Democrats are winning in court of public opinion
Séan McCann faced hard truths on his path to sobriety
In their brief to the United States Senate, Donald Trump's lawyers got up on their low horse, shook with metaphorical rage and gave it their best shot. The “selfish” Democrats are turning the impeachment trial into “political theatre,” they declared.
These proceedings are not about “seeking justice,” they protested. The Democrats seek “to prey upon the feelings of horror and confusion” of Americans.
Why, as the lawyers see it, this impeachment trial is “a brazen political act,” a crass expression of “political opportunism” and a campaign “to harness the moment for political gain.”
All true. The counsellors are right. This is a show trial, 2021.
So, give the lawyers credit for their perception as you forgive them their sloppy punctuation (missing a period in the opening paragraph of their brief.) Here, with the serendipity of Archimedes in his bathtub, they've discovered that what's happening in the Senate this week is about politics, not law.
As the Republicans showed in pursuing Bill Clinton in
1998, impeachment isn't a legal remedy. When Newt Gingrich and his firebrands prosecuted
Clinton for an extramarital affair, their pretext was perjury. Their purpose was politics.
The Democrats know this is an exercise in persuasion. They assume the Senate Republicans won't convict Trump, so they're playing to the court of public opinion — and they're winning.
Polls suggest that most Americans think Trump should be convicted, higher than in his first impeachment trial a year ago. The Democrats have already won that case. This is about something more.
It's about convincing skeptics that Trump incited the insurrection. It's about challenging
apologists who argue his right to free speech. It's about discrediting him so thoroughly that he will be finished as a public figure, convicted or not.
More deeply, it's about righting the republic. It's about reversing — as much as a rare constitutional trial can — this long, wasting season of lies, corruption, cruelty and quasi-authoritarianism.
After Trump's revolution, this trial is the beginning of Joe Biden's counter-revolution. Its forces are more genteel than those set loose in France in
1793. Its face is not Maximilien Robespierre but Jamie Raskin.
He's the lead prosecutor who buried his son on Jan. 5 and brought his daughter with him to work on Jan. 6, terrified for her safety when the mob roamed and rioted.
What a difference a month makes. Donald Trump is a sullen, silent, diminished figure; his popularity has fallen sharply. Republicans are in disarray. Tens of thousands have left the party, some talking of forming a new one.
This trial, then, is to make a point. No surprise it began with a choreographed, scripted cinematic presentation, its words and images graphic, violent, raw and profane. Manipulation? Of course. The case is visual to make it memorable.
Because this is not a conventional trial, there are unlikely to be witnesses. Too bad. It would be useful to see Trump in the dock defending himself. It would be useful to hear his assistants, his daughter and legislators who saw or talked to him that afternoon.
Under oath, they could recall just what he was doing and saying in that critical hour and a half or so when the mob was storming the Capitol.
Why did Trump say nothing publicly? Why was the National Guard not deployed? What did he say when senators called him from the Capitol, pleading for help? Why did he take so long to do anything?
Having incited the seditionists, both in his remarks that day and in the weeks before, he refused to stop it. He warmed his hands by its insurrectionist fire, thrilled to their cries, threats and taunts, and hoped the civil unrest he unleashed would stop the tallying of the electoral votes that he knew would make his rival president.
He knows it, the Republicans know it, the Democrats know it. The country knows it.
The show trial this week is to ensure that no one forgets it.
Séan McCann, the former member of Canadian folk-rockers Great Big Sea, spent a year working on a memoir about his path to sobriety, and the book was going nowhere.
“I couldn't finish it because it felt incomplete, and I couldn't really say what was missing,” he said in an interview.
Then his wife, Andrea Aragon, showed him some of the journals she kept during their time together. McCann, who's 53, was rattled by what he read, but believed it would help fill out the story he was trying to tell.
“This was what was missing,” he said. “It was really hard and painful to read but I saw value in those words. The hard truths are the ones we need to face, and she showed me some hard truths there. I can speak to the story but I can't speak to the impact of what happened. Andrea could. And ultimately, you can't tell the story of a marriage from just one perspective.”
Their collaboration resulted in One Good Reason, published last year, a deeply personal memoir that chronicles their lives: He grew up in a devout Catholic family in small-town Newfoundland and joined a band that would become one of the biggest in the country; she was the daughter of a Vietnam vet who grew up in Minneapolis and had never heard of Newfoundland when she met McCann at a meet-and-greet after a show in Colorado.
One of the things they had in common was a taste for alcohol cultivated during their teenage years. McCann, sober now for nine years, was a “full-blown alcoholic” by the time he went to university, his desire for escape sparked by sexual abuse at the hands of a priest. Aragon took to drinking as a teenager as a way to escape a difficult life at home. Her struggle also included self-harm and eating disorders.
“We were two pretty broken souls that night we met up in Vail, Colorado,” said Aragon, describing their encounter as a “beautiful one night stand.”
Added McCann, with a laugh: “It's the one-night stand that never ended.”
Married now for 15 years, the couple lives in Manotick with their two teenage sons. They moved to the village south of Ottawa a few years ago so McCann could avoid the temptation of the drinking culture in Newfoundland. He's since established a solo music career that also includes motivational speaking engagements.
As parents and recovering alcoholics, McCann and Aragon are also big supporters of Ottawa's Dave Smith Youth Treatment Centre, and will be starring in an intimate evening of virtual song and storytelling on Feb. 14 to raise much-needed money to expand the centre.
“This is an incredibly hard year for everybody, especially young people,” McCann said. “The demand (for help) is huge, and we believe this pandemic is going to make the demand even more huge. We really want to shine a light on what they're doing, and what they need, which is more
We're all in the same boat ... and we're all tasked with this difficult thing to do, and it can only be accomplished together.
beds, more space, more people to help. Anyone who has kids may at some point require the use of Dave Smith's centre.”
When asked for advice on how they're helping their own kids cope during the pandemic, Aragon's immediate response is to get them out of the house.
“Getting outside, getting fresh air, getting eyes away from the screen,” she says. “Any time we can force them outside, and it is a battle almost every day, it really helps to push the reset button. And we have two dogs, so that's a good excuse to go out, even if it's only for 20 minutes.”
While she finds journaling helpful, the boys are more into music. Sitting down at the piano or picking up a guitar are good options that don't involve screen time.
Also important is letting them talk.
“One piece of advice I would give teens is, if you're feeling angry or depressed, talk,” she said. “I force both of my boys to talk to me every single day. Feeling heard and feeling part of a community is really important for teenagers. I know it is for mine.”
As for McCann's creativity during the pandemic, he started working on a new record last year that should be released later this year. The band member, who was known as the Shantyman in Great Big Sea because of his penchant for
seafaring songs, decided to use the nickname as the album title, inadvertently tuning into the sea-shanty trend that's been going viral on social media.
McCann started writing sea shanty-style songs because he was feeling nostalgic for the ocean. But he has a theory as to why the sound of sea shanties has struck a chord with young people during the pandemic.
“Shanties serve a purpose,” McCann said. “Their whole function is to enable people to work together to accomplish difficult tasks and to get them to work in unison. We're all in the same boat, pardon the pun, and we're all tasked with this difficult thing to do, and it can only be accomplished together. We have to do this as one.”