The impeachment trial of President Donald Trump is about to end in the Senate with the result that we all knew from the beginning: no vote to remove him from office. While I supported the impeachment proceedings, the process has been a mess: the Republican party has so completely become the cult of Trump that there was no chance that there would ever be enough votes in the Senate. Not even when the independent, non partisan Government Accountability Office stated that Trump broke the law when he withheld congressionally allocated funds from Ukraine. Not even when former Trump advisor John Bolton has a new book coming out stating that Trump openly told him that he was withholding that aid until the Ukraine announced the investigation that he wanted. Simply put, there is nothing that Trump can do as president that would cause his party to turn on him. If multiple bankruptcies, sexual assault charges, illegal payoffs to porn stars and centerforlds and near constant violations of the emoluments clause couldn't do it, neither will this. Not only will they not turn on him, but they also won't even allow witnesses of his impeachable behavior to be heard in the Senate. Why start pretending that this trial was anything other than a farce now? To make the whole thing even more insane, Trump's defense team has made unprecedented claims of presidential power, with Alan Dershowitz asserting that basically anything the president does to win reelection is legal, because he thinks he is working in the nation's best interests.
The sad fact of the matter is that Trump, despite becoming only the third president in history to be impeached by the House of Representatives, will see the Senate vote as a vindication and a victory. Which means we are going to suffer through months of his loud mouthed bragging about it at his horrific speeches. But that's just the tip of the iceberg: by supporting this president the Republican party has stained the entire office of the presidency, and the country itself. From now on, presidents will be given almost unlimited rights to violate any law or rule of protocol (or decency for that matter). The bar has now been set so low, that Trump can basically move any instrument of government or say anything to help him win reelection without any kind of restriction. Which means that the upcoming election will be even uglier and more horrible than the last one.
I hate to sound melodramatic, but this is how a democracy can die: sometimes it takes just one demagogic, messianic leader with a sizable, fanatical following to tilt a country towards open dictatorship. The fact that Trump has repeatedly shown admiration for dictators like Kim Jong Un and Rodrigo Duterte while often calling our UN allies weak shows where his mind is. And just look at his public statements such as "Then I have an Article 2, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president." or "I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough — until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad." shows that we now have a president that sees himself as an absolute leader that should command complete loyalty from every American. Given that his own party seems to openly agree with this assessment makes me often wonder if this country can really survive this president intact. And what will happen if we don't.
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