Impeachment’s power and grandeur
There is a wide misunderstanding of the purpose and consequences of an American impeachment. Being “impeached” is already a very serious blow — you have been charged with a political felony — even if you are able to threaten your voters into setting you free.
Impeachment was used regularly in the early days of the republic to discipline hyperpartisan judges. Freed often by their allies, that did not spare them a guilty verdict in the court of public opinion. Bill Clinton’s hairsplitting on the difference between intercourse and oral sex made virtually the entire nation cringe with revulsion, and they have not forgotten.
Equally cringeworthy were the replays of Trump’s thuggish phone calls ordering Ukraine to interfere in an American election — or else. It prompted one of the cracks in the Trump coalition that began to weaken support from suburban voters.
But no impeachment to date can match the raw emotional power, the stunningly well-executed presentation of evidence of Trump’s seditious efforts at political arson. The visible pain of one House “prosecutor,” as he closed the first-round evidence with a family story, was heart rending. Having lost a son the day before, Rep. Jamie Raskin nonetheless showed up the next day accompanied by his children. Following the sickening attack, he assured his daughter that this horror would never be repeated during her next visit to the Capitol.
Tabitha, a 24-year-old teacher, replied with angry intensity. “Dad, I don’t want to visit the Capitol … ever.”
Raskin’s quaking voice as he recounted this bitterest of moments for a proud political dad is a scene that will be replayed for years, containing as it does her implicit condemnation of politics and every politician.
“Of all the terrible brutal things (on that day), that one hit me the hardest,” Raskin concluded.
Imagine any father watching. There will be a huge number who will never forgive or forget Trump’s role in delivering these deep wounds to the men and women who feared for their lives that day, and the damage he has done to the republic.
The House managers spent the next two days slicing layer by gruesome layer any defence the former president’s cowardly allies may attempt. Even the great conservative columnist, Peggy Noonan, observed they had none, and that Americans will watch and remember.
This is the power, the solemnity, even the grandeur of a successful impeachment. It is the representatives of the people, publicly denouncing their own political leadership for crimes against the nation. It would have been best if Trump were to be convicted, expelled and banned, of course. But the impact of this stunning presentation of treachery alone will have done Trump probably irretrievable damage.
The term “impeachment” had its incarnation in England in the 14th century, but has fallen into disuse. They today have powerful parliamentary committees that regularly scorch governments bipartisanly.
We have neither.
Canada ranks worst as an executive-dominated democracy. Our legislatures’ feeble oversight efforts are reminiscent of Denis Healey’s immortal put-down of a Tory minister’s ability to throw an effective punch: “Like being savaged by a dead sheep!” The partisanly stage-managed Canadian parliamentary committees are like watching a Monty Python version of robust investigation and truth-telling.
From sponsorship to Shawinigan, from attacking the Harper muzzle machinery to SNC-Lavalin and then WE, governments simply turn off the lights and lock the committee room door if MPs get too uppity. We have the worst record in the democratic world of poodle parliamentarians voting independently — 96 per cent of the time MPs leap when the party whip whistles.
We all enjoy sneering at the moneycorrupted, hyperpartisan foolishness of American politics. But in the ability of politicians to hold the powerful to account, we should simply blush at the painful comparison. However quavering and spineless the majority of the GOP’s elected politicians may be, they are deeply aware of the damage Trump has done to their futures.
If Stephen Harper or Justin Trudeau could have been held to the prospect of such censure, imagine how it might have toned down their often thoughtless arrogance.