11-15-2019, 04:16 PM
(11-09-2019, 07:11 PM)Anthony Wrote: The impeachment campaign is making it less likely for the Democrats to win in 2020. It's a dead turn-off for swing voters, who are as powerful as ever.
Besides, to quote a line from Godfather 2, there will be no way, Michael - no way that 20 Republicans will cross the aisle and vote to remove Trump from office.
Impeachment, even if ineffective, is now a necessity. Even if President Trump avoids removal, he will be disgraced. If Sarah Palin said that President Obama 'pals' with terrorists, we liberals can say that President Trump 'pals' with gangsters. The difference? Sarah Palin was wrong.
Character matters greatly in leaders, and that means telling the truth when such can be embarrassing, not using illicit shortcuts to achieve one's ends, and not taking stuff (physical or intangible) that is not ours to take even if we are in need or have overpowering craving -- and not going along with people who do such things. Truth may be inconvenient, but what else do we have?
We Americans have often found that if we are to sleep in any high-school classes, then we can most safely do so in civics classes that are inherently boring. We don't get as much of a lesson the man whom Sarah Palin mocked as "a Professor of Constitutional Law" as we do from a shyster businessman who does almost everything wrong. That "Professor of Constitutional Law" made comparatively few mistakes, and he did sign off on the underworld-style hit on Osama bin Laden -- before congratulating the CIA for locating him on behalf of Seal Team 6 for whacking him.
Whether Trump is convicted and removed or not, we are learning the limits to power, the relevance of character, and the necessity of the rule of law, the separation of powers, and checks and balances.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.