No Question Impeachment Is Not Enough, Not Nearly Enough For What One Donald J Trump Has Done But Where The Hell Do You Go With It

By Alan Jackson

Back in the early 1970s when we had a comparable problem with a POSTUS, then one Richard Milhous Nixon, petty thief and major criminal I remember reading a headline from some left-wing newspaper which heralded in big bold type “Impeachment Is Not Enough.” And it was not, could not be for all the violations of bourgeois political norms as loose as they were then to speak nothing of his role in keeping troops in Vietnam long past their due date. The political configurations were a bit different then, including that it had been a century since a sitting president was to head to the dunking stool. The gest of that headline was that Nixon should face an international tribunal composed of his war victims, or their representations (the dockets would have been overflowing in that case for he would not be alone in that housecleaning). That real justice never happened since the felon avoided the perp walk complete with orange jumpsuit by resigning before the gauntlet fell.

Now we have a situation which clearly admits to an impeachment proceeding for violations of bourgeois norms and conscious obstruction of justice staring with the boss, with the POSTUS, now one Donald J. Trump, petty thief and major criminal all the way down the slippery slope to who knows what end. But the configuration is all wrong this time although if there was a way to get a conviction in the Republican-dominated Senate  I would move mountains to see that small piece of justice done. But the times have no such look. A Democratic major in the House responding to their base, or their sense of what is right in American political discourse, has though myriad committees decided to draft and eventually vote on some articles of impeachment. That task done the ball is in the Senate’s court which I have already mentioned is stacked the other way. Once again the bad guys will draw a pass from a little social justice.   

What I worry about and you should too is the fallout from the failure to convict. Stacked or not this would be a tremendous propaganda victory for Trump and his minions. The only virtue is that perhaps it is far enough away from next November’s elections so that the factor is blunted, although it will not go away. The Democrats, including their current crop of presidential candidates ready to smite Mr. Trump, have generally supported the impeachment process. But they, despite some candidates’ significant poll edges over Trump NOW, will bear the burden of the hellfire and mud coming down on this one. You did not hear this bad tiding news here first but you have heard it here.