By Frida Ghitis
(CNN) History will record that the second impeachment of President Donald Trump branded him forever as a catastrophically immoral and divisive leader. It will also mark most of his defenders in the Republican Party as duplicitous opportunists who claimed at the last moment that the country needed unity after they had contributed to the rhetoric bringing the nation to the precipice of civil war.
In their speeches in the House of Representatives during the impeachment debate, the 197 opponents of the measure put on a carnival of hypocrisy, a spectacle in which they tried to persuade their colleagues, the country, and perhaps themselves, that after they spent months trying to overturn the legitimate results of a democratic election, suddenly they cared about unifying and healing the nation above all else.
Who could possibly believe such a fiction?
Perhaps they think they can convince us that they now believe nothing matters more than coming together because they spent so much time spreading a different falsehood, claiming that Trump won in November.
In the waning days of Trump’s smoldering, suppurating presidency, what’s one more lie?
Democrats described the events of Jan. 6. Rep. Jamie Raskin noted the chilling fact that Trump’s mob may have been hunting Vice President Mike Pence and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to stage their coup, “but every one of us in this room right now could have died.”
Categories: Good governance