On 2nd Impeachment and the lost cause

 

The American Civil War ended 155 years ago. On January 6, 2021 a white man carrying a large Confederate flag, along with a throng of seditious insurrectionists, broke into the Capitol building in Washington D.C. The incensed mob beat back the flimsy law enforcement defenses and invaded the chambers of Congress. At least nine guns have been recovered, bombs were found outside the RNC and DNC headquarters. God knows how many people were carrying concealed firearms. The death toll currently stands at six.

My thoughts come back to the man with the Confederate flag. He (and yes, there were others carrying it) achieved something the soldiers of the white nationalist rogue state never could. He successfully invaded the American Capitol with it in hand. I have a deep hatred for the Confederacy (CSA). I have long believed the United States was too conciliatory following the end of the war. I stand by the contention that Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee should have been hanged for their treason, sedition, and culpability for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans. Further, the Reconstruction period ended too quickly. In one of the great historical embarrassments of our nation, the US abdicated its responsibilities to the newly freed slaves of the South. The federal government removed troops and real enforcement of the 13^th, 14^th, and 15^th amendments left with them. To add insult to injury, Jefferson Davis served only 2 years in prison for treason. Later he published a history of the CSA and coined the term “lost cause” which is still bandied about by neo Confederate apologizers to this day. Lee was granted amnesty by Lincoln and enjoyed the next five years of his life acting as president of a university. Following this magnanimous gesture, President Lincoln was assassinated just six days after Lee surrendered.

I indulge my historical fantasies too much, and perhaps stretch my hopes for what could have been too far. The implicit message following the Civil War was that the federal government would be permissive regarding domestic threats and even the leadership of these threats could escape consequences. If only we had the collective will to make good on the promise of the Civil War Amendments, even if it required a forceful federal response. Instead there was capitulation to apathy, aversion to hard work, and of course racism. Decades upon decades of progress were lost to the Jim Crow South (of course the North is not blameless here). During this time, the Confederate flag remained a ubiquitous symbol of a defiant South, a cause that has been lost quietly coalescing in the subconscious of those who still bemoan their white nationalist failure.

Donald Trump spent the last two months (and generally the last five years) inciting this murderous horde. He has espoused his fantastical claims of voter fraud at rallies, in press conferences, on social media, and even a forty-minute speech on his official website. The American judiciary has rejected every argument put forth by the president and his obsequious attorneys. This has not dissuaded him from his belief that he is entitled to another presidential term. Nor has it dampened the frothing rage of his sycophants who believe the same. The convergence of Trump’s lies and his sycophants’ urgent need to believe in his infallibility have created a new lost cause.

House Democrats led by the imperturbable and too often taken for granted, Nancy Pelosi have introduced an article of impeachment against Donald Trump. Unlike Jefferson Davis or Robert E. Lee, I do not believe Mr. Trump should be hanged, but he deserves greater punishment than either of those men received. Mr. Trump must be impeached, and though he is unlikely to be removed before the coming inauguration of Mr. Biden, the Senate should still convict him. The servile would be fascists who stormed the Capitol and terrorized our Senators and Representatives must also be dealt with harshly. We must not lose our nerve in excising this malignancy in our nation this time.

I bristle at the urging of some Republicans who pine for inaction in the name of reconciliation. The time for reconciliation will come. Now is the time for consequences.