Trump and Jail

As expected, the outcome of the Manhattan trial of Donald Trump has merely entrenched the beliefs and emotions of pro-Trump and anti-Trump groups.  The vitriolic response continues to heat up from both sides.

Liberals believe they are vindicated in trying to jail Trump (not an accomplished goal yet).  They are ecstatic that Lady Justice has won.  However, it is not justice.  It is revenge.  And in this instance, revenge is not a dish served cold.  It is red hot and could cause a Civil War within this country.

If Trump goes to jail, there could be a storming of his prison by acolytes and adherents, comprising even greater size and wrath than the mob that took the Bastille at the start of the French Revolution.  The better outcome would have been a hung jury, even by one lone vote.  This would have given both sides a palatable victory.  It would slightly lower the temp on the pot enough to keep the lid on.

But if Trump is jailed, we all need to batten down the hatches.  Both liberals and conservatives will be responsible for what happens next.  For both sides have weaponized and politicized the law.

And it all goes back to Richard Nixon’s impeachment.

Nixon’s Impeachment

Essentially the Left made Nixon leave office not for interfering with an election (by way of breaking into Democrat offices along with an array of “dirty tricks”), but for obstruction of justice and perjury.  Nixon’s upbringing, filled with fears and insecurities, made him incapable of shouldering blame and, consequently, fessing up.  (Even his “Checkers” speech was a sham).  If he had told his henchmen to come clean from the start, he might have survived. Yet even bringing down Nixon’s top lieutenants (Haldeman, Erlichman and Mitchell) didn’t quench the bloodlust of the Left.  They had to pressure and squeeze Nixon hard enough to self-destruct.  They succeeded.

But why were they so determined?  Because they hated Nixon before he was ever elected.  Nixon had used HUAC (House Un-American Activities Committee) to climb the ladder of national politics.  He did this much as Joesph McCarthy did in the Senate; by ferreting out Communists within the federal government.  The names Nixon and McCarthy became anathema to the Left.  Just as when a light is flicked on, the residue of FDR’s ensconced communists scattered like cockroaches in the night.  The Left had to distance themselves from, in many circumstances, their card-carrying (Communist Party membership) friends and allies.  Some had to provide public penance for carrying those cards themselves. It was humiliating for the Left.  And someone would be held to account.

When rants from an alcoholic McCarthy discredited his anti-communist efforts, the Left that survived had to rebrand.  Now the 1960s, the communists of the 1930s dropped the tag in favor of Liberal or, for stalwarts, Socialist).  McCarthy was destroyed, but Nixon survived, even thrived (gaining the presidential launching pad of VP under Eisenhower).  McCarthy had imploded.  The left waited to mete out their punishment of Nixon.

On top of his anti-communist assaults, Nixon had another strike against him. The left saw him as the anti-hero, the foil, to their martyrdom of Jack Kennedy.  There was no way this low-class, community college-educated, lip-sweating, five o’clock shadowed, socially awkward bumpkin should share the same exalted office as Saint John.  It was an affront to the “effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals.” (Nixon’s VP, Spiro Agnew).  Nixon didn’t handle personal attacks with aplomb or wit (as Reagan managed a decade later).  Instead, he absorbed every insult into his being and succumbed to the darkness of an upbringing on the edge of poverty, made further joyless through strict religiousness.  His mind constantly set darkness against his better angels, eventually providing self-flagellation through stupid deeds.  Nixon made himself an easy target because he had scripted tragedy to prevail.  If Shakespeare had written his plays in the 1960s and 1970s, Nixon would have been his role model for MacBeth.

So how is this Nixon episode applied to current events revolving around Trump?

Impeachment = Revenge

It set the stage for revenge in modern presidential politics.  It began efforts to delegitimize every new President from the moment they take the oath of office.  And the ultimate weapon for these efforts resides in ceaseless rounds of impeachment proceedings for every president since Nixon.

VP Gerald Ford became President after Nixon resigned.  Through a firestorm of criticism against Ford for giving Nixon a “full and unconditional pardon,” there is little doubt that Democrats would have begun impeachment proceedings if Ford had won the presidential election against Jimmy Carter.  Irony could have seen Ford hoisted on his own petard.  For when he was in the House of Representatives, he had begun impeachment proceedings against Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, citing what most saw as non-impeachable offenses.  The petard resides in Ford’s quote on the House floor, “An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history.”

Not exactly a strict constitutionalist interpretation.  But it does reflect justification for most impeachment charges since.

All the President’s Charges

Reagan, Bush, Bush Jr. and Obama all had impeachment efforts begun against them.  But they  came to no avail.  Surprisingly Reagan wasn’t impeached for Iran-Contra Affair (a.k.a. Iran-Contra Scandal or IranGate).  He said he didn’t remember approving things that would have gotten him impeached.  This sounds very close to the mishandling of Classified Documents-At-Home criminal charges that Biden dodged via the special prosecutor giving him a pass. using the “depiction of him (Biden) as an elderly man who was absent-minded in interviews.” Apparently, forgiveness for advanced age is non-sectarian.

The next occurrence was Bill Clinton’s impeachment.  The married man had sex in the Oval Office with an intern.  A moral offense? An affront to America’s image in the world?  An insult to every person believing in the sanctity of marriage?  Yes, definitely.  But that is not what he was impeached for.  According to the Starr Report, (Clinton) [had] “criminally obstructed the judicial process” through perjury.   The sex deeds of which he stood accused were true.  But did they rise to the level of impeachable offenses?  Not according to the Senate.

Clinton, like Nixon should have handled their attackers head on.  When Congress demanded Nixon’s smoking-gun tapes, he should have barbecued them on the south lawn of the Whitehouse, with the press invited, and fought it out with Congress from there.   Instead of lying about it, Clinton should have told Congress and the world, “My sex life is none of your G__ D__ business.”

But special prosecutor Kenneth Starr went after Clinton like a crusading knight.  It all started with a sexual harassment lawsuit against Clinton by Paula Jones.  Starr dug further.  He exposed the lurid details of the Monica Lewinski and Clinton’s liaison in his written report to Congress in order to accuse Clinton of criminal obstruction (via perjury) for denying the acts.  The family man and lifelong politician was so embarrassed, and knew his wife and daughter were mortified at details going public, he had to deny them, as do most men caught in this act.  Does this rise to the level of perjury, or just knee-jerk CYA?

Clinton was impeached and trial was held in the Senate.  In the end, Clinton remained in office as the Senate did not achieve the 67 votes necessary for conviction.  But it did cause great embarrassment for Clinton.  By way of association. It also tarnished Hillary’s political future.  As Hillary lost the 2008 Democrat race to Obama and the 2016 Presidential race to Trump, Bill’s tainted love might have cast aspersion upon Hillary’s ability to “keep her man at home.”  This could have weakened a demographic she relied upon, women.

Although it came up short of a two-third majority, Bill Clinton’s impeachment was the Conservatives’ revenge for Nixon.

And the left impeached Trump when he was President – TWICE!  And they will do it again if he jumps all legal hurdles, stays out of jail and gains the office for a second time.

Conservatives are trying to impeach Biden as this is written.

Teflon Don & Bill

Until Trump, there were only two impeachments of a sitting president, Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton (Nixon would have been impeached had he not resigned).  Now attempts at impeachment have become de rigueur.

For charismatic or populist politicians like Clinton or Trump, accusations, truth, or even convictions aren’t enough to dissuade core political supporters.  Clinton proved this in his 1996 re-election, and Trump is proving it now in spite of his legal problems.

After Biden’s presidential win in 2020, the Left thought they were rid of Trump.

Surprise!  Populists are difficult to irradicate.  It appears that prosecutors are adopting the spirit of Gerald Ford’s interpretation of impeachment standards, and applying it to all laws, State and Federal.  The entire Judicial system is being weaponized by those in power against their opponents. This is a third-world reaction, not the reaction of a modern democracy.

Consequences of Delegitimizing Law

Using Impeachment as a means of revenge and as an Ad Hoc mudslinging fest diminishes the intentions of our Constitution. Our Founding Fathers set a high standard for enacting this law: treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. Although we may find sexual misconduct morally reprehensible (applied to Clinton or Trump), it does not rise to the test of an impeachable offense. All we achieve through misuse of the impeachment clause is:

• Decreasing respect by the public for any and all laws
• Turning a strong opponent into a martyr and increasing his/her strength
• Disenfranchising supporters of a political icon
• Generating a seething and wronged army of the people
• Potentially filling streets with violent protests
• Jolting the power pendulum from one extreme to the opposite

If laws can be misapplied, current political leaders should not expect to escape retribution.  It will be either legal or physical.

This article is not written as a threat.  It is, however, a warning.  The constant effort of each political party to behead the leadership of the other is shortsighted and dangerous.  It does not meet the measurement of good governance.  It does nothing to advance our nation or make it a better place in which to live.  It is governance through disruption and accomplishes nothing positive.

Political parties are not expected to lock arms and sing Kumbaya.  However, in our democracy, election of an opposing party every two or four years should result, at best, in some form of cooperation on areas of commonality or, at worst, resistance to areas strongly opposed.  But that opposition should not be in the form of high voltage rhetoric designed to stir the wrath of voters, or unwarranted defamation of one’s opponents, and certainly not falsehoods knowingly circulated for mass consumption.

To the entire world, America has touted ourselves as that shining beacon on the hill.  We should be the example of good government and fairly applied justice.  Let’s leave vengeful, misapplied laws to the pros, like China and Russia.

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