Explaining the depth of the hatred directed at Donald Trump...

(The Earl of Gloucester's castle.)

(Enter EDMUND, with a letter )
...

GLOUCESTER:

"O villain, villain! His very opinion in the
letter! Abhorred villain! Unnatural, detested,
brutish villain! worse than brutish! Go, sirrah,
seek him; I'll apprehend him: abominable villain!
Where is he?

EDMUND:

"I do not well know, my lord. If it shall please
you to suspend your indignation against my
brother till you can derive from him better
testimony of his intent, you shall run a certain
course; where, if you violently proceed against
him, mistaking his purpose, it would make a great
gap in your own honour, and shake in pieces the
heart of his obedience. I dare pawn down my life
for him, that he hath wrote this to feel my
affection to your honour, and to no further
pretence of danger.

GLOUCESTER:

"Think you so?

EDMUND:

"If your honour judge it meet, I will place you
where you shall hear us confer of this, and by an
auricular assurance have your satisfaction; and
that without any further delay than this very evening.

GLOUCESTER:

"He cannot be such a monster--

EDMUND:

"Nor is not, sure.

GLOUCESTER:

"To his father, that so tenderly and entirely
loves him. Heaven and earth! Edmund, seek him
out: wind me into him, I pray you: frame the
business after your own wisdom. I would unstate
myself, to be in a due resolution.

EDMUND:

"I will seek him, sir, presently: convey the
business as I shall find means and acquaint you withal.

GLOUCESTER:

"These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend
no good to us: though the wisdom of nature can
reason it thus and thus, yet nature finds itself
scourged by the sequent effects: love cools,
friendship falls off, brothers divide: in
cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; in
palaces, treason; and the bond cracked 'twixt son
and father. This villain of mine comes under the
prediction; there's son against father: the king
falls from bias of nature; there's father against
child. We have seen the best of our time:
machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all
ruinous disorders, follow us disquietly to our
graves. Find out this villain, Edmund; it shall
lose thee nothing; do it carefully. And the
noble and true-hearted Kent banished! his
offence, honesty! 'Tis strange.

(Exit)

EDMUND:

"This is the excellent foppery of the world, that,
when we are sick in fortune,--often the surfeit
of our own behavior,--we make guilty of our
disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars: as
if we were villains by necessity; fools by
heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and
treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards,
liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of
planetary influence; and all that we are evil in,
by a divine thrusting on: an admirable evasion
of whore-master man, to lay his goatish
disposition to the charge of a star! My
father compounded with my mother under the
dragon's tail; and my nativity was under Ursa
major; so that it follows, I am rough and
lecherous. Tut, I should have been that I am,
had the maidenliest star in the firmament
twinkled on my bastardizing. Edgar--

(Enter EDGAR)

"And pat he comes like the catastrophe of the old
comedy: my cue is villanous melancholy, with a
sigh like Tom o' Bedlam. O, these eclipses do
portend these divisions!"

...
________________

(King Lear, I, ii)

Why Trump is so deeply hated

__________________________

Trump's brief experience at the top of U.S. national politics' highest elective office was also the occasion of what has been the most determined, coordinated and orchestrated campaign of calumny and vilification in modern times. It had the advantage of the most sophisticated mass-communications technology the world has ever known and, in addition, one of the worst moral and professional failures of responsibility for fair, unbiased and accurate reporting in the modern history of the U.S.

These combined to give us some of the deepest self-inflicted wounds the country has known since the U.S. Civil War. And genuine shooting-war is again an openly-discussed concern by serious people rather than the only province of marginal kooks.

What happened?

Broadly, two long-term phenomena reached a boil-over point.

From the 1950s, after the days of the anti-Communist Red Scares and McCarthyism (which our present day resembles in certain essential aspects more than anything else in our history), the two main parties, came more and more to resemble each other in a de facto manner. What gradually came about was a more or less subtle (at first) drift into a working party duopoly-- the Republicrats or the Demopublicans, as you prefer.

Superficially, two parties. In practical fact, a working connivance against real partisan opposition in favor of a joined élites' consensus which undermined the formerly understood assumption of partisan politics where opposing interests in the general public's make-up were actually fought over and where they sometimes, rare though it came to be, meant real progress for the average working man and woman.

Those were the days! And, by the end of the 1950s, they were numbered.

With the rise of a new mass-mediatized politics, one which left actually reading about and thoughtfully considering in a nation which in which ordinary Americans (after the end of McCarthyism) could upon their fellow-citizens across party lines as normal people not very much different from themselves, there was dialogue, a search for understanding, and a shared belief in the possibility and the usefulness of both of these was losing its place and hold in people's political imaginations. Go back and review the essays and opinions published in what were then still respectable periodicals--The New Yorker (under the editorial direction of Harold Ross) and The Atlantic Monthly.

With the rise of the influence and power of television--radio being a medium which, like reading, had to be interpreted, mediated, between what was broadcast in speech and other audible material and what the listeners received and understood to be the import of the transmission--images and especially live, moving images, broadcast from film or from air-wave transmissions, broke this mediated chain and for the first time in human history, outside of instrumental and vocal music, an unmediated channel was opened into the consciousness of a mass audience not assembled in scattered and discrete cinematic theaters.

Now, artists of propaganda had tools of a kind and of a power which were as different from the tools they'd previously had at their disposal as were day and night. And ever since we've lived in a new and nightmarish world of powerful propaganda. The fact that generations of people all around the world have been born into, grown up and become so accustomed to this state of affairs does not change its inherent dangers or our susceptibility to them. On the contrary, we're more vulnerable than ever and there is no reason to expect that to change for the better.

While the official partisan duopoly effectively undermined and betrayed the fundamentals of what there'd been in a somewhat working semi-self-determined electoral political system, its actors shared in and approved its doing all that for the very reason that it made them and left them basically undisturbed to arrange a faked theater of partisan opposition behind which they could and did make all kinds of mutually self-serving deals in power sharing, privilege-sharing and, most of all, capturing and dividing among themselves a larger piece of the nation's wealth than had been possible since the end of the days of the Robber Barons of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

This was capitalism's version of the totalitarian capture and monopoly of wealth, power and violence then seen and known in the Soviet system in Russia and the similar Maoist regime—both of them cults of personality.

Trump, however briefly, however tentatively, for the first time since its established entrenchment, threatened and then put into serious reverse and doubt the continuation of unchallenged operation of this systematic fraud on the formerly semi-effective workings of elective semi-representative government.

It is for that and that, above all else, that his opponents, Democrats and Republicans alike, insiders and mutually cooperating players in the corruption of the nation's national political order so hated him and were so implacably determined to get rid of him by any means, fair or foul, legal or illegal. They looked upon Trump's re-opening of a real possibility of a two-party system with genuine horror and they responded immediately, using the national mass-communications media they'd effectively co-opted and corrupted to vilify Trump. They began immediately to plan to destroy Trump as a feature and factor in national political life and they were absolutely amazed when their first efforts and plans failed to prove effective.

Democratic group American Bridge plans $100 million
...

Washington Post | By Michael Scherer | Feb. 5, 2021 |

"The Democratic group American Bridge, which spent about $62 million on ads in 2020 to defeat President Donald Trump, plans to relaunch next month with a new effort aimed at defending the record of President Biden and a nine-figure ad budget to maintain Democratic congressional majorities through the midterm elections." ... ...

In simpler terms, Trump is a nasty piece of work who gained his position with a gamed system. His character was obvious to most intelligent people from the beginning of his public life and mobilization occurred to minimize his damage and make sure the same fluke didn’t happen again.

Yeah, a real piece of work. That piece of work, essentially a electoral politics beginner, stepped into a corrupt, hide-bound fixed house-game and working against both sides, restored a choice for the first time in decades which went beyond the Republican-Democrat Tweedle-Dee, Tweedle-Dum.

Millions of Americans responded positively--as he'd understood they would and as the National Democratic Party establishment did not understand at all, Hillary Clinton among the least understanding.

She openly dismissed these people as belonging properly in a basket, dismissing them as deplorable.

That may not be a great way to win votes--gratuitously alienating millions of people whose votes are going to help determine whether one is elected or not--but at least it's honest. Hillary Clinton--as those around her were already well aware--despised these people, that is, when she thought about them at all except as a market-survey objective.

Yes, Trump, using his own native intelligence and while accomplishing the feat of insulting the electorate LESS than did Hillary Clinton and her supposedly unrivaled team of political geniuses, actually beat this amazingly conceited and insufferable bitch at a contest which she'd already smugly described as hers for the taking while she openly ridiculed his chances of even making a decent showing as absurd.

Oh, and then? She doubled-down on her bitch side and, finding herself beaten according to the Electoral College rules, showed herself the worst kind of loser.

Yeah, Trump, whom you, in turn, dismiss as a piece of work. Trump is the person who, by his candidacy alone, put choice back ---temporarily or, if establishment Demopublicans and Republocrats are denied their way--more long term.

This is the kind of shit which it seems these establishment goons cannot learn, no matter what. That's what led them to conclude correctly that, to beat Trump, they were going to have to brazenly cheat him out of an election he'd otherwise win--again. And about that, they were right. One of the few things which they get correct. And so they did cheat. And they stole the election they neither earned nor deserved and then went back to trying to put Trump on trial.

#3--LOL!

In both 2016 and 2020 Trump got less votes than either Clinton or Biden and somehow he got cheated. Did you even vote? My guess is you didn't. But anyway you're so stuck in the past that you rant on about Hillary Clinton incessantly like we're still in 2015. Your dipshit Trump had 0 evidence for his stolen election claim---he lost court battle after court battle many of which were presided over by judges he put in place because Julie Annie and Sidney's assertions were laughable down to the dotted i's and crossed t's. He literally tried to destroy the Post Office to stop voting by mail. Ignored a pandemic that has killed well over 400,000 Americans and ran the most corrupt administration in my lifetime which is saying something. When he wasn't trading favors he was at the golf course. He's a fucking loser and a criminal. I don't expect he'll be convicted by the Senate but hopefully there's some prison time down the road for him because that's where he belongs.

Hillary Clinton Was Right

Trump is/was Putin's puppet.

TRUMP: … from everything I see, (Putin) has no respect for this person.

CLINTON: Well, that’s because he’d rather have a puppet as president of the United States.

TRUMP: No puppet. No puppet.

CLINTON: And it’s pretty clear …

TRUMP: You’re the puppet!

CLINTON: It’s pretty clear you won’t admit …

TRUMP: No, you’re the puppet.

CLINTON: … that the Russians have engaged in cyberattacks against the United States of America, that you encouraged espionage against our people, that you are willing to spout the Putin line, sign up for his wish list, break up NATO, do whatever he wants to do, and that you continue to get help from him, because he has a very clear favorite in this race.

So I think that this is such an unprecedented situation. We’ve never had a foreign government trying to interfere in our election. We have 17 — 17 intelligence agencies, civilian and military, who have all concluded that these espionage attacks, these cyberattacks, come from the highest levels of the Kremlin and they are designed to influence our election. I find that deeply disturbing.
(SNIP)
"Now, just imagine if you can. Donald Trump sitting in the Oval Office, the next time America faces a crisis. Imagine him being in charge when your jobs and savings are at stake. Is this who you want to lead us in an emergency? Someone thin skinned and quick to anger who’d likely be on Twitter attacking reporters or bringing the whole regulatory system down on his critics when he should be focused on fixing what’s wrong? Would he even know what to do?

“Donald Trump doesn’t know the first thing about Iran or its nuclear program. Ask him. It’ll become very clear, very quickly.” Or: “There is a difference between getting tough on trade and recklessly starting trade wars.”

“Step back and think about it,” she wrote in What Happened. “The Russians hacked our election systems. They got inside. They tried to delete or alter voter information. This should send a shiver down the spine of every American.” NY Times

Trump supporters are deplorable.

“You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right?” Clinton said. “The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic – you name it. And unfortunately, there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.” Al Jazeera

She was right, if not prescient, before the attack by insurrectionists and their failed coup attempt.

What we’re seeing right now is a president with nothing left to lose and only one goal—to distract people from the fact that he lost.

He doesn’t care that the costs are America’s health, security, and our very democracy.
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) January 4, 2021
The Hill

>3 proximity1: Does anyone still believe the "Tweedle-dee, Tweedle-dum" theory anymore? Really?

I mean, after the last four years, does anyone really still believe there's no difference between the two parties?

This always was nonsense, promulgated by people too stupid to pay attention to politics for the delectation of people too lazy to pay attention to politics. Let's not go back to pretending that anyone seriously is going to buy this in 2021. That dog is dead.

As for the rest of your post, you seem to be arguing that Trump won in 2016 - that is, that Trump got into the white house by dint of something he did. I think that's giving him a lot more credit than he deserves. The only reason he won in 2016 was because the left had a foot-shooting party and gave the field over to an inarticulate senile imbecile. It seems that both mainstream and progressive Democrats have realized just how stupid their actions were in 2016 so I think it's not likely that we'll be seeing the left giving Republicans the field that way again in the next few cycles - but of course we'll see what comes after President Harris' two terms are done.

(President Abrams, anyone? I'm with it...)

Trump is a life-long con man and cult personality who has been using the fears of clueless, gullible people to further his private empire-building goals. While in the process of doing that, he has turned America into a virus-filled banana republic with a faltering economy. And, he turned Lincoln's party into a cult.

Two impeachments efforts in fewer than two years. Four years unrelenting attacks borne of a stubborn refusal to accept and respect a legitimate election outcome; relentless efforts to undermine Trump followed the failure to overturn that election result.

_You_ lot are the central actors in the making of the U.S. spiral into Banana-Republic-status.

With the world looking on, you made the electoral processes of the selection of the president into the object of your open scorn. And then you connived in a blatant corruption of this same process four years later.

Fortune's Wheel, the Fates, though mythical in their origin, these do in fact describe the way in which events so often unfold in reality as it has long been experienced and understood--full of irony, poetic justice, and tragi-comedy. The basis first in real life of actual events later rendered in myth is the reason they come to be reflected in literature --mythic literature before others because it was older-- the imitation of life's realities.

The U.S. presidential election of 2000 is a case in point. Biden is a fool, sent by fools, on a fool's errand, an errand he'll never see through to its finish, nor, when he was nominated and chosen in a corrupted election, was he ever even intended to see it through by those who put him up and cleared the obstacles by deceitful means.

Kamala Harris, for her part, is under-study to a fool without, herself, recognizing this about herself. From Blair House, she sharpens her knives and mulls over the color of the drapes she'll choose for the White House Oval Office.

The U.S. is dressing bit by bit for the part of a Banana Republic and in that matter the greatest leaps have been by and from those bent on refusing, rejecting and denying Trump's earned elections to office.

I am happy to be a member of a party whose leader does not cater to the wishes of white nationalists, white supremacists, QAnons, Proud Boys and Nazis, etc. Any fool can gain a following by being a hate and fear spreader. Hitler was example #1.

>8 proximity1: A president so terrible he merited two separate impeachments, and you're defending him?
A mob of right-wing nutcases attempt to subvert a legitimate election, threaten to kill the governor of at least two states, and attack the seat of government, and I'm the one making this country into a banana republic?

Sorry, dude, but try to think before you post.

America is on its way back from the brink. I don't know why that bothers you so much, but the world is changing, it's changing for the better, and you're going to have to either cope with that, or retreat further into deranged fantasy.

Biden gets more than 7 million votes over Donald and wins by a healthy 4.4% points and still we have this stolen election nonsense. I really don't know what there is not to understand. Donald did what Donald does---he lies and he tried to cheat. When none of his stupid tricks work out he incites a mob. The mob leaves 5 dead in its wake and a bunch of beaten up policemen.....when push came to shove Blue Lives Matter got their asses kicked by the right wingers. They were going to murder Pelosi, AOC and Michael Pence all because Donald wouldn't concede and wouldn't transition peacefully. This is why the fucker got impeached the second time and he very much deserved it.

"A League of Voters"

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Each dot represents one thousand certified votes to show roughly how many more U.S. Americans voted for Democratic President Joe Biden than President Donald Trump. This was the result despite the incumbent's hostile interference with elections.

Some Deplorables Escape the Cult

There's hope, apparently, for some -- those who (like alcoholics and drug addicts) reach rock bottom and are self-motivated to climb out of the swamp and/or rabbit hole. Here's one ex-Qreep's personal story.

Yeah, but will they stay out?

"Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) submitted a question during the fourth day of the Senate impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump asking if language Vice President Kamala Harris used in 2020 regarding Black Lives Matter protests is considered incitement given the impeachment managers’ 'proposed standard' for incitement.

"Cruz’s question began, 'While violent riots were raging,' Kamala Harris said on national TV, ‘"They’re not gonna let up, and they should not,"' quoting viral comments then-Sen. Harris (D-CA) made on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert last June in reference to nationwide Black Lives Matter protests.

"The protests, which were sparked by the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in May, were largely peaceful but, in many instances, ended up devolving into destructive riots throughout the country that included vandalism, looting, fires, violence, injury, and in some cases even death over the course of several months in 2020." ...

#14--you mean the Black Lives Matters protests that turned into police riots?

>14 proximity1: Toad Cruz thinks that the BLM protests were violent and the insurrection against this country was "free speech". Fuck him, he's a useless shitbag. Why would you quote someone who hates both Black people and this country as much as he does? It's almost like you think that he might have a point in his racist and anti-American views - but of course that can't be the case, and of course I wouldn't imply that you're agreeing with a racist anti-American scumfucker because that would be a violation of the TOS.

So I can only suppose that you've posted that quote to point out the degree of depravity that a Republican senator like Cruz can come up with, and how horrible he is. And I completely agree with you on that - Cruz is a pathetic little maggot, like pretty much everyone in his party.

Cruz's abuse of language, reason, and the law illustrates his long and consistent career as a foot-kissing knuckler under. Recall his behavior during the 2016 election regarding and in response to Trump's candidacy.

If nothing else, Cruz is a proven and easy target of bullies. He has the courage of a cowering pansy, no offense to flowers. He has all the values of a groveling palace slave. He has no regard for the founding principles of our democratic republic: "Our rights come from God, not the Constitution."

That said, there is one thing Cruz is not.
The Zodiac Killer

>17 Limelite: "Foot-kissing"? Surely not!

Cruz aims a bit higher than that.

>18 kiparsky:

You're absolutely correct, sir. But I withdrew my gaze. . .

IN THE HISTORY OF the United States there have been four successful votes to impeach and put on trial the president of the United States. At trial, every such Senate trial resulted in a final vote to acquit.

The similarities in the social and political climates and in particulars of their circumstances are hardly merely coincidental. In every case, the nation was in the midst of or had just, it was supposed, passed through a period of tumultuous and bitter and partisan fighting and, of course, in Johnson's case, actual open, bloody, nation-dividing warfare.

of President Andrew Johnson's impeachment, we read (from Wikipedia's pages)

"The new Congress met for a few weeks in March 1867, then adjourned, leaving the House Committee on the Judiciary behind, charged with reporting back to the full House whether there were grounds for Johnson to be impeached. This committee duly met, examined the President's bank accounts, and summoned members of the Cabinet to testify. When a federal court released former Confederate president Davis on bail on May 13 (he had been captured shortly after the war), the committee investigated whether the President had impeded the prosecution. It learned that Johnson was eager to have Davis tried. A bipartisan majority of the committee voted down impeachment charges; the committee adjourned on June 3.(152)

"Later in June, Johnson and Stanton battled over the question of whether the military officers placed in command of the South could override the civil authorities. The President had Attorney General Henry Stanbery issue an opinion backing his position that they could not. Johnson sought to pin down Stanton either as for, and thus endorsing Johnson's position, or against, showing himself to be opposed to his president and the rest of the Cabinet. Stanton evaded the point in meetings and written communications. When Congress reconvened in July, it passed a Reconstruction Act against Johnson's position, waited for his veto, overrode it, and went home. In addition to clarifying the powers of the generals, the legislation also deprived the President of control over the Army in the South. With Congress in recess until November, Johnson decided to fire Stanton and relieve one of the military commanders, General Philip Sheridan, who had dismissed the governor of Texas and installed a replacement with little popular support. Johnson was initially deterred by a strong objection from Grant, but on August 5, the President demanded Stanton's resignation; the secretary refused to quit with Congress out of session.(153) Johnson then suspended him pending the next meeting of Congress as permitted under the Tenure of Office Act; Grant agreed to serve as temporary replacement while continuing to lead the Army.(154)

"Grant, under protest, followed Johnson's order transferring Sheridan and another of the district commanders, Daniel Sickles, who had angered Johnson by firmly following Congress's plan. The President also issued a proclamation pardoning most Confederates, exempting those who held office under the Confederacy, or who had served in federal office before the war but had breached their oaths. Although Republicans expressed anger with his actions, the 1867 elections generally went Democratic. No seats in Congress were directly elected in the polling, but the Democrats took control of the Ohio General Assembly, allowing them to defeat for reelection one of Johnson's strongest opponents, Senator Benjamin Wade. Voters in Ohio, Connecticut, and Minnesota turned down propositions to grant African Americans the vote.(155)

"The adverse results momentarily put a stop to Republican calls to impeach Johnson, who was elated by the elections.(156) Nevertheless, once Congress met in November, the Judiciary Committee reversed itself and passed a resolution of impeachment against Johnson. After much debate about whether anything the President had done was a high crime or misdemeanor, the standard under the Constitution, the resolution was defeated by the House of Representatives on December 7, 1867, by a vote of 57 in favor to 108 opposed.(157) (emphasis added)

"Johnson notified Congress of Stanton's suspension and Grant's interim appointment. In January 1868, the Senate disapproved of his action, and reinstated Stanton, contending the President had violated the Tenure of Office Act. Grant stepped aside over Johnson's objection, causing a complete break between them. Johnson then dismissed Stanton and appointed Lorenzo Thomas to replace him. Stanton refused to leave his office, and on February 24, 1868, the House impeached the President for intentionally violating the Tenure of Office Act, by a vote of 128 to 47. The House subsequently adopted eleven articles of impeachment, for the most part alleging that he had violated the Tenure of Office Act, and had questioned the legitimacy of Congress.(158)


Illustration of Johnson's impeachment trial in the United States
Senate, by Theodore R. Davis, published in Harper's Weekly

"On March 5, 1868, the impeachment trial began in the Senate and lasted almost three months; Congressmen George S. Boutwell, Benjamin Butler and Thaddeus Stevens acted as managers for the House, or prosecutors, and William M. Evarts, Benjamin R. Curtis and former Attorney General Stanbery were Johnson's counsel; Chief Justice Chase served as presiding judge.(159)

"The defense relied on the provision of the Tenure of Office Act that made it applicable only to appointees of the current administration. Since Lincoln had appointed Stanton, the defense maintained Johnson had not violated the act, and also argued that the President had the right to test the constitutionality of an act of Congress.(160) Johnson's counsel insisted that he make no appearance at the trial, nor publicly comment about the proceedings, and except for a pair of interviews in April, he complied.(161) (emphasis added)

"Johnson maneuvered to gain an acquittal; for example, he pledged to Iowa Senator James W. Grimes that he would not interfere with Congress's Reconstruction efforts. Grimes reported to a group of Moderates, many of whom voted for acquittal, that he believed the President would keep his word. Johnson also promised to install the respected John Schofield as War Secretary." ...

______________________________

(Wikipedia: "Impeachment of Andrew Johnson")

In 1887, the Tenure of Office Act was repealed by Congress, and subsequent rulings by the United States Supreme Court seemed to support Johnson's position that he was entitled to fire Stanton without congressional approval.

The Supreme Court's ruling on a similar piece of later legislation in Myers v. United States (1926) affirmed the ability of the president to remove a postmaster without congressional approval, and stated in its majority opinion 'that the Tenure of Office Act of 1867...was invalid' ".(51) (emphasis added)

"Lyman Trumbull of Illinois, one of the 10 Republican senators whose refusal to vote for conviction prevented Johnson's removal from office, noted, in the speech he gave explaining his vote for acquittal, that had Johnson been convicted, the main source of the president's political power—the freedom to disagree with the Congress without consequences—would have been destroyed, and the Constitution's system of checks and balances along with it:(52)

"Once set the example of impeaching a President for what, when the excitement of the hour shall have subsided, will be regarded as insufficient causes, as several of those now alleged against the President were decided to be by the House of Representatives only a few months since, and no future President will be safe who happens to differ with a majority of the House and two thirds of the Senate on any measure deemed by them important, particularly if of a political character. Blinded by partisan zeal, with such an example before them, they will not scruple to remove out of the way any obstacle to the accomplishment of their purposes, and what then becomes of the checks and balances of the Constitution, so carefully devised and so vital to its perpetuity? They are all gone."

The three subsequent impeachments and trials are all well within living memory. All of them were similarly driven by bitterly held and prosecuted partisan pique--transparent efforts simply to "get the president," whatever the means, whatever the cost to the nation's well-being, over matters which were clearly dependent on one's partisan feelings and beliefs about the personality of the president rather than anything he'd actually done or not done in so-called "high crimes and misdemeanors."

Impeachments and trials of the president of the United States are the products of bitterly divisive and confused times. They have proven in every single instance to have been ill-considered, ill-advised and done over and against wiser, clearer counsel's thinking. They've failed and failed each time as was completely predicted by those opposed to them--whether in the president's camp of supporters or not.

In short, throughout the history of the United States, the resort to presidential impeachment and trial has always been a self-inflicted injury to the nation and never, ever, actually either as necessary or advisable as those, at the time, who demanded and drove them, were convinced, in their fevered imaginations, it to have been.

We could, we ought to, learn from this. But history's own sorry report to us, across centuries, is that we don't and, in all probability, we shan't.
But the Constitution's framers, politically much wiser and more astute than are we, foresaw all this and deliberately made the removal of the president a difficult procedure which almost certainly required important bi-partisan support to finally succeed. Their wisdom has now twice saved us from our stupid, bitterly divided selves.

#20--I guess this is Proximity making an attempt to be conciliatory but I'd like to point out a few things.

1. that Nixon got what he deserved.
2. that Reagan should have been impeached as well for Iran-Contra if not some other stuff.
3. that Clinton's presidency certainly deserved the scrutiny but that the Republican House leadership found the most bullshit thing to try to impeach him with which IMO is the reason it backfired.
4. That Bush 2 got us involved in unnecessary wars that were rife with graft for his corporate and oil and gas buddies and that led to hundreds of thousands of deaths and millions of injured and displaced people and destablized the entire Middle East and certainly deserved being impeached.
5. that Trump deserved both of his impeachments and the worst was the last one where he deliberately triggered an angry insurrectionary minded crowd that he for sure knew included right wing incendiary actors with all his bullshit and lies about a stolen election.

Letting all these people get away with their shit is not going to stop other future presidents from trying to do somewhat the same when they get the chance. It's actually more likely to give them the idea that they should at least try because there will likely be no consequences to be faced later on.

>20 proximity1:

My own memories of the two US presidential impeachments during my adult life are that they were not a result of "tumultuous and bitter and partisan fighting". Google refreshes my memory that Nixon's was "for obstruction of justice, abuse of power, and contempt of Congress" and Clinton's was "on grounds of perjury to a grand jury and obstruction of justice". Fairly straightforward, I would have thought.