At a crossroads by Roger Delmar

Today, Lindsey Graham called the presentation from the House managers “offensive and absurd.” This is the senator who voted to convict President Clinton for a sex act, as Chris Cuomo said tonight. But he’s willing to give a pass to the man who instigated—and did nothing to stop—a violent insurrection in the nation’s Capitol. Shameful.

‘He can do this again’: Dems rest case against Trump warning of more attacks—Politico

Biden announces deal for 200 million more COVID-19 doses—CBS News

Buffalo police officers won’t face charges for shoving 75-year-old protester Martin Gugino last year—USA Today

February 11, 2021

At a crossroads
by Roger Delmar, Port Townsend, Washington

I am deeply encouraged by all that President Biden has already done and all he plans to do in these coming days. What a relief after four-plus years living through a daily dose of the former administration. I can almost—almost—breathe normally again.

But… here we are facing another impeachment trial with the outcome in question. To me, the guilt is so obvious. Donald Trump directed, encouraged, and supported an insurrectionist mob that violently and destructively invaded the US Capitol intent on doing bodily harm to lawmakers as they were performing their constitutional duty of validating a legitimately elected President. To me, a truly open and shut case, readily proven by the former President’s recorded words and actions. The facts speak for themselves, but the outcome in the Senate hangs in the balance. What is going on?

As Heather Cox Richardson said in her Feb 9^th blog, “The people who are really on trial are the 50 Republican senators judging Trump’s guilt.” They are the ones still bowing to the political pressures of Donald Trump’s private army. They are the ones unwilling to take a stand against those who have believed Trump’s incessantly repeated lie that he actually won the election.

The threat of violence and political upheaval remains with us. When a Republican State Senator from Michigan says, on camera, that the January 6^th insurrectionist attack on the Capitol was really a “staged event” and the participants “were not really Trump supporters,” what does this say about the core of the Republican Party? The direction of that Party at the state and national level hangs in the balance and at this time no one knows for sure which way the coin will fall.

The next days are crucial. Are there enough National Republican Senators willing to do what is morally and ethically right rather than what they see as politically expedient for them to stay in power? Will they have the guts to convict Donald Trump of his obviously deceitful, corrupt and traitorous attempt to overturn an election he clearly lost? We are at a crossroads.