How do Trump backers live with themselves?

Dear Editor:

Rep. Jamie Raskin and his House co-managers did a valiant job in the impeachment trial last week, against overwhelming odds.

The trial’s conclusion was foregone, with 43 Republican senators — Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Lindsay Graham, Josh Hawley ... stop me before I puke — characteristically putting their own fortunes before America’s, and before whatever remains of their ethics or decency.

How I wish there’d been a forum to ask these senators some (im)pertinent questions, like:

What are your thoughts and emotions when you lie in bed? If you feel like having sex (applied to you, “making love” seems an inappropriate phrase), how can you perform when you have no testosterone, or when you’ve bartered away whatever selfless, loving qualities you once had for undeserved prestige and ill-used power? What are your dreams like, once you’ve managed to fall asleep despite what, even for emotionally anesthetized you, must be at least a few pangs of conscience? Are you plagued by nightmares? How often does Donald Trump appear in them? Does he terrify and control you as completely in them as he does in your waking life?

If you have children or grandchildren, or people who knew you when you had values, or people whose lives your positions have damaged, and they ask about your impeachment vote, or your voting record, do you evade or answer them?

In short, how, exactly, do you live with yourself, and do you call that living?

Tom Cherwin

Saugerties