Date: 2025-06-16 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00018499
The Trump Presidency
ON Impeachment
Umair Haque ... How They Should Have Impeached Him, But Didn’t ... How the Democrats Failed Us All by Putting Bribery on Trial — But Not Hate, Authoritarianism, and Fascism
Peter Burgess
I spend a lot of time in my local dog park. And there, I meet a group of people from around the world. There’s Massimo from Italy and Ruby from London and Lia from Sweden and Wolfgang from Germany and so on. OK, those are the dog’s names — anonymity has been preserved to protect the innocent.
And every single person I meet from outside the States — and there’s a lot of them — is perplexed and baffled by this impeachment. Not by what’s present in it — but by what’s absent. “I don’t get it,” they say. “Donald Trump has done so many awful things. And every time I try to watch impeachment, I’m just baffled by what they’re even talking about. Why don’t they talk about…”
Me too, I have to confess. And you too, I bet. Go ahead and admit it. Not “baffled” as in “don’t understand” — but “baffled” as in “what the actual? Are these people even on the same planet as the rest of us? What are they even talking about anymore”
That’s because Trump’s lawyers (LOL, I use the word lightly) have rolled every kind of ridiculous and absurd excuse for his behaviour. It’s in the public interest! The President can’t be tried! No, he’s actually a good guy! Wait — he didn’t even do anything wrong, because the law doesn’t apply to our Dear Leader.
Hence, a world that’s looking on in bewilderment. Why are the Democrats letting impeachment descend into this farce and debacle, I keep getting asked. And my only answer goes like this.
The Democrats knew what was going to happen. We all did. The GOP, which controls the Senate, wouldn’t convict Donald Trump, even if he was the worst person on earth, for which he’s currently a strong contender. They’re only interested in money, power, and ways to abuse both — so why try the man who’s the best at that? The GOP — or what’s left of it, at any rate — has become a party of sycophants, cowards, extremists, bullies, fools, theocrats, demagogues. Who were always — always — going to bow before the most violent and brutal man among them.
(If you need the theory behind that, it’s pretty simple: it’s what the hierarchies of both capital and patriarchy do. The most violence and stupid and cruel man rises to the top, because he is willing to do what no one else will — and the weak submit, one by one, in precise order of their capacity for violence and harm. Hence, the formation of the hierarchies we can now see with crystal clarity in the modern day GOP: Marco Rubio submits to Trump, and the local theocrat or bully submits to Marco Rubio, and so on. This is how violence is established as the primary ordering force of patriarchy and capital, in great chains of submission and domination.)
If you knew that you were going to lose a great political battle — in this case, that the Senate wouldn’t ever convict Donald Trump, what would you then do? Well, the first thing you should have done is reason ahead and think: “what possibly ways are they going to try to stonewall this trial?” And then you might have anticipated all these loony “defenses” — right up to the GOP blocking anyone calling witnesses to testify to abuses in the first place.
Knowing you weren’t going to win a political victory, you should have aimed then for something even bigger, deeper, and more powerful: a moral victory. That way, perhaps, you might have snatched triumph from the jaws of…all this perplexing, baffling foolishness.
What does that mean?
Imagine that the Democrats had tried Trump for his highest crimes. Which, incidentally, is what the Constitution both recommends and demands. Which ones are those? Well, which do you think is more harmful: blackmail schemes and bribe…or concentration camps…kids in cages…inciting violence…dehumanizing minorities…creating mini-Gestapos…and so on? The list is endless. Any reasonable person, I think, has to admit that things like concentration camps are far — far — higher crimes than things like blackmail schemes and bribes. Why? And why doesn’t that apply to America’s leaders? Why do they get a free pass from ethics 101?
Not to think these are the highest crimes of this administration makes a mockery of history, the future, and democracy. It says none of those really matter. After the last world war, humanity needed to invent a whole new category of justice to do justice to the crimes of the Nazis — they became known as “crimes against humanity.” They were far, far graver than crimes against individuals — they were actions that harmed us all, denying us the chance of a more peaceful, sane, prosperous world, dehumanizing even those who witnessed them.
Do you know who says what this administration has done ranks as a literally “crime against humanity”? The last living Nuremberg Prosecutor. Who’d know better than him? You? Jake Tapper? Ezra Klein. LOL. Don’t kid yourself. When literally the last living Nuremberg Prosecutor says these are crimes against humanity — but the Democrats refuse to try them, or even to acknowledge them as such— that, my friends, is how a society collapses in a nutshell. It’s when even the good guys are no longer really on the side of democracy, equality, freedom, and justice. They just say they are. I’m sorry to sound harsh. But what else is one to conclude? What kind of people have we become when we no longer listen to the warnings of the men who actually tried the Nazis?
You see, it isn’t good enough to try a person who’s carried out crimes against humanity for…blackmail. Sure, you might even get him. So what? The moral victory is lost. You have not gotten him for his true crimes. You might even remove him from power — but you have not disempowered him. Because no verdict has been delivered that says this person is guilty. Now imagine that the Dems — knowing the Senate would never convict Trump — had decided to try him for his highest crimes, things like camps and kids in cages. That would have been the better strategy. Why? Because if you’re going to lose politically — then you should try to win morally.
Imagine how the world would have been transfixed, at this very moment, by that impeachment trial. Sure, the Senate might have “blocked” witnesses from testifying. The Dems could simply have held a press conference, where a family “separated” and then put in camps recounted their story…to the whole world. I guarantee you that all my friends at the dog park would talk about nothing else. The entire world would be absolutely and totally engrossed — horrified, shocked, alarmed — by that. By all the very real stories of what has happened in America over the last four years. Those aren’t about Donald Trump — they’re about his victims. The most vulnerable and powerless ones. And those aren’t his political opponents — they’re little kids who were locked away in cages (and still are.)
That is the beginning of a moral victory. Because what the world thinks matters. That sense of shame and disgust and cowardice would probably end up filtering down to the average American. Is this who we really want to be? Is this who we’ve become? A nation that commits crimes against humanity? My God! How sickening. It happened here! Never again.
(Maybe those Trumpists wouldn’t have been “reached.” So what? Their bond is unshakeable — it’s the infantile narcissistic bond between the regressed, wounded min, and the strong, omnipotent parent. Translation: Trump is a surrogate father figure to his flock, and they’ll literally be happy to throw themselves off buildings for him. They already deny themselves healthcare, retirement, jobs — what’s the difference, really? But everyone else?)
From Asia to Europe, Africa to South America — the whole world would have been galvanized and electrified by the trial of Donald Trump for crimes against humanity. They would probably have said things like: “Wow. Look at that. America’s finally growing up. Maybe it has a chance.” Or “Wow! Look at that courage and bravery. Those guys don’t give up or compromise. I really admire them.” Or: “Good. It must never happen again — and we all know what it is. I actually think of Americans as good and decent people for once.”
“It.” You know what I’m talking about. Even if you don’t say it — because pundits don’t, and most people take their cue from them. But pundits not saying it doesn’t change the reality. It just creates an atmosphere of denial.
You know, I know, the whole world knows, history knows, the future knows. What has happened in America is authoritarian-fascism. Denial is not an answer to this problem. No, it’s not Auschwitz, yet. But every leading authority on them says yes, these are concentration camps. The Rome Statute — which created the International Criminal Court — defines family separations as a form of genocide. And who else puts kids in cages? Who else checks papers in public? Who else calls refugees vermins? Who else is afraid of little babies just because they have “impure”…blood?
This, my friends, is fascism. It has been for many years now. It isn’t full blown, yet. But it grows in power and scope and scale every single day. For example, while the Dems were impotently focused on an irrelevant impeachment…the bad guys made it illegal for immigrants to be a “public burden.” In case you don’t know, that’s exactly how the Nazi’s legal attack against Jews began — and ended in their annihilation, because they weren’t considered people at all, just parasites. It only took a a few short years. American fascism is still growing in power and fury precisely because the Democrats never put it on trial.
They have yet to challenge it by even speaking it’s name. What the? So let’s speak plain English, for once — and get away from the jargon and nonsense that surrounds this impeachment like a haze of polluted sky.
The Dems have put Donald Trump on trial for blackmail and bribery. They have not put fascism and authoritarianism on trial. They knew they were going to lose this battle — that they wouldn’t be able to get Trump convicted even on those bare charges. So they came to precisely the wrong conclusion — “then we shouldn’t try him for anything bigger.”
Do you know what that’s called — again, in plain English? Appeasement. Yes, really. Many of my friends at the dog park are European. And they are too gentle and polite to say it. But that is what they mean when they throw their hands up in the air say “but why aren’t they trying him for…” And then their voices trail off. We don’t say those words in civilized company. Genocide. Camps. Crimes against humanity. Fascism. Europeans, of course, learned that the hard way. They don’t speak those words because those words are literally unthinkable now.
But those words are unthinkable in America too — only in the opposite way. They are unthinkable because nobody will say them. I’ve spent the last few years urging people to. Because it was obvious what would happen if Americans couldn’t: the fascists would get away with it. How can you try a crime that has never taken place? But how can a crime have taken place if yourself can’t speak the words?
The Dems have failed us all, my friends. I’m sorry to say it. But I think it, and I can’t back down from thinking it. They knew they couldn’t remove Trump from office — that it was the longest of long shots. But a smarter, wiser party would have reasoned thus to itself.
If we can’t win the political battle — let’s win the moral one. Let’s transfix the whole world, stop it dead in its tracks, drop its jaw, by putting this terrible man on trial for his most horrific acts as President. Crimes against humanity, genocide, camps, Gestapos, hatred. Let’s put fascism and authoritarianism on trial. Let’s make it something like a mini-Nuremberg for the 21st century, and remind everyone what happens when demagogues rise to power.
Do you know what message that would have sent to the world — and to America, too? That democracy, history, the future, and equality, matter to us. Much more than the mechanics of the possible. Yes, we will never win this battle. We must fight it anyways. Because it’s in the struggle that we rediscover our truest selves, our highest principles, our noblest aspirations. We remember who we never wish to be: fascists, bullies, thugs, authoritarians, little men turning to violence and hate, because they themselves have never know what peace and happiness really are.
Putting fascism on trial would have said all that: we care about these highest values of civilized people so much that it doesn’t matter if we lose. We must do the right thing anyways. It is because we know that we are going to lose that we must do the right thing — because that is when the right thing matters most. When did we forget that lesson?
Do you remember what Kant called it? I do. A moral imperative. A duty we must carry out — especially when it has no reward, precisely because that is when and only when it matters for a higher reason. If this impeachment feels perplexing, baffling, and weirdly impotent to you, all that is why. Blackmail is on trial — but fascism isn’t. What the? That’s because there is no moral imperative behind this impeachment. It was a compromised and feeble thing from the beginning. It is a political battle that we all knew was going to be lost — and yet nobody cared to even try to win a larger moral victory in that very defeat. And yet when you settle for that kind of total defeat — what can you really win?
Umair January 2020
WRITTEN BY umair haque Eudaimonia and Co