I was going to write a Facebook post letting my friends know that I wasn't going to write a blog today simply because there's just so much to process after Saturday's acquittal of President Trump from impeachment proceedings.
Then I realized explaining my decision would require a blog.
For those of us who hoped for a guilty verdict, the 57-43 outcome was never in doubt, and we knew that. Certainly not with a jury that included co-conspirators (therefore Hawlings, Cruz, et al, couldn't vote to convict themselves), hypocrites (apparently a politician's birthright) and those beholden to donors (another baked-in birthright).
The only real surprise were the seven Republican crossovers, who became the first Senators to cross party lines to vote against a member of their own party in a presidential impeachment. Petty Republican repercussions are pending.
Even Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell said Trump was guilty, moments after he voted for Trump's acquittal (hypocrite category).
A guilty verdict was never going to result in jail time anyway.
So what happens now? This is where I need to process.
Because we knew this jury would never convict, the purpose of the impeachment proceedings turned out to be putting Republicans on record with their votes, as well as a desire to keep Trump from running for office in the future.
The next step might be pursuing Section III of the 14th Amendment, which prohibits any person from holding office who "shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion..." Trump's incitement of his white nationalist storm troopers of Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and Three Percenters to assault the Capitol on Jan. 6 during a Constitutionally-mandated certification of electoral votes is the insurrection. A simple majority vote of Congress, and not an impossible two-thirds vote, is all that is needed.
Outside of that potential Federal remedy, there are civil and criminal investigations underway in both Georgia (where Trump attempted to change the vote count with a threatening phone call to the state's Secretary of State) and New York, where Trump is facing, among other things, charges of racketeering and bank fraud. Convictions there could result in jail time, and even if he gave himself a secret "pocket" pardon before leaving office, that pardon would have no application at the state level.
Our democracy is still in the balance. In a sense, it always has been. Democracy lives on a precarious ledge, and it seems even more so now because of instantaneous social media outlets that essentially allow you to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater while forwarding conspiracy theories – some of them patently absurd – one after the other at the speed of a mouse click.
It all comes down to accountability.
And processing.
Free speech is kind of like the right to swing your arm. Free speech does not allow you to yell "fire" in a crowed theater when said statement is false and the person shouting knows it to be nor does it allow you lie under oath, nor does it allow you to make false statements about some one that is not true etc. The right to swing your arm ends at the beginning of my nose unless it's in self-defense.
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