Impeachment vote now goes to court of public opinion

To the Times: Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2019, will be remembered as a historically significant day in the storied history of our democratic Republic. It is the day that Donald J. Trump became only the third president in the 243 years the U.S. has been an independent country to be impeached by the House of Representatives.

Donald Trump now has to bear this ignoble distinction of having a metaphorical indelible scarlet letter of shame on his forehead, from this time forward. It is not clear which is more disturbing: the actual act to bribe the president of the Ukraine into starting an investigation into Joe Biden, or Trump’s steadfast, incessant protestation that he did absolutely “nothing wrong,” an assertion portending that he could do it again in the future. Fair-minded people can argue whether or not the president’s actions rise to the level of a “high crime and misdemeanor”, the Constitutional grounds for impeachment. But, to assert that this behavior was blameless and “perfect” seems nonsensical.

The likelihood that the Senate will actually vote to convict and remove Mr. Trump from office is very remote. But, in the November 2020 election, the most important court in the land, the one from which there is no appeal, the “court of public opinion” will render a final verdict. We do not know the outcome, only that it will be swift and it will be final. What we can say with some certainty is that regardless of the election’s outcome, the United States has faced worse crises (although admittedly not very many) and muddled through, and we will hopefully do so once again.