Two Kinds of Fools

 

 I don’t know whether I’m more upset that many of the Republicans paid no attention to the presentation yesterday or that they did and refuse to accept the truth of Trump’s crime. Kierkegaard said, “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to accept what is true.”

Let’s talk about the first problem:

Imagine you are the prosecutor for a heinous crime. While you are presenting your case, fully 15% of the jury leaves the box. Some of those who remain turn their face away to video evidence or talk to each other acting like toddlers who’ve been told to sit in time out, but wish to remind you that they really don’t care. Additionally, you discover that some of the jurors met with the defense attorneys in order to help them with their presentation. Can we say MISTRIAL?

All of this happened yesterday during Day 3 of Trump’s second impeachment trial. A teacher would not allow this in a classroom of elementary students.

Of course, the Republicans defend themselves for their opprobrious behavior by saying – “this is not a legal trial; it is a political trial.” Evidently this is also how they rationalize their complete disregard of the oath they took as jurors. Will there be a mistrial? Not in this universe. The Republicans will continue to thumb their nose at the Constitution and the very tenets of good behavior.

Now the second problem:

The House Managers presented a stellar case tying all possible threads together. Remember that the Senate has already voted and the majority has decided that this case constitutionally viable.

The Managers have shown through factual evidence such as video and graphics that there was an insurrection, and it was incited by Donald J. Trump. Just read some of the following quotes from the insurrectionists:

We don’t have to imagine Trump’s incitement. The insurrectionists told us in their own words why they did what they did. We also know that he knew they would. “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.” Trump Jan. 23, 2016.

We are also now discovering that after Trump knew Pence was in harm’s way, he tweeted, “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution” His followers saw this and reacted accordingly with cries such as “Hang Pence.”

The irony and disgust of this is that none of it matters to Trump’s Republican toadies in the Senate.

There has never in the history of our country been a person or certainly a president who deserves to be convicted more than Donald J. Trump. However, the spineless Republicans will sweep this iniquity under their rug with all of the other iniquities perpetrated by Trump in the last four years. That rug looks more like a mountain every day, and Republicans should remember this when they try to clean it up. They will be tainted with Trump’s dirt forever.

 

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