Editorial: What’s Different about Trump’s Second Impeachment?

Did we ever think we’d hear the words, “Second impeachment of the president of the United States”? 

One impeachment should be more than enough for any president. If Donald Trump had been re-elected, it’s almost certain he’d be facing a third impeachment at some point. Perhaps a fourth impeachment; after all, he achieved two in just one term. If the Senate had kept its Republican majority, and judging from how his first impeachment went, Donald Trump most likely would remain in office following any subsequent impeachments. But Trump wasn’t re-elected, and circumstances are different. 

It seems that when he incited a violent and deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol last week, Donald Trump may finally have gone too far, even for some of his staunch supporters.

Current Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has signaled that he thinks Donald Trump committed impeachable offenses, and that he may (or may not) vote to convict Trump when the Senate conducts its proceedings. This is the opposite of the way he kept Senate Republicans in lockstep behind Trump during Trump’s first impeachment. 

During the House impeachment proceedings, a record 10 Republican lawmakers voted to impeach. This is in contrast to the zero Republicans who voted “yes” during Trump’s last impeachment trial. 

Major Republican donors have reportedly told Mitch McConnell that they believe Trump had crossed a line when he incited the violent and deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol building last week, for which he was impeached. According to a GOP strategist, McConnell has told the donors that he is “finished with Trump.”

McConnell has indicated that he sees this impeachment as an opportunity for the Republican party to distance itself from divisive, chaotic Donald Trump. Might as well…He’s on his way out the door, anyway, and he’s clearly not a good look for the GOP if they want donations.

With McConnell signaling “permission,” several Republican senators, including Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), have indicated that they might vote to convict. In today’s Republican Congress, where lawmakers have absurdly excused Trump for the most corrupt, dangerous deeds, this is extraordinary.

As major party donors have suspended giving, and as some GOP senators are finding their courage to take the non-sycophantic route and vote their conscience against Trump, corporate America is distancing itself from Donald Trump, as well as from his Republican allies. Companies such as Goldman-Sachs, Comcast, Ford, Coca Cola, and Hallmark have suspended political contributions, following last week’s rioting at the Capitol.  

“The U.S. business community has interests fully in alignment with the American public and not with Trump’s autocratic bigoted wing of the GOP,” says Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, of Yale University’s management school. 

“…It also signals that companies are growing skittish about lawmakers who backed Trump’s false claims of election fraud, possibly depriving Republicans of public backing from business groups who until recently were the heart of the GOP’s political brand,” write Josh Boak, Brian Slodysko, and Tom Krisher of the Associated Press.

One might wonder what took them so long.

In his last days in office, Donald Trump appears to be the Incredible Shrinking President, with dwindling clout, plummeting public esteem, and, reportedly, failing finances. It even appears that his days outside a prison cell may be numbered. 

Nevertheless, we should not assume for a moment that Trump’s influence will just fade away. 

Trump’s ardent followers—including those who showed up to desecrate the U.S. Capitol building and “stop the government”— are not going anywhere (except, perhaps, prison for awhile). No one has convinced them that Donald Trump will not remain president, or that the conspiracy theories about the election and the “deep state” are false. No one whom they trust is willing to insist on the truth. 

The 139 Republican Representatives and eight senators who voted to overturn the election results in favor of Donald Trump did so after the Trump-incited mob attack on the Capitol and on Congress. Many of them still refuse to say out loud that the election was not stolen.

The QAnon conspiracy theory has now slithered into a couple of seats in Congress. Two known QAnon believers, Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Colorado’s Lauren Boebert, were elected to the House of Representatives this year. Among other things, QAnon supporters believe that Donald Trump has come to vanquish the Democrats and the Hollywood elite, and abolish their satanic ring of pedophiles. 

Though not all Trump supporters buy into the fallacies of Q, or would stage an insurrection, they have shown their cult-like adherence to Trumpism, and their allegiance to Trump as their savior. Cult behavior doesn’t just disappear. 

Nevertheless, in five days, Donald Trump, the instigator-in-chief and the spreader of dangerous lies and conspiracy theories… Donald Trump, for whom Republican lawmakers became cowardly clowns… Donald Trump, impeachment record holder and widely considered the worst president the United States has ever had, will no longer hold the most powerful position in the free world.

McConnell Joins GOP Representatives in Agreeing With Impeachment |
Bloomberg Quicktake: Now [2021-01-13]

Trump becomes 1st president impeached twice, Senate trial up next | ABC News WNT [2021-01-13]

Editorial: Was Wednesday’s Insurrection at the U.S. Capitol Really Surprising?

What may be the ultimate failure for a democratic country— an attack on its government by its people, instigated by its leader— Donald Trump saw only as a huge tribute to himself. President Trump, the leader of the free world, incited a MAGA insurgence at the United States Capitol on Wednesday, in efforts to stop the lawful certification of Joe Biden as the next president of the United States. 

Going far beyond peacefully and legally protesting, the large mob broke windows, breached security boundaries, and got inside the building, invading the Senate and House chambers, and other private spaces, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office. Lawmakers, along with Vice President Mike Pence, hid under furniture, or were evacuated from the chambers, fearing for their safety. A pair of rioters tore down the American flag hanging on the Capitol building and replaced it with a blue Trump flag.

One would expect the president of the United States to put down anything resembling a coup, let alone the trespassing and vandalism of the U.S. Capitol, the threatening and endangering of lawmakers and staff members, and the violence that resulted in five deaths and numerous injuries. But Donald Trump was nowhere to be found. 

Americans, as well as people around the world, found Wednesday’s storming of the Capitol building by Trump loyalists shocking and horrifying, as they should. 

But why should any of us be particularly surprised? Why were the U.S. Capitol Police so unprepared for this? We all knew it was coming. 

Donald Trump has been pushing lies and conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election since long before the election. He has insisted, over and over, that Joe Biden won the election only because of voter fraud. Congressional Trump loyalists have gone along with Trump, either out of self-preservation or delusion, even though Trump’s claims have been shown to be entirely baseless.

Trump has programmed his MAGAs to view non-support of Trump, especially among Republicans, as treason. He has convinced them that it’s not only ok, but in fact a mark of patriotism, to employ violence and harassment against those who choose to follow the rule of law instead of the cult of Trump. In Trumpworld, there is no acceptable reality other than fealty to Donald Trump, the rightful president for (at least) four more years, no matter what the democratic process says. 

On the day when Congress was to meet in a joint session to formally certify the electoral votes from presidential election that had already been certified by all 50 states, Trump knew what his supporters had in mind as they gathered on the White House Ellipse. He told the crowd of MAGAs that he would go with them to the Capitol. 

“If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” he said. “Let the weak ones get out. This is a time for strength.” 

Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s later, told them, “Let’s have trial by combat.”

Trump did not go with his supporters to the Capitol. He left them on their own to do what they would— what he must have known they would. 

It wasn’t until President-elect Joe Biden addressed the nation, denouncing the spectacle as “insurrection,” and calling on President Trump to deliver a message to calm the chaos, that Trump created a short video message. Though the video told the MAGAs to “go home,” the real message was clear: “Ya’ done good here today.” 

“I know your pain, I know you’re hurt,” said Trump in the video. “We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election, and everyone knows it, especially the other side. But you have to go home now. We have to have peace. We have to have law and order, we have to respect our great people in law and order. We don’t want anybody hurt. It’s a very tough period of time. There’s never been a time like this where such a thing happened…”

“This was a fraudulent election,” Trump continued, baselessly. “But we can’t play into the hands of these people. So go home. We love you. You’re very special.”

People who subscribe to conspiracy theories like being told that they’re “very special.” In fact, scientists and psychologists have found a correlation between “a need for uniqueness” and belief in conspiracy theories (“I know things they don’t know”). The crowd of Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol had varying backgrounds; many were supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory. A common thread among all of those present, however, was that they all believed the conspiracy theory that the election was stolen from Donald Trump. 

Instead of putting down the insurrection, Trump was thanking those who participated. Telling them that they were “very special” was a pat on the head he surely must have known they’d latch onto. 

As the FBI and other law enforcement agencies work to identify and prosecute those involved in Wednesday’s uprising at the Capitol, and as lawmakers denounce it and say it must never happen again, we shouldn’t be so confident that it won’t happen again.

Many who were involved in Wednesday’s rioting have already declared their willingness to go to jail or even to die for what Donald Trump has deluded them into thinking is a “cause” for freedom and democracy. They won’t be deterred by the threat of legal consequences, but will instead continue to be spurred on by the promise of being “special” to Donald Trump; of being “true patriots.”

The day after the riot at the Capitol, perhaps fearing that his last days in office might be marked by an act of censure, Donald Trump turned on his “patriots,” delivering a message that was clearly scripted.

“I am outraged by the violence, lawlessness, and mayhem,” he said. “Those who broke the law, you will pay.” 

The MAGAs have shown that they will do anything, forsake everything, for their leader, Donald Trump. One could almost feel pity that Donald Trump is then willing to throw them under the bus when he needs to, for self-preservation. The MAGAs will continue to explain away Trump’s betrayal, and will be standing at the ready for Trump’s next dog whistle. How tragic that this delusion of patriotism is really only in the service of nourishing Donald Trump’s cavernous ego.

Pro-Trump mob launches insurrection at US Capitol amid Biden certification | Nightline [2021-01-07]

President Donald Trump absent as supporters storm Capitol Hill
CNBC [2021-01-06]