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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTrump Has Been Impeached. Republicans Are Following Him Down - NYTimes Editorial Board
On Wednesday evening, the House of Representatives impeached the president of the United States. A magnificent and terrible machine engineered by the founders, still and silent through almost all of American history, has for only the third time in 231 years shifted into motion, to consider whether Congress must call a president to account for abuse of power.
So why does it all seem so banal? The outcome so foreordained?
Most people say they know whats going to happen, and who are we to say theyre wrong? The House voted to impeach Donald Trump by a party-line vote, with the exception of three Democrats representing Trump-friendly districts who voted against at least one article of impeachment. In the next month or two, the Senate will almost surely acquit him, also on a party-line vote.
It isnt supposed to be this way. Theres plenty of blame to go around for the intense really, infantilizing degree of polarization that has overwhelmed American politics across the past 40 years. But the nihilism of this moment the trashing of constitutional safeguards, the scorn for facts, the embrace of corruption, the indifference to historical precedent and to foreign interference in American politics is due principally to cowardice and opportunism on the part of Republican leaders who have chosen to reject their partys past standards and positions and instead follow Donald Trump, all the way down.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/18/opinion/trump-impeachment-vote.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
handmade34
(22,757 posts)The Blue Flower
(5,444 posts)The r's seemed to be trying to outdo each other in their childish behavior--the taunts, the smirks, the shouting--to the degree that many of us had to mute them or change the channel. I'm guessing that a large number of those watching did the same and will change the channel come the next election.
crickets
(25,983 posts)Hermit-The-Prog
(33,413 posts)Graphic evidence of GOPerism:
Show me where the Democratic Party has warped culture, society, and laws in order to feed the filthy rich, destroy the environment, and disenfranchise voters who don't vote for Democrats.
Show me the vast Democratic Party media propaganda machine that blasts alternate reality conspiracies to the population 24/7, 365 days a year.