Impeached, but Not Convicted

Yesterday the trial of President Donald John Trump began in the United States Senate. When you are about to do something awful to a person, you use their full name. You don’t put the “Donald” on trial - this is supposed to be serious business. As so many say, “This is a constitutional crisis.” Or you may hear, “Donald J. Trump is a threat to our nation’s security.” Excuse me if I laugh out loud at such disingenuous rhetoric. The trial will be over soon enough, and the democrats will have done their best to damage Trump in order to give them a chance to win the 2020 election. The unspoken truth that no one wants to say out loud is that in order to win the democrats need a candidate who can win, and they don’t have one. The crisis we face doesn’t have to do with democrats or republicans or who runs. The underlying problem will not go away.

We have the president we deserve in this reality TV show-based culture we have created. And who rises up out of this glitzing culture we have built? Donald J. Trump. I’m just thankful it wasn’t Homer Simpson, or Archie Bunker, or even Howard Stern. People wanted to drain the swamp and give the middle finger to the cultural elites. So, what you have witnessed is one tough dude draining a swamp. And the reason he is so good at it is because he is sort of a swamp creature himself. He mocks and ridicules the democrats and the press, but I repeat myself. The battle lines are easily drawn. There is Trump, the Republicans, Fox News, The Daily Wire, Talk Radio, and a rock-solid conservative nation versus the democrats. The democrats have the media and its stars, the New York Times (a former newspaper), and the Washington Post. I never thought I would long for the fairness of its former managing editor, Ben Bradlee, but I do. Then there is television - CBS, NBC, ABC, NPR, CNN, MSNBC, Bloomberg Media, etc. Oh yes, a new player is the Babylon Bee, the satirical Christian site that mocks and ridicules everyone. But CNN and the left have no sense of humor. They have mocked and ridiculed the right and the religious for decades. Now Trump and Babylon Bee have become adept at doing the same to them and they don’t like it and get their feelings hurt. Poor babies.

Back to the underlying problem that won’t go away.

I’ve just been rereading Amusing Ourselves to Death by the late Neil Postman - a masterpiece of the 1980s. Postman writes, “Contrary to common belief, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity, and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.” [1]

That sea of irrelevance is before us in the impeachment of President Trump and in the basic narrative being fed to us through the media. Truth and objectivity have become a relic of the past in the fantasy world of politics, image projection, and competition for power. The general excitement in Washington DC concerning the Senate trial is the massive screen time given to senators and the lawyers. It is all political theater; the grease paint is in abundance. They want to make sure they are on in prime time. Careers will be made, fees will go up, book deals will be made, and the elite will flourish. And the funny thing is that in the meantime, the big orange swamp thing whose actual hair makes toupees look cool is making America safer, your job more secure, your health care cost less, and religious liberty to flourish. As a bonus, he protects the unborn, believes in gay rights and marriage, and periodically, when he isn’t thinking up new names to call his opponents, he ensures that the government won’t steal your money, your freedom, and won’t confiscate your salt shaker and hand gun. Reality has its own voice. If you turn off your TV and shut down your media feed, your head might clear, and you might find yourself thinking for yourself. And that voice of reality will come through loud and clear.

I don’t know if you noticed that Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren sit next to each other in the Senate. Late last night (well after midnight in the Senate chamber) I began to drop off. I thought I saw Bernie and Liz holding hands under their desks. What was I watching? Our government at work, or a made for Netflix movie about political enemies who have a secret love affair and shock the world by moving to Cuba because of their swell free health care and free college tuition for their grandchildren?

Huxley was right, the truth is underwater and may have drowned. I don’t know about you, but I am amused. You have heard that comedy bit Bill Maher does, “I can’t prove it, but I just know that it is true.” I know the entire impeachment thing is phony. It is the 2020 democratic political campaign strategy. By their own standards of impeachment, I think I can impeach them in my own court, but I won’t be able to convict. I can’t prove it, but I just know it is true.

Oh, by the way, I didn’t vote for Trump in 2016.

[1] Amusing Ourselves to Death, Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, Neil Postman, Penguin Books, New York, page VI , 1985.