Politics – Page 7 – An Echo That's Reversing

Impeachment

(diary)

Fri 7 Feb 2020

Every week is exhausting and I don’t want to write and think about what is happening.

Just today, in casual conversation, I spoke with a guy who said–politics not having been broached prior–that it’s stupid to think that the political climate is worse than it’s ever been. This is the same guy who once said that he doesn’t follow political news because you can’t trust anyone. Yes, those two ideas express an internal, intellectual contradiction. This is what we’re up against. (Unrelated: he also felt that it was stupid to encrypt medical data because everyone “shares all of their personal information on social media anyway.” I pointed out that encrypted data gives them the choice to reveal what they’re comfortable with revealing. His response was a defensive retreat, explaining that he just found it “humorous” that people stress over medical privacy while at the same time revealing medical conditions. This is a corollary to reality TV syndrome: watch people make bad decisions in life so that you can feel superior. This form is: label others’ decisions bad so that you can feel superior. (The mood of the conversation ended poorly.))

Impeachment

(diary)

Fri 31 Jan 2020

For the past 3+ years political events have compounded daily to the horrible then more horrible; this week compressed that and moved the catalyst of horribleness from Trump to (mostly) the Republican Senators. What they’ve done is shocking.

Impeachment

(diary)

Thu 23 Jan 2020

We’ve been going through the House’s presentation to the Senate. The Senate with at times almost 20 Republicans away from their desks and missing from the room. Lindsey Graham left when he saw that the video of him was about to be played, from 1999, where he argued that a crime doesn’t need to be committed for there to be an impeachable offense. This absence is cowardly and illegal… but nothing will be done. Reporters have been blocked from contact with the Senators during recesses. The Senate Republicans are doing their best to hide from any confrontation about their accountability.

Impeachment

(diary)

Fri 17 Jan 2010

The feeling of history doesn’t go away. The feeling that we’re right in the middle of it now like we haven’t been for our lifetimes and probably our parents. There was a grimness from day one. Some conservative friends said, about a month ago, that they never expected it to be this bad. Bad, but in the form of just-not-a-very-good-president bad and not to the degree and depths that we’ve gone. There’s no satisfaction in seeing that the sky is, in fact, falling. I credit Sarah Kendzior with the assessment: “there is no bottom” though not sure if it was her words or sentiments.

Where are we at

I’m losing track. It started with the inquiry.

We just had an impeachment in the House (Wed 18 Dec 2019, mark this day). This outcome was written before the vote came; Democrats had the majority and had voted on impeachment three times prior. Those previous attempts were certain to fail–and are now held up as Democratic bias–but relatively inconsequential otherwise. Let’s face it: if the Republicans didn’t have an excuse for the accusation of bias they’d create it anyway. This time, the impeachment, stuck and it stuck with such gravity because of those who came forward.