[Cross-posted at The Left Coaster.]
I began the process of purging my Twitter account of 95% of its political input yesterday, the political news has been such a daily hammer blow for so long I hit a wall, there’s only so much terrible news I can stuff into my head without something going seriously wrong.
It’s not hyperbole, for a long, long time I’ve had a serious neurological issue that got me really sick. It’s faded out, thank all the stars in the universe, but I still have to be careful and I’m weary of provoking it with the uproar of seeing the government of the United States go down in such a putrid, weak splat.
We lost Article 1 yesterday with a sick Benito tweet of VETO! The media blithely ignores our Russian asset President acting like doddering mental patient. Winter climate change cells are smashing and flooding parts of the country, will California go up in flames this summer again? Then there was that lovely no-impeachment bomb by Speaker Pelosi, it’s really hit me hard.
Impeachment is a vivid, strong issue in the Democratic base that polls well above 60% in approval. At least three House members have impeachment measures all set to go under a horrendous President who is a lying felon that cheated the 2016 election. Speaker Pelosi is against it, so she goes to a media publication with her stated news.
Divisive. He’s not worth it. There’s your impeachment judgment from me, take it or leave it, the country is on the line but what you get, liberal, is five words of rejection in an environment where I don’t have to answer any questions.
I’m being nice about this, Speaker Pelosi, you really don’t want to hear the comparisons I have about that behavior, but I will say you don’t talk to me or any member of the Democratic base like that over such a critical issue. You’re not done explaining to our people why you took this path or position, so forget any possible conclusions that the matter is completely settled with five flippant words.
None of the stated rationales for not pursuing impeachment work. Divisive? Please, the President just yesterday threatened violence against political opponents.
Not worth it? Defense of Article 1 and the first amendment not worth it? The integrity of a democratic election? The truth and the rule of law, worth no defense whatsoever?
Yes its extremely likely conviction will fail in the Senate. So? Let the Republicans own the treachery with the record Democrats fought back. For the love of god this is not the Bill Clinton scenario, if Trump survived an impeachment vote it would not help him or the Republicans.
We’d get Pence or some unknown. So? It would be light years better than the active traitor we have for a President now, letting him destroy the country at will isn’t an option.
We all know what the Republicans would have done in this scenario, they would have instantly impeached any Democratic President who did anything wrong, let alone the tsunami of fascism currently engulfing us. Yet the rules are always so different for Democrats, just another absurd American political element I’m supposed to accept.
Now we get to endure taunting by Benito and the horrible knowledge we’ve given Trump the green light by doing nothing, why not go all the way and negate the 2020 election in an emergency scenario? The Democrats never fight back, that’s a sure thing, anything is possible.
Now we get to endure the withering criticism Democrats are weak weenies who can’t fight—even with the country and the constitution on the line we just sit there and bleat defeated words.
Now we have to somehow animate our bewildered, discouraged base with the most critical national election on the line next year.
I began writing political essays again as a warmup for the short fiction I’m supposed to be writing—writing is like hitting a baseball, you have to keep working in the discipline to go anywhere. I was supposed to leave political essays ‘cause there’s too much filth to stuff into battered, hurt brain with not much time left, but the country was in such an emergency I thought I had to try.
Fiction I will soon do, if I hit a wall in politics it could easily fall on me and crush me. I have done my time in the trenches for Democrats, I’m not going anywhere but I may have something truly powerful to write with fiction, I don’t know, I should give myself the chance to find out.
Meantime my twitter timeline will shimmer with fun and play around my Oakland A’s. Know what, Speaker Pelosi? Everything I know about baseball tells me the A’s are going to lose in their quest for a 2019 championship, but the team and organization will fight with everything they have to win, and when they lose they’ll have my allegiance and respect, damn right, because they didn’t sit there like weak losers and let someone else determine their fate.