Have A Jolly Old Impeachment!

 

It's the best time of the year!
Oh, by golly, have a jolly old impeachment this year!

 

The GOP-leaning talking heads are saying this week that the Democrats have had it in for this president since the day he took the oath of office. There is more-than-a-little justification for that sentiment. Some of the argument against him was reasoned, some was decidedly over the top (as when a certain congresswoman from Michigan declared, within weeks of Trump taking office, that she would impeach the "motherfucker"). Even I thought that her statement was doing more harm than good. But we must not forget that Donald J. Trump came to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue with too many skeletons to catalogue. And they weren't "in the closet". They were out on the south lawn of the White House dancing a Can-Can chorus line. They love to tell us that, by impeaching this disgusting chief-executive, they are canceling-out the will of the American electorate. What they neglect to mention is that Donald Trump is only in office because of an eighteenth century blight on the American system called "the electoral college". More Americans voted for Hillary Clinton. This is something that should never be forgotten.

It's almost unfathomable to me when I realize the fact that, only four times in American history, has an American president faced the prospect of impeachment - and that three of those times have been within the span of my lifetime (I turned sixty-one in August of this year). We do live in extraordinary times, no question about it. Say what you will about the era of Donald Trump, for all of its despair and craziness, it has certainly not been boring, much like the era of Dick Nixon was anything but boring. But Nixon, for all his many flaws, was a pretty smart guy. Other than Theodore Roosevelt and Jack Kennedy, he was the smartest man to live in the Executive Mansion during the twentieth century.

Donald Trump is an idiot.

James Buchanan

Think about this: prior to the elevation of Trump to the highest office in the world, historians almost unanimously believed the worst president in history to be James Buchanan, who presided in the four years prior to the administration of Abraham Lincoln. It is his inaction and incompetence that is largely blamed for the onset of the war between the states, which commenced in the final month of his tenure. Lincoln inherited a catastrophe from this man. For all of Buchanan's flaws, he came to the office with decades of government and ambassadorial experience. He had a resume as impressive as any man of his time. For a brief moment, I would ask all of you to consider the resume of Donald J. Trump upon being sworn in on January 20, 2017. This is going to end badly - but I repeat myself.

Donald Trump was impeached the other day by the House of Representatives. His trial will be going to the senate next month. It is likely that he will be acquitted there - which is probably just as well. Mike Pence is as dangerous a dingbat (although not quite as insane) as The Donald, and we'll probably be just-as-well riding out the storm between now and January 20, 2020. Anyway you look at it, this  is a lose-lose situation. Between now and a year-and-a-month from today, America is fucked. Get used to it.

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY

SUGGESTED LISTENING:

A Christmas Carol
by Tom Lehrer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeQ-f8FqdfQ

This recording is from 1959. I'm happy to inform you that Tom still walks among us. He's one of the great satirists of the last century. He is as good as they have ever gotten.