Grand Old Party of Sedition

 First, as a side note, I really wanted to post this a few days back when the impeachment finally went through.  Unfortunately, we had a bit of a wind storm run through my area, and I just got power back at my place last night, so... better late than never, I guess.

That sentiment kind of encapsulates the sum total of my positive feelings about the past week in Washington D.C.  If everyone there was on the same page about the seriousness of a mob attacking the Capitol while the House and Senate were there performing their duties as required by law and the Constitution, you might have seen that four-page article of impeachment created and voted on the day after the event, passed over to the Senate on Friday, a trial scheduled for Monday, and President Trump removed from office that evening.  But that's not what happened, is it?  Granted, the legislative branch isn't noted for its speed, and the Speaker of the House was a bit distracted early on with contacting military leaders to make sure no random nuclear launches or war-starting would happen while they worked things out, but still.  Basically, the House waited through the weekend, hoping Vice-President Pence would trigger the 25th amendment of his own accord (which everyone should have gotten a pretty big Not Happening signal when cabinet members that would have been involved in that process started resigning the night of the event), then wasted time putting together an advisory vote calling on Pence to do what we would have done earlier if he was so inclined, then finally managed to get the impeachment article voted on a week after the insurrection, in part because some Republican members were doing what they could to stall the article coming up for a vote.  Not that it would have mattered a lot if they did manage to get that step done earlier, because the Republican Majority Leader of the Senate had put the Senate in recess, so, short of no Republicans objecting, the Senate couldn't come back to deal with the results of the impeachment vote in the House until the 19th of January at the earliest.

Now, all of that might be considered "normal" maneuvering under ordinary conditions, but we're talking about a direct assault on the Constitution here, something everyone at that level of government should be taking very seriously.  Yet, the results of the vote on the impeachment article give the lie to that idea.  Exactly 10 Republicans found it within themselves to both recognize the gravity of the situation and uphold their oaths, while nearly 200 voted against impeachment (or, just over 200 if you include the "didn't even vote" group of Republicans).  The reasons for those Republicans voting against impeachment are sure to be varied, but broadly would fall into three categories.  Either they literally fear what their constituents would do to them if they voted to impeach (since I gather some of those that did vote to impeach went so far as to acquire body armor in response to death threats); or they acknowledge that President Trump did something bad, but not so bad that he needs removed from office (like the ones calling instead for censure, the only consequence of which is shame, which it's safe to say at this point that President Trump doesn't feel); or they have no problem with what President Trump attempted, and possibly even actively supported that attempt.  None of those answers suffice for anybody that's supposed to be guiding and protecting this country, as far as I'm concerned.

So, at the end of the day, the Republican party has been marked with an indelible stain.  They may not all be seditionists, but, based on their votes in the House, they look to be about 95% OK with sedition.  Maybe there will be some sort of grand "house cleaning" in the weeks to come that will change my mind, but, barring that... well, I don't care what anyone personally believes, as long as they're working from a basis of facts and reality.  But, if you proclaim yourself to be a Republican at this point, I can only assume you're rooting for the overthrow of the government, and I want nothing to do with that.

If you've been paying attention, yesterday shouldn't have been a surprise

 So, yeah, for anybody stumbling across this post in months or years to come, yesterday is when a mob, gathered and incited by President Trump and his associates, descended on the Capitol, forced their way in, and attempted to stop the count of votes that would result in Joe Biden becoming the new President in a couple of weeks.  While there are plenty of surrounding issues to be picked over (for example, the lack of police presence that allowed this to take place, and the disparate treatment of the protesters in this group by police compared to other protests across the nation), it's essential that we don't lose sight of that central fact.

No more whataboutisms, no more "both sides are bad".  We have a small group, led by our current President, that has brainwashed a portion of our populace to the point where nothing, not the will of the people as reflected in nationwide voting, not the rule of law as handed down by the judges who reviewed the many attempts to discredit or invalidate that vote and found them wanting, not even basic facts placed in front of them for their own review, nothing but the words of the man at the top of the heap seems to matter.  Yesterday, President Trump and crew unleashed that mob on his co-equal branch of government because he wasn't getting his way.  Argue if you want over whether what the mob did yesterday counts as sedition, but what President Trump and his cronies did sure looks to meet the dictionary definition of it.

On the plus side, this event seems to have made some people rethink their priorities a bit.  There have been some lawmakers who were happy to ride on the President's coat-tails up to now that seem to have decided that maybe the destination isn't worth the ride, and there have been some White House staffers who have decided to resign.  To my mind, they're still tainted goods, and I honestly can't think of anything they would be able to do to regain my trust in them individually or any party they belong to, but at least they finally saw the end-game and, given the choice, stayed on the side of the Constitution.

President Trump and his closest remaining allies, on the other hand, have demonstrated beyond the shadow of a doubt that they are enemies of the Constitution.  Mind you, I'm not advocating violence against them or anything like that, but anybody who's taken an oath to support, uphold, and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign or domestic, should hold that oath in the front of their mind for any further dealings with those individuals.

What does need to happen, however, is the removal, by Constitutional means, of President Trump in particular from office, ASAP.  Sure, it's less than two weeks until he's supposed to be gone anyways, but two weeks is plenty of time for mischief on a variety of scales, from pardons for the insurrectionist mob to nuclear launches, if what he's been feeding his faithful is a true reflection of his state of mind.  Whether it's the rumored discussions of implementing the 25th amendment from the executive branch or another go at impeachment by the legislative branch, I can honestly say there is no more pressing issue that needs attended to by those bodies, and I'm including the ongoing pandemic in that list.  Here's hoping I can come back to update this post with the good news shortly.