Does Right Matter?

It is hard not to write about the impeachment of Donald John Trump, President of the United States. It is one of the most historical events in the history of the republic. Yet, too many are not listening, too many are divided on the issue and too many don’t care. However, we must care!

I have watched the first half of the Senate trial for hours. I keep switching the TV from CNN to Fox News to MSNBC and back to CSPAN. I’m a political junkie, always have been. I taught high-school Civics back when they did that, so the addiction is long, deep, and wide. We saw and heard the House Managers’ presentation and we must gird ourselves for the President's defense. Each side gets 24 hours to make their case.

There isn’t any dispute of the facts of the case, yet. The House Managers presented a marvelous civics lesson on the constitution’s impeachment clause, the Framers’ arguments for and against it, the meaning and power of its inclusion, and the actions that rise to its use. Law School classes on Constitutional Law will, for generations, read and study the presentation of the case; how it was formatted, how each action that constituted an infraction of our governing document was illustrated, and how the actions of the President were considered impeachable. No matter if you are '
Republican, Democrat or Independent, if you agree or not, Representative Schiff’s summation of the second day, was a tour-de-force. And the Senate listened.

At the end of the trial, after both sides present their case, after senators submit their questions, and perhaps after witnesses testify, the 100 senators will cast their vote, which will decide if a duly elected President of the United States should be removed from office for high crimes and misdemeanors.

Each Senator weighs the evidence; did wrongdoing occur. Each Senator will consider the reaction of their constituents; for many, a “wrong” vote could mean the loss of the next election. Each Senator will consider his or her duty to vote along party lines; for many that could mean the loss of committee assignments or lack of campaign funding. Each Senator will consider if the actions of the President rise to the level of removal from office; many don’t but for others there is no question. Each Senator will decide between right and wrong, between truth and lies. Each Senator will decide, for generations to come, the relationship between the Congress and the Executive branch of government. It is not an easy vote.

Franklin, famously, told us we have “A republic if you can keep it.” Can we? Alexander Hamilton wrote in Article 65 of the Federalist Papers that impeachment is for “those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust.” It is interesting that one must not have broken some law to be impeached.

Adam Schiff, who led the group of House Managers making the case for removing the President from office summarized the second day of presentations in what some called “a closing statement for the ages.” Even those who disagreed with him were rapt. He proffered that right matters. “If right doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter how good the Constitution is. It doesn’t matter how brilliant the Framers were. It doesn’t matter how good or bad our advocacy in this trial is. Doesn’t matter how well written the oath of impartiality is. If right doesn’t matter, we are lost. If the truth doesn’t matter we are lost!”

Does right matter? Yes, it does. Does truth matter? Yes, it does.

There are other arguments and other facts to consider. The President’s team now gets to defend him.

Democracy isn’t easy!

Truth!

It’s not simple and it’s not easy. Truth is hard to get your hand around, yet, we must. It seems harder today than decades before. Some want to confuse us with misdirected facts, visuals that seem real but are photo-shopped. We have reached a point in public discourse where many accept leaders that lie blatantly, repeatedly, and with disregard for its effects.

Truth can be a noun, an adverb, an adjective, or a verb. Rhetoricians can worry about the distinctions. The public wants to assume a strong correlation between truth and reality when our leaders speak. We accept scientific facts as truth; light and heavy objects fall at the same speed in a vacuum, electricity is a charge moving through a wire, water flows downhill, and hot air rises. In the past, we trusted the word of our governmental leaders, most of them at least. We accepted the word of our teachers because they were better educated than most of us, at least when we were young. It’s not that easy anymore.

The powerful nations use the power of social media to create confusion about our democratic system, to lie to us about those they don’t like, and to influence our electoral processes. They did it in our last two elections and they did it this week during elections in Taiwan. We know this because we have the facts to prove it. Yet many don’t care.

A third to nearly half of the American population, including members of Congress, refuse to believe that Russia interfered in our elections or that they are doing it again as we prepare for the 2020 election. The Congress, even with the urging of the Department of Homeland Security refuses to pass laws or allocate money sufficient to secure our electoral databases and systems. Even with the overwhelming evidence that electric companies are shutting down fossil fuel generating plants because of high costs, the government continues to support the coal mining industry instead of alternative sources of energy. The cable news channels sell their viewpoint on current events rather than sticking to facts. Government spokespersons call lies alternative facts.

At the highest levels of government, it seems acceptable to lie several times a day to millions of followers. Our leaders lie not only to their own citizens, but also to the leaders of the rest of the world, and god knows who else. Does it even matter anymore?

I guess it depends on who you ask. We assassinated a military leader of Iran last week, who by all accounts deserved what he got. Our leaders, however, could not come to us with one voice and tell us why we killed the despotic general when we did. On Face The Nation, yesterday, Secretary of Defense Esper stated that he had not seen any credible intelligence that indicated that the Iranians were about to blow up four of our embassies. He stated that Trump merely said he “believed” that there “probably could have been” attacks planned. What was the urgency? Does it even matter? Yes! If the government is not telling us the truth, it matters!

Foreign leaders don’t trust our government anymore because of the lies that have come from our leaders. It matters. The fourth estate is labeled as fake news. The media, whose job is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, all the while getting to the truth, is called the enemy of the state. Those are words that Hitler and Stalin used on their way to creating dictatorships.

Presidents who lie to the public are not the creation of the current times. Nixon lied to the American people about the Watergate break-in and tried to cover it up. It resulted in his resignation. Lyndon Johnson lied about our involvement in the Vietnamese war. He did not seek reelection. Senator Gary Hart dared the press to find him committing adultery. They did. He, a leading presidential candidate, dropped out of the race and changed forever the relationship between the press and the private lives of politicians. John Kennedy lied about his serious health condition and his dalliances with movie stars and other women of note. He died before the truth became public. However, there is something different going on today. Too many people are buying the lies, drinking the Kool-Aid!

The bromides tell us that the truth will set us free. Not today! Another says that if you tell the truth you won’t have to remember what you said. Nobody cares! Another tells us that in the end truth will prevail. People ignore it for a better story! It is too simple to blame it on social media. Not enough bother to check the daily news anyway! It is too simple to blame it on 24/7/365 news updates. Too many cable TV and talk-radio shows spew lies and hatred, not the truth. It is too simple to blame it on low attendance at weekly religious services. That phenomenon started in the ‘60s. It is not a simple problem but it needs fixing.

The American experiment relies on the populace’s strong belief in our republican democracy. It requires a belief that our leaders, at all levels, will be square with us, that what they say can be trusted. The system can tolerate some misspeak because of a lack of data or understanding. It can tolerate some exaggeration to make a point, up to a point. It cannot, however, sustain for long, barrages of daily lies from our leadership cadre or the lies of other nations trying to influence our thinking and blending reality with myth.

We believe in free speech, strongly. People can say nearly anything they want, true or false, mean or nice, hate-filled or commending. That doesn’t mean that they should lie, convolute the facts, brag about accomplishments not attained, or threaten non-believers.

It’s not a simple problem, but it starts with us telling the truth and then demanding that our leaders tell the truth when they speak to us or tweet to us. It’s a simple start, but most are.