Impeachment Vote
Congress met last week to debate and vote on impeachment in the House. It was another surreal moment in this hellish January where we got to see the culmination of this presidency distilled into an unprecedented political event. A second impeachment. Two other presidents (Johnson & Clinton) in our history up until now have been impeached and Trump got hit with two in one term. We all pretty much knew how the vote was going to go but the mental gymnastics done to oppose impeachment were on full display. There were a number of arguments for and against moving forward with this process that I’ll outline below (at least what I remember….):
For Impeachment:
He incited a riot
He has been dividing the country for years with his discordant rhetoric
He’s racist
He never actually cared about this country
He’s been lifting up white supremacy for his own political gain
He is a threat to democracy because of… (see above)
Against Impeachment:
This will only cause a further divide and it’s all for show
He’s only going to be president for a few more days, what can go wrong?
The people deserve someone who’s going to fight for them (them of course being Trump supporters)
He’s entitled to free speech
He never directly said to storm the Capitol, the mob took his words literally
My constituency told me to vote against impeachment
All in all it was tough to watch, because if this event didn’t convince or at least change minds about the threat he has been to this country and could be in the next few weeks, this really was all for naught. Yes, it was nice to see him be impeached twice but there is no real justice unless he’s found guilty and stripped of all of the privileges a former president has. The Senate apparently is not going to be working on impeachment until after inauguration, which I am still baffled by because of logistics. There are articles that have tried to explain how the trial would go, but I don’t have the brain power to suss out what just seems like a lot of, we really don’t know.
Though it’s a step in the right direction, I still can’t help but to feel drained and irritated by the state of the country and all of these think pieces about how we got here by people who ignored the signs for years. I remember when he was first elected, the warnings about fascism were everywhere. It was almost too much. There was one piece I read that said, if you do nothing, you too won’t recognize your country in a few years. Another one said something like, it’s not going to happen all at once, but you’ll realize one day your freedoms have been chipped away. This WaPo article even had a fascist measuring system rating Trump on his levels in 2016. The country hasn’t reached some of the hypothetical extremes outlined in some of those articles, but there is negatively palpable impact he has forever made on every facet of society.
We’re Still Fighting for Martin Luther King Jr.’s Dream
I was speaking with my family yesterday. We talked about how his devastatingly poor leadership has made it impossible to ignore the blaring disparities in this country. The reckoning was inevitable but his disaster of a presidency exacerbated the process. Black and brown communities have understood and experienced this inequality that is finally becoming apparent to the rest of Americans for decades. When the civil rights movement came to an abrupt end after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, the work he did and the issues he talked about didn’t disappear. For decades activists and community leaders have picked up the reins and continued to fight in their communities, for his beautiful dream. After his death, national attention to eradicate racism became a whisper and would echo louder in the subsequent years when blaring acts of police brutality or domestic terrorism would make headlines. Our fight never stopped, though history books would want you to believe that after the civil rights movement, everyone was equal. No, no, no, no. Instead, racism just looked different. It became an undertone instead of an overtone in language and entertainment. The N word was replaced by “those people” or “ghetto” or “thug.” Racism was repackaged and repurposed into programs and laws that are systemically racist and prejudice. The new Jim Crow.
It gives me hope that more Americans are seeing these polarities now. It really is the only thing that’s keeping me from being the pragmatic nihilist that’s itching to surface. What isn’t helping are the leaders who are asking for unity without fully realizing what this unity means. In their terms, they are asking us all to unify with a group of people who fully identify with a sentiment that is actively looking to harm others. They are asking us all to unify with an idea that lead an overtly racist mob to wreck our nation’s Capitol in the name of feeling disenfranchised. A disenfranchisement masked as a movement brewing for months on the news, in media, on social media. A disenfranchisement that wasn’t that at all but a feeling of loss they just couldn’t reconcile so they clung to this unfounded election fraud that led to insurrection. YOUR GUY LOST. The elections were not rigged and everyone who peddled otherwise must know they have a direct hand in this insurgence. Those same people who were on TV, at rallies yelling about fraud are asking us all to unify and ignore the physical and psychological damage they themselves, Trump, and his followers have caused this country without accountability or even remorse. It’s a kind of “unity” that is empty and selfish. It’s what I like to call, “trash unity,” because it stinks and should be thrown out just like all of the leaders who supported the falsehood of a rigged election.
MLK asked for unity based on ideals and principles that would benefit the entire country not a small sect of entitled monsters. He asked for unity so that we may all thrive in a society that doesn’t put barriers on your dreams based on the color of your skin. He asked for an America that would be equitable regardless of where anyone came from. He challenged our nation to truly be free for everyone without compromising his message or ever playing the victim, which these Trump supporters are now doing. The epitome of gaslighting.
The type of unity that MLK asked for is the type of unity we need right now. It is offering a way forward through education, equity, and empathy. He didn’t say, let’s pretend racism doesn’t exist. He said racism exists, but this is why it’s tearing our country and all of us as individuals apart from the inside out. The message our country needs right now is a message of love but not of the lazy, thoughtless variety. A love that requires work and redemption. A love that is not a blind acceptance of the atrocities that have taken place over the last few years/decades, but an acknowledgement that what has happened did not happen in a vacuum and those issues need to be addressed before this love can flow freely.
I’ve been taking a break from doom scrolling through Twitter especially today, because I cannot stomach a politician using today to amplify a message for peace in the name of someone who was assassinated by hate because he preached peace. I just can’t do it. I won’t.
Another thing that’s given me solace is seeing those videos of rioters being thrown off planes and/or arrested. There are entire social media feeds dedicated to videos of those entitled cry babies being taken into custody. One woman flat out said the president should pardon them all because he told them to be there. And I- it’s just all so mind-blowing because he just might. He just might pardon all those fools. We’ll know tomorrow when he will undoubtedly pardon more people than any president we’ve ever seen in his final days.
Finally, this video has been making its rounds and though I doubt any of the people who actually need to see it will, it’s nice that this effort was made. I’ve been following Matthew Cooke for a little bit and his videos are always really well done so it was cool so see this one get so much traction (Leslie is so awesome haha):
Don’t know who this dude is but he broke that shit DOWN!! Listen especially the ones that need to hear it!! pic.twitter.com/gSZno2yaRh
— Leslie Jones 🦋 (@Lesdoggg) January 17, 2021
Today MLK’s words continue to be spoken and a lot of us are still clinging to his dream, but it’s time to do the work. We cannot move forward from here without dismantling the systems that led us here and will continue to keep us divided. It’s not going to be easy, but a change like this never is.