Impeach and prosecute

Each morning in our house, whoever gets up first, hits the coffee button to begin brewing what I had prepared the night before. Then my wife and I sit in our favorite leather chairs in the library/study surrounded by books, old desks and busts of American heroes.

A friend once described the room as ‘perfect Americana,’ and the hundreds (possibly as many as a thousand?) people who have found themselves in this room over the almost 12 years I have owned The Hermitage, usually comment on how comfortable and ‘cozy’ the room feels. As I have written before, the whole house is decorated as a mid-19th century, country cottage. (Oh, how often does my wife tell me I was born in the wrong century. I only hope she means historically and not so she wouldn’t have had to meet me.)

I have hesitated to write about the attempted coup last Wednesday because there have been millions of words already written by far better writers than me. Truthfully, I didn’t know what I could add. And in fact, my intent for this new post was to finally put up a long-ago promised missive about the environment.

But last Wednesday can’t be ignored. And even amateur writers like me, must comment. And surrounded by busts of Thoreau and Emerson and Washington and Jefferson and Madison, I feel cowardly for not doing so. They lean over me and demand to know what is keeping me from writing?

Many years ago, my son-in-law, while driving past a trampoline in someone’s yard, said to us all and to no one in particular: ‘nothing good can come from that.’

This phrase hit me last Wednesday as I reflect on all Trump has done to us and the world. In fact, I repeat what I have been saying for four years, if you elect a misogynistic, pathological lying, bigoted, racist, sex offender to the highest office of the land — nothing good can come from that. And, as I have said, every descriptor used here is true. What part of any of that doesn’t bother you?

As I sit surrounded by the busts of American heroes, including several who have been rightfully tarnished lately because of their slave-holding past, I am angered and depressed.

Here in the study are those mentioned above and some not pictured including Lincoln and Franklin and, of all people, Dickens. Large white, plaster busts collected over the years and added to rooms in the Hermitage for what purpose, I don’t know.

But I know now. To remind me, that in America, there once were giants. Very, very flawed giants, but giants nevertheless. And the 2016 election of such a horrible person only depresses me more because, today, in America, there are no giants left. Good people? Yes, of course. I believe Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are good people, in the old mold of public servants we used to have serving us.

But giants? The people that by their presence and lives can demand we all are better people and as a country we are a better country? None that I can name.

Today we have the likes of Cruz and Hawley and Graham and Palin and Giuliani and … oh, God, somebody please stop me before my depression reaches new levels.

And now the pathological liar has created a national mob that isn’t going away quickly. Unless the head of the beast is cut off. I say not only impeach but also prosecute. He incited an insurrection for christ’s sake. Impeach and prosecute. And don’t tell me we can’t find a way. There has to be a way.

And for God’s sake, please, let’s not give Cruz and Graham and the other enablers who now call for us to ‘come together’ the continued platform to spew that nonsense in an effort to now throw Trump and all he is about under the bus to save themselves. If Twitter and Facebook can do it, you and I can do it.

Turning point for America? If you don’t think so you aren’t paying attention. And, in case you think things will calm down soon and that we are done with all of this? It won’t and we aren’t.

Dear lord. Think about where we would be today if he had won re-election. Think about that!

Some readers of this blog, old friends of mine, have stayed politically active since those many years ago when we worked on gubernatorial, county and congressional elections together. I haven’t and now I’m embarrassed. This year, thanks to Sierra Club Action groups, I did get involved in the election writing personal letters to over 300 people who were environmentally active but didn’t always vote. I remember how good I felt when I put the last letter in the mail about a week from election day.

Then when they contacted me to do it again for the Georgia primary, I was too lazy to take it up. ‘I’ve done my job,’ I thought. How dare me, when our country is under such threat. Just plain stupid lazy…

Each of us can do something to oppose the Trumps of the world, even if it is just not letting someone, we know get away with telling another lie. Will it cause discord with that someone? Probably. But we are in such dangerous times we must take that risk. I’m not looking forward to it since some of those are family members. But I’m determined to do it.

I hope you are too.

Here’s some quotes from Thoreau from his essay now called Civil Disobedience:

Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine.

Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence.

Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience?