A tremendous task lies ahead of us

At the time of this writing, the House of Representatives has voted to impeach President Donald Trump and to send its decision to the Senate for confirmation. It is the first time in our American history that a president has been impeached twice during his term of office. However, the circumstances surrounding this impeachment are unique.

I have watched most of the debate about impeachment in the House of Representatives and am amazed how anyone could defend the president for what he did, but it is obvious that there are still many who are willing to defend him, even our own four Arkansas representatives. I am sure that many people just want him to go away without confrontation. It is indicative of our divided country.

As a chaplain, there are some things that deeply concern me. The first is how anyone could seek power at the expense of so many others. I wonder how I would have felt to be in Congress getting ready to vote when the Capitol was overrun by terrorists and I was forcefully evacuated to a safe shelter along with all of my colleagues.

Among those were the vice-president and the Speaker of the House, the two people next in line to assume the presidency if something happened to the president. And then to discover that two of the women sheltering with us had refused to wear a mask and were actually positive for coronavirus. I don’t want to ever experience such a thing. All of these people were minimized because they would not overturn the vote of the American people.

Secondly, I have to wonder how people felt when their leader, the president, abandoned them when the going got tough. If you ever wondered who was in control of this coup, notice that it only took one small tweet from the president to call off the attack, which everyone involved almost immediately obeyed. But look at the damage that was done to those who participated in the riot. Later, he publicly stated that all of them should be arrested and prosecuted.

As of today, over 150 people have been arrested. The person from Arkansas shown sitting at the Speaker’s desk has been arrested and is facing up to 11 years in jail plus a $350,000 fine, and we may assume that others will also be facing the same fate, especially since five people died.

What about the congressional members the president called “weak?” Are their careers over? And, what about those elected people who remained defiant? Will they be censored by their peers, or maybe even thrown out of Congress?

Then there are the thousands of other people who took part in the insurrection without entering the Capitol. We now understand that many of them have lost their jobs and probably will not get them back.

Add to this the many corporations which have now decided to withhold financial support for political figures, a terrible blow to both individuals and the Republican Party.

All of these people were “thrown under the bus” by a president who refused to acknowledge the obvious fact that he lost the election and therefore orchestrated an insurrection to our country in order to retain power. Apparently, anyone or anything is expendable to President Trump in order for him to obtain his own way.

Finally, what about the tens of millions of people across our country who supported the president the past four years? Most of these people are law-abiding citizens who believed they were doing the right thing. Certainly, when they consider all of the events leading up to Trump’s impeachment, they have to be demoralized.

As a chaplain, I have to wonder who is going to minister to this huge portion of our society. It is unacceptable to fault anyone who voted for President Trump and to ostracize them. Almost all of them are good citizens who have been routinely fed an overwhelming diet of lies about anyone who disagrees with the president and have come to suspect almost anyone connected with the media. The truth has been hidden from them, and they can’t find it.

We have a tremendous task before us, a challenge to discover ways to unite our country instead of dividing it.

President-elect Biden has promised to work on this task, but make no mistake; he cannot do it alone. It will take all of us working together to discover the things which unite us and to learn how to respect both the people we agree with and those we don’t. This is not going to be easy, but if we do not work together the future of our country and democracy is in serious danger. We are all Americans and it is time to stop partisan fighting and to work together for the good of everyone.

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Robert Box is the former chaplain for the Bella Vista Police Department and is currently the Fire Department chaplain. Opinions expressed are those of the author.