What’s Important About Impeaching Trump Isn’t Impeaching Trump.

Yesterday I was concerned that the case being made by the House Managers against Trump would try to soft-soap either the issue of voting ‘fraud’ or the issue of Trump’s connection to the Proud Boys and the other lumpen groups that led the riot, or both.

I was wrong. I was completely and totally wrong.

From the opening comments by Jamie Raskin through to the closing comments before the Senate adjourned, every speaker referred countless times to the ‘big lie’ of election fraud. They repeated the phrase again and again and they linked the ‘big lie’ directly and continuously to Donald Trump.

The speakers also reviewed a history of Trump’s promotion of the January 6th riot which went all the way back to the middle of last year. They made it clear that Trump made a conscious effort to enlist groups like the Proud Boys, the Three-Percenters and other right-wing, incendiary groups because he began to realize that he wasn’t going to win.

Incidentally, I want to interject a thought about Trump’s decision to send his TV lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, to the Ukraine to dig up dirt on Joe. I have yet to see any mention of Trump attempting to dig up dirt on any other Democrat who might have become the opposition in the 2020 race. Which tells me that he knew his most serious threat would be coming from a Biden candidacy. Hence, send Giuliani on that crazy mission to the Ukraine. Anyway, back to last night.

The most powerful moment during yesterday’s entire presentation was when the last speaker, I think it was Joaquin Castro, but maybe it was someone else, showed a split-screen image with the rioters battling police on one side and Trump’s video message to the rioters on the other. His video ended with the following words: “We love you. You’re very special.” The tweet posted above was also presented alongside a video showing the rioters calling for Nancy Pelosi to be killed.

I think the DNC should make a 30-second video of this clip along with a still photo and send both out to every Democratic office holder who will be on the ballot next year. Unless things change radically, I believe that if Democrats use these resources as campaign ads, the GOP might become, politically speaking, extinct.

It won’t be the first time that the Republican party found itself unable to even get listed on the ballot in various states. Think of what happened to the GOP in the Confederate states after the Civil War. I lived in South Carolina in 1976 when if you ran as a Republican in certain districts, the joke was that you were a member of the ‘good guy’ party, the word ‘Republican’ was never said.

Thanks to the ‘go slow’ deal that Nixon made with segregationists like Thurmond, Stennis, and Russell in 1968, the GOP was beginning to make a comeback in the South, a shift which culminated with the 1980 election of Reagan and kept the South mostly red until Bill Clinton showed up.

I wouldn’t mind if the GOP became the permanent minority party, which I suspect will happen until and unless they rid themselves of the Trump stench. With all due respect to the attempts by right-wing media to promote the idea that there’s going to be payback for any GOP official who votes to impeach, I notice that Liz Cheney is still a member of the House leadership and Mitch McConnell is still saying that Senators can vote their ‘conscience,’ and not just lie down for Trump.

Last night the phone rang after the trial ended and a sweet, young voice blurted out something about sending some money to the DNC. They knew who they were calling because I promptly coughed up fifty bucks and told the young lady that she didn’t have to read me the ‘required’ proviso about how my donation wasn’t tax exempt and the rest of the blah, blah and blah.

I don’t care if Trump is impeached or not. I do care whether the Democratic Party continues to remind everyone about who was responsible for January 6th.