Impeachment drama leaves permanent stain on American divide

So the Democrats impeached Donald Trump, only the third president in our nation’s history to get that treatment.

Nixon came close, but saw the writing on the wall and resigned before they could put that historical asterisk next to his name.

I watched as the majority members in Congress each went to the podium and waxed eloquent about their “duty” to the Constitution and the country.

They all looked so somber, fully aware of the momentous nature of the act they were about to take.

Speaking of the GOP, they were also cognizant of their role in this event: passionate protest. Each one of them made it clear that impeaching a president on evidence as solid as a soufflé was an assault on the integrity of this nation.

None of them defended Donald Trump the man, because they could not. His tweets and angry letters and insults make it impossible to stand up for his character.

What they were defending was the future against a precedent that would make it much easier for a disaffected majority in Congress to simply undo the will of the people by finding pretext for impeachment.

I use the word “pretext” deliberately, and advisedly. While there are reasons to be troubled by the president’s actions with respect to Ukraine, there has been nothing more than chimeric suggestions and third-party inference that Trump leveraged foreign aid to destroy a campaign opponent.

We can “assume” all we want from context, and we can even condemn the mistreatment of State Department personnel who did not deserve to be kicked to the curb (even though the president had the technical right to fire them.)

We can criticize Trump for leaning too heavily on a spiraling out of control Rudy Giuliani, and ridicule him for characterizing his phone call to the Ukrainian president as “perfect.”

There are a lot of things that we can do, and CNN and MSNBC have already done them.

There will be those who will celebrate the courage of those Democrats, particularly the ones in swing districts who will, in fact, be paying the price. Marjorie Margolis, the congresswoman whose decision to vote for President Clinton’s budget cost her a second term in office, could tell them that. Constituents have long memories, and November isn’t very far away.

I say none of this with a sense of triumph, or happiness.

Right now, the only emotions I feel are anger and profound sadness. The divide that existed even before Trump was elected has now been forever forged, cleaved into the stone and fault lines are set.

I do not honestly know how we come back from this breaking up, this political divorce.

It will be no surprise when the Senate acquits Donald Trump of crimes and offenses that the House was unable to establish.

It is expected that Mitch McConnell’s trial will be a short one, much shorter than Clinton’s.

It’s possible the charges will even be dismissed, something along the lines of a summary judgment that lawyers understand: no trial, because no cause of action.

And yet, Donald Trump will forever be the president who was impeached by the Democrats; and the president acquitted by the GOP. There will always be that asterisk next to his name.

More importantly, there will always be an asterisk next to the names of every partisan player who pushed for this impeachment and pretended they were patriots.

Incredibly sad, profoundly infuriating.