“It feels like a horror movie.”
As reported by The Washington Post today, this is how an anonymous “veteran” Republican senator expressed his or her experience of the impeachment inquiry, the difficulty of defending President Trump, and worries over still more damning revelations to come.
To which the rest of America replies, “Welcome to our world.”
There is a sweet, if superficial, justice in seeing some GOP politicians squirm as they watch in helplessness the reckoning that is slowly but certainly approaching them at the speed of impeachment, like expendable necking teens about to be axed in the opening sequence of a low-budget slasher flick. Especially delicious is the way in which the vast extent of the Trump’s lawlessness means that they’re constantly braced for news that might undermine prior defenses of the president; as one Republican strategist told the Post, “If they say something in defense of the president or against the impeachment inquiry now, will they be pouring cement around their ankles?” The mob imagery feels particularly apt.
Such reports of ongoing senatorial discomfort vindicate those who have advocated impeachment as a way to force Republican senators to make hard choices around their defense of Trump, particularly those from swing states, who risk alienating either the Republican base or other voters depending on whether they vote to convict or acquit the president.
Meanwhile, the GOP caucus in the House appears far less ambivalent about defending a corrupt president. But in continuing to stand by Trump, and repeating his slander and lies, those representatives are making themselves party to the very acts for which the Democrats are seeking to impeach him. In fact, when their appeal is not to exonerating truths but to the same deceit in which the president has engaged, it’s misleading to describe them as “defending” the president. More accurate would be to say that they are “acting as co-conspirators in a plot against the 2020 elections.”
The disarray among GOP senators, and the feral complicity of Republican representatives, both argue in different ways for the continued prosecution of an impeachment effort that is aimed as much as possible at making the maximal case for removing Donald Trump from office. We have no way of knowing whether or not enough (twenty) GOP senators would vote to remove Trump; but we do know that there is already much heartburn about the damage the president is doing to some senators’ electoral prospects, and about senators being forced to defend indefensible conduct. This should encourage Democrats that impeachment is not just a way to damage the president short of removal from office, but a mechanism with slim but very real odds of ending this waking nightmare of a presidency. The tenacity of House GOP members offers a complementary case for proceeding with impeachment: if Republican representatives are willing to make themselves part of the plot against America, then it highlights even more the necessity of removing Donald Trump from office and stopping this corruption of the rule of law at its source. It also highlights the basic indefensibility of Trump’s actions, which should encourage Democrats that they can win the public over to their side: if House Republicans have no argument but to repeat the president’s lies, they are tacitly admitting that he should be impeached, whether or not they realize it.