by Vijaya Chandrasoma

The second impeachment of Donald Trump got under way last Tuesday.

Trump has the doubtful distinction of being the only president ever to have lost the popular election twice, by three million votes to Hillary Clinton in 2016 and by seven million to Biden in 2020, and the only president to be impeached twice in history. His other singular “achievements” include losing the House, the Senate and the presidency in a single term. These make Trump the undisputed political loser in the nation’s history, with a spectacular record of failure never to be breached in the future.

And amazingly, he remains a force in Republican politics today.

Trump’s second impeachment was initiated by the House of Representatives after his supporters stormed the Capitol on January 6, acting on his incitement. The nation’s lawmakers, 435 Representatives and 100 Senators were in session at the Capitol, presided over by Vice President Pence, to conclude their Constitutional duty of formalizing the 2020 elections of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

There was only one Article of Impeachment, charging Trump of “incitement of insurrection” in urging his supporters to march on the Capitol building.

January 6 was a day of infamy in US history, even surpassing the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941. Pearl Harbor was attacked by a foreign adversary, on the orders of their Emperor. The Capitol and the nation’s lawmakers were attacked by Americans, homegrown terrorists, on the orders of the President of the United States, who had taken an oath to protect the nation and all its citizens.

On the first day of the trial, Trump’s legal team argued that the impeachment of a former president, a private citizen, is unconstitutional. Their ill-presented argument represented the entirety of the Republican defense, the one “fig leaf” of constitutionality to cover a multitude of evidence against Trump. This argument, rejected by constitutional scholars, was outvoted by the Senate with a 56/44 majority, six Republicans voting with the Democrats. But the fig leaf was sufficient to provide the sycophantic Republican Senators an escape to acquit Trump.

Acquittal was a foregone conclusion before the trial began. There was no way that 17 Republican Senators necessary for a 2/3 majority to convict Trump would vote with the Democrats.

I am getting ahead of myself, but the evidence on the last day of the trial needs to take center stage. During the height of the violence, when the attack was unfolding and raging around them, when lawmakers, Republicans and Democrats, were terrified for their lives, they gave an account of a telephone call they heard between Kevin McCarthy, Republican House Minority Leader, pleading with Trump to order his supporters to stop the violence. At first, Trump denied that the terrorists were his people, but McCarthy insisted they were Trump supporters and begged him to call them off. In what developed to be an expletive-laden shouting match, a furious McCarthy told Trump the rioters were breaking into his office through the windows and repeated that all their lives were in danger.

Trump’s chilling response: “Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election, than you are”.

McCarthy ended the call in disgust, asking Trump; “Who the f… do you think you are talking to?”

At the end of the defence presentation on Friday, Senator Edward Markey (D – Mass.) noted that Trump’s lawyers were unable to answer the question as to what Trump was doing while the riots were raging for three hours in the afternoon of January 6. They were unable to address the question, because everyone knew the answer was “nothing”. Or perhaps, “Urging on the Rioters”.

It was perfectly obvious that Trump was more interested in the illegal nullification of the election than the lives of members of his legislative branch and their families, law enforcement and innocent bystanders.

Long before the November 3 election, when he realized that Biden would prove a serious danger to his re-election, Trump sowed the first seeds of The Big Lie of a rigged election. He ranted at election rallies that he could lose the election to “Sleepy Joe” Biden only if the election was rigged

Biden won the November election by a landslide. The results, especially in the Swing States of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona remained unchanged, even after numerous recounts and over 60 challenges by Trump in the District, Federal and Supreme Courts, all of which were dismissed for lack of a shred of evidence.

Still, Trump and 75% continued to propagate The Big Lie, that the election was stolen from Trump. The Big Lie was the reason for the storming of the Capitol on January 6 by the “Proud Boys”, “Oathkeepers” and white supremacist terrorists, carrying Confederate and TRUMP flags, wearing MAGA hats – modern reincarnations of KKK hoods and NAZI Swastikas.

The real heroes of the November 3 election are those mainly Republican legislators and election officials in the Swing States, who were bullied and threatened by Trump to illegally change or nullify the results of their elections. Without exception, they remained faithful to the Constitution, they refused to accede to the illegitimate demands of a defeated president.

The real cowards were the 12 Republican Senators, headed by Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, joined by 147 Congresspersons who promoted the Big Lie and continued to deny, against all evidence, the legitimacy of the presidential election victory of Joe Biden.

Trump had been ranting about his “victory” in the election since November 7, and the favorite chant at his rallies was “Stop the Steal”, that the election had been stolen from him. On December 20 Trump identified the date for stopping the steal, when he tweeted, “Statistically impossible to have lost the election. Big protest in DC on January 6. Be there, will be wild”.

He addressed the rally of thousands of his supporters he had summoned to Washington, inciting the already angered mob to a frenzy, to march on the Capitol and disrupt the formal certification of the new president. In his ignorance of the Constitution, Trump thought the violent disruption of the ceremonial certification of the November election was his last chance of subverting the election and clinging to power.

During the rally near the White House, minutes before the mob marched to the Capitol, Trump ranted, Hitler style, “We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore”. He used the word “fight” 20 times during his manic speech. During this rally, his personal lawyer, Rudi Giuliani talked of “Trial by Combat” and Donnie Junior exhorted the mob to “be a hero, not a zero”.

The most damning evidence against Trump, that the violence wrought by his mob had his complete approval, was that he was gleefully watching the ongoing violence on television at the White House, with his cheering family and cronies, for four hours. Four hours when he did nothing while the insurrection was raging and the lives of the nation’s lawmakers were in imminent danger. He delayed the deployment of the National Guard, and ignored desperate calls for help from his own Vice President and his supporters in Congress, who were the main targets of the insurrectionists.

The Impeachment Managers of the House, began their case with a 13-minute video of the insurrection, a chilling montage of the devastating violence of the riots. Impeachment Manager, Jamie Raskin, in an emotional speech said their case was based on “cold, hard facts’, before he showed the gruesome video, replete with acts of violence never before seen.

It was a miracle that there were “only” five deaths. More than 140 police officers were injured, one losing three fingers, a second having his eyes gouged, a third being impaled and bludgeoned with the pole of the waving flag he had sworn to serve. Two officers were so affected by the riots that they took their lives soon after. The insurrectionists were echoing their hero’s hatred of his own Vice President Pence (who had served Trump slavishly for four years, whose only crime was his decision to do his constitutional duty) and his arch-nemesis, Speaker Pelosi, with chants “Hang Mike Pence” and “Kill that (expletive) Pelosi”. Murders they would have definitely committed had they got their hands on them. There was a gallows with a noose constructed by them for this very purpose on the Capitol grounds. In fact, all the lawmakers present were within feet of getting killed but for the heroism of the Capitol police, who carried out their duties bravely at enormous cost to themselves.

The House Impeachment Managers presented even more damning video footage on Wednesday, more evidence of the terror faced by lawmakers, pathetic scenes of fear for their lives and those of their colleagues and families. One of the chants of the terrorists, that “We are in a Civil War” brought memories of the worst era in the nation’s history, an era of Americans fighting for the perpetuation of the abominable social system of slavery and white supremacy. Trump’s agenda for America for the 21st century.

Senators, Congresspersons and their families were hiding under desks, were haunted by the sounds of chaos and violence, of doors and windows being destroyed. They were praying, making whispered telephone calls and tweets bidding goodbye to their loved ones. Many thought that they were about to die. Individual stories of terror now emerging are heartbreaking.

The atrocities wrought by these vicious domestic terrorists, urged on by the American reincarnation of Osama Bin Laden, outdid any violence and caused panic that Al Qaeda and ISIS terrorists would have been proud to emulate.

The president’s legal team continued with an appalling, rambling defence that had the contempt of even the president and his cronies. These lawyers were certainly not of the highest caliber, but in all fairness, no lawyer jealous of his reputation will represent Trump. He is an impossible client, who presents a defense that is indefensible.

Several Senators, Cruz, Hawley, Rubio, jurors at the trial, met with the president’s team in an effort to elicit a better performance at their final arguments on Friday. A meeting completely at odds with the oath they took, as jurors, to remain impartial. Oaths mean nothing to these Republicans, the only thing that matters is their fawning subservience to Trump.

The facts as presented by the prosecution are not in doubt. The accused’s team can only argue on procedure. Their argument that Trump, inciting a crazed mob of his own armed and violent supporters and the subsequent murder and mayhem at the Capitol, was covered by the First Amendment of free speech, borders on the insane.

But however poorly they perform, they know the race has been won before the horses left the gate.

Republican politicians may pretend to be unaffected by the violence of January 6. They may be so consumed by power and ambition as to applaud the treachery of a former president desperately fighting to retain his. Their numbers are few, a handful of Cruzes, Grahams, Lees and Pauls, a sycophantic minority of politicians denying the diversity of modern America. They will soon meet with their collective political deaths. Along with Trumpism.

The violence of January 6 has been seen with fearful disgust in the hearts and minds of a large majority of the American people. Trump’s approval ratings are in the doldrums, the lowest of any former president. His attempts to transform the Republican Party to an authoritarian, white supremacist junta are doomed to abject failure. His fetid miasma, and that of his ever-diminishing, white supremacist “base”, will disappear, as if by a miracle, sooner than later. His memory will be viewed by history, in 20 years or less, with the hatred and contempt the German people reserve for the memory of Hitler today.

At least, Adolf and Eva felt extreme shame and decided to escape public ignominy and certain prison/execution by committing suicide. Trump is shame-free.

The verdict of the trial will be rendered on Valentine’s Day. I doubt if Cupid will have many arrows of love and unity in his quiver.