The second impeachment of the U.S. Senate

This is a follow-up to my post “The Trump Led Insurrection of 2021”.

After that post, the U.S. House of representatives voted to impeach then-president Trump a second time. This time with far more cause than the previous political theater that focused on Trump’s apparent influence bartering - which every politician has engaged in since the creation of human society.

But as is the case with politicians, they are not all that smart when it comes to cause and effect.

In order to get a conviction in the Senate, there needs to be a ‘super majority’ of 67% - or 67 Senators out of the body of 100 must vote to convict. With the Senate evenly split 50/50 between Democrats and Republicans, the Republican party must offer up 17 of their senators to convict Trump (a Republican) of inciting an insurrection.

Of course, this cannot happen. If the Senate convicts, then all the congressional Republican politicians that, through action or inaction, supported the lies and actions of Trump – would be indicting themselves. They would be virtually admitting fault - and that is the single most important rule in politics. It’s ALWAYS someone else’s fault. 

Admitting fault is a 100% sure end to a political career. The opposing party will never let your constituents forget.

There are a half-dozen ‘real’ legacy Republicans that parted ways with Trump long before the insurrection. The writing on the wall being what it was. So, their political future is less constrained by deceit. Alas, their more patriotic votes will not be enough to convict and bar Trump from American politics for life.

Contemporary Republicans of the ‘shock & awe’ generation are stuck with the facts, the lies, their arrogance, their cowardice, their power trip under Trump. Not to mention the visceral images of insurrection that many thought only graced newscasts of third world countries. Now they had to deny, deny, deny – or its over for them.

The leaders of the insurrection in the Senate actually met with Trump's defense attorneys to be sure they presented evidence to the jury (the Senate - i.e. themselves) that would get Trump off without a conviction. This is the type of manipulation politicians engage in all the time. They think the electorate is too stupid to notice. And as can be seen in the results of the 2020 election – they are at least half right.

The point to all this is simply that Trump was what the Republican party allowed him to be. Warts and all. They own it. So, they cannot condemn it.

JWB