s who lives in a tiny suburban bungalow, still haunts me. Readers may remember him from a March “Report from Rhode Island” I submitted. I was then running for Delegate from RI for Joe Biden, just before the pandemic exploded on the East Coast. Still canvassing door to door, in the bitter winds of late winter, I had the misfortune to knock on this devil’s door. Bedecked in full Biden gear, as I came up his walkway he swung open his front door and let loose with a barrage of vitriol that nearly sent me flying backwards. “What’s this all about!?” He bellowed at me, appalled at my Biden gear. He was listed as an Independent. I barely got a word out before he nearly hit me with the storm door, glowered at me and yelled in my face. “I’ve been a lifelong Democrat until what you people did down there in Washington last year! It’s a disgrace! I swear I’ll never vote Democrat ever again!” A hard man, he started on a rant about the immorality of impeaching Donald Trump and the corrupt and unfair treatment of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanagh. Then he unloaded on Joe Biden, calling him a corrupt politician, a thief and a liar. That’s when I lost it. I’d recently been reading Joe’s memoir “Promise Me, Dad”. The indignity of this guy repeating the Trump-Fox-MAGA conspiracy loop about Biden, a man who has spent almost fifty years serving this country so honorably, was just too much for me to take. I began to cry, and through the tears I was astonished to see a little white haired lady in a wheelchair, swaddled in a blanket, wheeling herself out from behind this maniac. She reached her hand out to me from behind him and said, “I’ll sign your papers.” But he pushed her back and shouted “No! Get back.” I quickly fled, in fear for the woman.

I often think back on that horrible incident with the man who mistreated his wife and me so badly, because he, like so many millions of others have been hypnotized by Trump and his propaganda machine. I wonder, now that Joe has been elected, if he can see that Biden is not a corrupt politician and that the Trump Channel is just an arm of the biggest liar of all time. The pandemic was just beginning when we had our encounter. Since then almost 500,000 people have died. We also learned since then about the phone conversation that took place between Bob Woodward and Trump, wherein the former president admitted he was downplaying how serious the pandemic really was after telling the American people it was a hoax. We thought that was The Big Lie. Has that effected this man’s thinking

When Trump wouldn’t concede the election I thought about the man again. Has he finally given up on Trump yet? I mused about what it must be like at his dinner table. He, sitting there, angrily shoveling in his Hungry Man TV dinner in front of Lou Dobbs screaming about the “Chinese Virus” every night, and she, the poor abused wife bent over her Cup O’ Soup, silently enduring it. Or had the woman been able to turn her hard man around? ---gently pointing out how he’d been mistaken about Joe? How did she end up in that wheelchair, anyway? Maybe the man had been a good person in another time, devoted to a disabled woman all her life, back when he was a Democrat with ethics and morals. I know it’s not wise to judge. I considered going back there. Sometimes I pondered the idea of stuffing a copy of “Promise Me, Dad” in their mailbox. But who would I address it to? ---the man or the woman? He might just throw it in the trash. I really did want to talk to him again, but at the end of the day I figured he was the type to call the police on me. After all, with Trump’s guys it’s all about LAW & ORDER, right

Now I see there is no redemption for the hardcore Trump Cultist. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry when I think back to the early days when I joined Indivisible and attended community organizing workshops in an effort to learn how to begin the long hard job of ousting Trump (immediately after his election). Packed in an overheated high school classroom full of angry protesters against Trump (mostly Sanders people) we were brainstorming for ideas how to win back the Dems and “Obama-Trump” voters in the next election. There was a lot of hostility toward the Trump voters. “I’m sorry, but I just can’t be nice to them!” one woman yelled out angrily. The crowd cheered, clapped, heads nodded, the old wooden desks rumbled on the floorboards. I raised my hand and stood up. “Now wait a minute, wait a minute. Think about this: We can’t just disenfranchise all those Trump voters. Many didn’t realize who he was. They must surely feel some buyer’s remorse by now. Or they soon will. We can’t attack his voters. We must instead concentrate on attacking Trump and his policies. His voters will gradually come to see through his lies and come back to us. It serves no purpose to spread this kind of hate.” Well, that went over like a turd in a swimming pool at a backyard party. The room went quiet with sour faces all around. Then there was grumbling. As I attempted to network after the meeting, attendees brushed past me as if I were wearing a radioactive biohazard suit instead of the Indivisible jacket I proudly wore that day

Those people could see something evil and rooted deeply into our body politic that I was just too much of a cock-eyed optimist to be able to see four years ago. It makes me so very sad. Watching the “Fight Club Documentary” the Trump defense team presented during Friday’s impeachment trial---actually had the opposite effect on me of what they were aiming for. I probably had seen most of the truncated clips they spliced together in their entirety when they originally aired and I remembered the full context of most of them. It just angered me that Van DerVeen would attempt to conflate what Trump was doing with what any of those people were saying. It started reminding me of my early Trump protest days and got me thinking about why I protested him in the first place. I remember this: It was always peaceful; even rallies with thousands of protesters stayed peaceful. Seeing how difficult it has been to convince the very people who were targeted by the mob Trump sent, to protect our nation from further harm, I now see that I really have been naïve. They will never bend. They will never return.

I had thought of sending the little old lady in the wheel chair a letter and asking if she was OK. I might ask what she thought about Joe getting elected. And then I’d caution her to burn the letter in their wood stove before her Hungry Man could find it. For both of our sake’s.

A Trial of Broken Hearts

We really didn't know America's heart that well until Donald Trump broke it.

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.