KT edit: America deserves the democracy it gets

Both sides have traded barbs and charges as the trial turn svitriolic in the Senate.

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Published: Tue 21 Jan 2020, 8:00 PM

Last updated: Tue 21 Jan 2020, 10:56 PM

The Trump impeachment trial has been at the centre of the US media circus for months but it is still unclear if he is indeed guilty or not. This means taking sides and staying true to liberal and conservative values and ideologies that the Democrats and Republicans represent. It involves so-called moral grandstanding - the right and wrongs in a democracy. No one is asking what a former vice-president's son was doing in Ukraine. Was daddy helping him bag deals? The picture is hazy in an era of divisions and rifts, when opposites are drifting farther apart and are giving the power of reason a bad name.
Meanwhile, the US president doesn't think he is guilty and calls the whole process a hoax. There are two sides to the story that has divided the country: Democrats insist that he abused his position to ensure Ukraine digs up dirt on his rival and former vice-president Joe Biden's son. Trump claims there was no wrongdoing on his part and that it was normal procedure while dealing with foreign countries.
Both sides have traded barbs and charges as the trial turn svitriolic in the Senate. Senators and party leaders on both sides are happy making the most of the airtime offered to them. It's nice staying in the news even when one party knows that they are going to lose from the very beginning. Milk the effort for what it is worth and try to sway the narrative is the plan. The Democrats will drag the trial in the Senate for as long as they can in a bid to give their candidate some weapon, any political weapon to strike down Trump in the November presidential elections.
All said and done, victory is certain for Trump as the Republican party appears solidly behind him. The GOP enjoys a clear majority in the upper house. Some procedural twists and turns can be expected during the spectacle - a theatre of the absurd. Many among the Democrats will claim that institutions have been weakened and hijacked under the president whose actions remain suspect and certainly not above board. Was the impeachment process worth it for the Democrats who are yet to come up with an alternative to Trump? No. Sometimes America deserves what she gets.
 
 

Published: Tue 21 Jan 2020, 8:00 PM

Last updated: Tue 21 Jan 2020, 10:56 PM

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