On Unity and Impeachment
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If you’ve ever seriously scraped yourself, or cut yourself deeply, you know the protocol. You clean the wound, sanitize it, then dress it appropriately. It’s nothing new; Louis Pasteur and others figured it out in the mid-1800’s. Of course, you might get better just by leaving it alone. Or the germs invited into your bloodstream could kill you.
The gash inflicted on out body politic on January 6th was a wound not to be ignored; it threatened the lifeblood of democracy. Germs from one branch of government declared war on another, as human pathogens from the Trump malignancy ran rampant through the Capitol.
The vast majority of elected officials in the political party to which those pathogens belong refuse to acknowledge the danger. They just hope somehow the disease will cure itself.
This occurs as those same Republicans are desperately calling for “unity”, as if the duly elected president and Congressional majorities will join them in refusing to treat the wound. That’s not going to happen.
There is no chance that Donald Trump will be convicted by 67 members of the Senate. But that’s not really the point. What will happen is that every member of that chamber will be called on to vote on whether Trump’s incitement of a direct attack was a good thing, or not. They will be asked whether the deaths and destruction in the Capitol were worth some higher cause. And if so, what that cause is.
Scientists have a new imaging process called a PCR that looks for viruses right inside our DNA. In that sense, impeachment is the PCR for our democracy. It allows voters to see how deeply the Trump infection has spread—and where exactly we need to attack it.
Once this wound is healed, we can talk about unity. For now, Republicans need only worry about whether they truly care about our country.
You are either a true patriot or a Trump pathogen.
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