Analysis: Divisions deepen.
Divided country now must face transfer of power
President Donald Trump fixed a place in history once again Wednesday, this time as the first president to be twice impeached. But the background and circumstances of this latest rebuke probably will be remembered as much as or more than the vote itself — set against a country seething with anger and the capital patrolled by thousands of troops ahead of the coming transfer of power.
Over the nearly sixyear span encompassing Trump’s entry into politics and the life of his presidency, the country has been changed dramatically, but never as much as in the time between the two impeachment votes. When Trump’s term ends, he will leave behind a country not just divided but one that has been seeded with combustible obstacles in the path of President-elect Joe Biden.
The effects of Trump’s presidency will spill over into the early days — and perhaps longer — of Biden’s administration, from a Senate impeachment trial to threats of violence and unrest that have shown no real sign of easing since last week’s attack on the Capitol by an armed mob inspired by the president himself.
Beyond the fact that 10 Republicans supported the article of impeachment, there were other differences between Wednesday’s floor debate and the one in December 2019. A year ago, Republicans were far more aggressive in asserting that
the president had not committed an impeachable offense. On Wednesday, they decried the violent attack on the Capitol but spoke more of the potentially damaging consequences of impeaching Trump with so few days left in his term.
House Minority Leader Kevin Mccarthy, R-calif., who supported efforts to challenge the electoral college count, warned that impeaching Trump would “further divide a divided
nation.”
That sounded like a hollow call for unity from someone who, in the past few days, has been weighing the costs to his party and his own political future as he and his colleagues have seen one corporation after another announce that they would not make political contributions to politicians who sought to overturn the election. Mccarthy said Wednesday that Trump bore “some responsibility” for the attack on the Capitol.
To Democrats, the question was one of accountability. With or without impeachment, the country under Trump has moved steadily toward ever-greater hostility and, among part of Trump’s base, more open talk of redressing grievances with the use of violence.
The videos from last week’s attack have shaken lawmakers and citizens alike. On Wednesday, there were multiple photographs of uniformed troops inside the Capitol. Metal detectors were set up outside the House chamber. Tall fencing surrounds the Capitol complex. Streets are shut down, and traffic has been snarled.
All this was the uneasy prelude to Biden’s inauguration next Wednesday, amid warnings about violent protests in state capitals and in the District of Columbia. Eric Foner, a Columbia University professor and historian of the Civil War and Reconstruction, drew a connection between what the country has seen in recent days and what transpired in the 1850s.
“Before the Civil War, the country was not in a civil war, but there was this growing acceptance of violence,” Foner said.
“The events of a couple of days ago are shocking in many ways, but one of them is just showing how at least the people who took part, the Trump supporters, how fully they’ve embraced the idea that violence is a perfectly acceptable and normal way of expressing your views.”
The time between the first and second Trump impeachments spans fewer than 400 days and yet a lifetime. In those nearly 400 days, an incomprehensible series of events unfolded, all of which the president made worse.
The first impeachment took place before the coronavirus pandemic began, leaving more than 375,000 Americans dead. The president refused to take the pandemic seriously, belittling the wearing of masks and calling for the reopening of the economy before health experts said it was safe to do so.
The first impeachment came before racial protests erupted across the nation, sparked by new killings of Black people by law enforcement. The killings and protests forced much of the country to confront a history of racism and discrimination and the hunger for justice.
Trump used the protests, especially the violence that accompanied some of them, to stoke more racial animosity.
Finally, the first impeachment also came before an election that produced the biggest voter turnout in history and, most profoundly, before Trump sought to overturn the results. His repeated use of conspiracy theories and lies about fraud, his claims that the election had been stolen, started a straight line that led to the ransacking of the Capitol a week ago and then to Wednesday’s vote in the House.
Brenda Wineapple, who wrote the history of Andrew Johnson’s impeachment in her book “The Impeachers,” said she has been asked whether impeaching Trump threatens to further divide the country. “From my point of view, you can’t be any more divided,” she said, “and my hope would be an impeachment vote is actually a way, ironically, of beginning to heal the country and say, look, someone has to take responsibility.”