Andrew L. Urban.
The botched attempt at a coup against US President Donald Trump by the Democrats (and their anti-Trump supporters within the organs of the state) has become a grotesque nightmare for America. Born illegitimately without the vote required in the House of Representatives as the Constitution requires, continued mindlessly without proper grounds and amidst a total disregard for due process, the impeachment charade reveals two things: 1) the impotent fury of the ultra left wing of the Democrats has pushed the leadership to harness the weapon of impeachment illegally; 2) the shallow, shrill and hysterical case being put forward to push the impeachment now being tried in the Senate (where it will certainly fail when they acquit Trump) frames the Democrats as not merely unethical but dangerously reckless with America’s Constitution.
What makes this spectacle so alarming is the prophetic and self contradictory words of their own leadership from 20 years ago, when they warned that the Bill Clinton impeachment would lead to a partisan process that was unjustifiable. They did so in exactly the same terms as the Republicans are now arguing against this charade. The big difference is that Clinton was impeached for crimes cited. There are no crimes cited this time. As Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz pointed out several times to the Senate, the articles of impeachment (abuse of power and obstruction of Congress) are not. It is arguable that they are sham articles, not based on anything more than animus towards Trump, which motivated a wish to impeach him since the day he was inaugurated.
The striking thing about the long and (largely) dreary hearings in both the House and the Senate, is how the Democrats simply repeated their allegations dozens of times, disregarding any informed opinion that challenges their case, from authorities such as Dershowitz and other lawyers on the Trump team. Their consistency in mistaken argument is a testament to a stubborn antipathy that reminds me of those Palestinians who would rather see their children suffer and even die than live side by side with Israel. Hate is hate …
The American public has not been well served by its media with the coverage of the impeachment process, but that’s how the media always covered Trump: with a flagrant bias that defied even the facts. Fake, indeed, not news.
Public opinion, despite that, has not swung behind the Democrats; the warning from some quarters (mostly the Republicans, of course, and some commentators) that the public sees through this as vile politics, is coming true now, and hurting the Democrats in the polls. And they are panicking, what with this egg on their face and the absence of a viable candidate to run for President in November. The first votes to select one of Democrats to run will be cast at the Iowa primaries next Monday February 3; it won’t matter whether it’s Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders who wins the most votes. The Democrats have butchered their legitimacy and their appeal in pursuit of their vendetta against Trump who ‘stole’ their 2016 victory.