The Non-retirement of a Defeated Man - The Inconsequential Nature of Impeachment

 This article was originally written days after Donald Trump was acquitted by the US Senate for the second time. Due to numerous assessments bogging down life in general, it has only been published today. 

*****

When Joni Mitchell said that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone, I’m sure she was being sincere. Except with Donald Trump, we found out two weeks prior to his departure from office that American Democracy had gotten into a rather perilous place, with the incitement of insurrection and all that. I thought not hearing about Donald Trump’s daily thoughts would be rather tranquil. Perhaps too tranquil...

Yet it isn’t, because he is still there. Mar-a-Lago has become a strange Floridian purgatory. As Trump mulls an uncertain future, he continues to direct the actions of his party, intervening to skewer or laud his former allies, depending on the extent to which they believe in their newly defeated President.

Defeated candidates rarely go on to dictate the future of their party. When Gerald Ford lost, the GOP moved on to the dynamic, media friendly Ronald Reagan. When Bush Sr. lost, they regrouped under Newt Gingrich and the Contract for America. When McCain lost, they were re-energised by the burgeoning Tea Party movement. Yet Trump meanders on from his bunker, having cultivated a following that follows his every whim, a base that has yet to fracture, despite a conspicuous Twitter absence. This is unlikely to change after his acquittal last week.

Only Senator Murkowski of Alaska, buoyed by the open primary and ranked choice voting in her State, felt confident enough to convict Trump of his latest misdemeanours and face the electorate next November. She was joined by a rag tag of retirees, newly re-elected cynics and another Presidential runner-up, Mitt Romney.

In such a polarised nation, Impeachment was somewhat futile. Even making jurors witnesses to the last of Trump’s high crimes was not enough to convict the ‘inciter-in-chief’. It’s not surprising, considering that the method for electing Senators has long entrenched a minority rule. Party fanaticism is almost omnipresent within the Senate, the supposed saucer to the hot tea cup of day-to-day US Politics.

Moving on from impeachment, Republicans have an in-built electoral advantage in federal elections, due to the greater weighting of representation assigned to smaller states whilst large Democratic States of California and New York have lots of ‘wasted’ votes. It is therefore remarkable that the GOP is so far sticking by their defeated one-term President, who was capable of losing both the White House and Congress in just 4 years. Except it isn’t really a Grand Old Party anymore. Where there were once civil disagreements within the Big Tent, Trump’s dramatic rise and unexpected 2016 victory, civil disagreement was rolled over by cultish loyalty and vitriol – the same vitriol now being imitated by ‘(F)lying Ted’ Cruz among others, as he eyes a second run for the Oval Office.

Republicans in many ways brought Trump on themselves, for decades arguing for the merits of largely unchecked capitalism that left Americans exploited and disengaged from the political process. Then in 2016, after galvanising on this disenchantment under the guise of a populist demagogue, the largely ‘winner-takes-all’ primary system made Trump’s path to the nomination straightforward, winning the GOP’s golden ticket with just 45 percent of the vote.

Part of me would like Trump to run again in 2024 simply because I don’t think he’ll win. I just can’t see which voters would have voted for Biden, seen the storming of the Capitol and decided that Trump should be rewarded with a return to power. I doubt the family patriarch will, but I wouldn’t bet against a younger, smoother Trump throwing their MAGA hat into the ring. Either way, the Republicans need to move away from their latest Presidential loser, not just for their electoral prospects, but for democracy’s sake. A sincere message of hope and longing, set out of a scene of desperation, Joni Mitchell would approve…   

***


This article was also eventually published on the Student Newspaper website as a Comment piece and can be viewed here. It has also been added to my Student Links article containing all of my pieces written for the 'paper.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A True gauge of Happiness

Image
This article has been written having just read this news article . - BREAK FOR READING FULL ARTICLE OR ENOUGH TO GET THE GENERAL GIST.- This article amuses me. I'm curious how this survey of 1,000 people in each country can declare Norway remarkably perky and the Central African Republic down. It's certainly not wealth although it's easy to think so. The Danes pay ridiculous taxes with the wealthy paying up to 52% on their income. Mali meanwhile offers a choice of 30% or 3%. This rather bizarre system doesn't count for happiness though as they continue struggle on the happiness list. Instead it must stem from emotional feelings of satisfaction. This is Hygge. I'm not going to tell you how to pronounce as despite much debate, this is a blog not a vlog instead. Instead you can look at the picture. The point is if we all look after ourselves with small acts of self satisfaction, we would be better in the long term. Or at least happier. On the other hand...
Read more

Final year

Last semester, I occasionally thought about the students smoking in a huddle outside the library in mid October, puffing away late into the night, griping about a dissertation suffocating them into a state of self-pity. In that moment I felt detached, swept briefly away into a world I didn't understand yet seemingly expected myself to empathise with. The truth is that I did empathise, but only in the ludicrous, vague feeling of emptiness that accompanies anyone leaving the library late at night - the feeling that you have morphed into barely a husk of limp muscle, stretched excessively over a brain drained by the lateness of the hour. This is a final year. A final year is when the bedroom, once full of old family photos in a desperate attempt to project personality and emotion onto the walls, now exists barely for sleeping. Now campus is life’s centre, superseding all else. Writing this, I am once again ensconced within the horrendous grey of the main library before term has even b...
Read more

The Power of Identity

Image
This article is about vexillology (study of flags) Flags are a symbol of identity and can also act as a form of identification and also decoration. They carry pride and patriotism whilst being a form of recognition for a belief or way of life. So in such a troublesome time, is the flag the issue or is it the inaccurate interpretations by of the flag's intended connotations. Let's investigate... Flags were originated for battle so the oncoming armies could identify each other. It was for a simple purpose of recognition. Only during the development of maritime exploration did flags become necessary to identify nationalities. It was only in the late 18th century were flags officially produced with nationalist sentiment and by the mid 19th century, every sovereign state had its own flag. However the controversy of flags tends to predominantly come from colonial history and quests for independence. Two of the most recent examples are the confederat...
Read more