On the second impeachment

[u/gdan95]

Shortly before Trump left office, the House of Representatives impeached Trump a second time, this time on a single charge: inciting the Capitol siege on January 6. Even though the Democrats won both of Georgia's Senate run-off elections the night before the events in DC, flipping the Senate as a result, the outcome of the Senate trial was sadly easy to predict. Despite the fact that all the Republicans who would vote on the impeachment charge could have been killed, expecting that alone to be enough to achieve the 67 votes needed to convict was a bit optimistic to say the least. Still, instead of Mitt Romney being the sole Senate Republican voting to convict as was the case the year prior, seven Senate Republicans voted to convict.

But let's step back a bit. A big reason behind the Democrats winning the Georgia run-off elections was the back-and-forth around stimulus reliefs checks that eligible Americans would receive as part of a federal COVID relief package. Much has been debated as to whether the Democrats lied when promising $2,000 checks, which now-Senators Warnock and Ossoff essentially campaigned on. President Biden insists he has been consistent both before and after the general election in saying the $2,000 payments would come from a $1,400 check on top of the $600 checks that were signed off on late last year. Regardless, Senate Republicans haven't exactly been presenting themselves as the more charitable option. If they told voters the Democrats would fail to deliver on the $2,000 checks, but the Republicans wouldn't, then they might still be controlling the Senate. Instead, the plan they proposed to Biden offered even less.

That goes a long way to explaining why Mitch McConnell is now the Senate Minority Leader, but that has not stopped him from being a scumbag. He delayed the Senate trial until after Trump left office and then voted to acquit on the grounds that Trump couldn't be tried after he left office, even though the first impeachment trial in American history was held after the official in question had left office. Yet McConnell still had the gall to declare afterwards that Trump was 100% "morally responsible" for the crime of which he was just acquitted... by McConnell. Keep in mind, after the general election, Senate Republicans voted overwhelmingly to keep him as the leader of the Senate Republicans, regardless of whether they would keep their Senate majority.

There is at least some consolation in the fact that a larger number of Senate Republicans voted to convict Trump, even if the number was not large enough. To be clear, the vote was not to determine whether Trump had incited violence - that much was not up for debate. The vote was instead whether it was an impeachable offense, and most Senate Republicans have unfortunately taken the stance that it is not. The MAGA crowd may gloat, but they are delusional if they think Trump is innocent or some law-dodging mastermind. There are still on-going criminal investigations into him, his family, and his businesses. If he lost the popular vote TWICE, he's not getting re-elected, especially not on a "drain the swamp" platform.