Suppose we find the guy (I’m guessing) who killed the cop. I want him tried, and if convicted, punished. That will be divisive, too. Some people will think he’s a wonderful patriot who just stood up for ordinary folk. I think that justice and deterrence both say we need to punish him.
I have the same reasoning for Trump.
If you want unity, let the Rs and Ds in Congress get together, look at all these allegations of election fraud, and produce a joint statement the details each one with the reasons to believe/disbelieve it. One of our biggest problems is that we’re operating with two (or more) sets of “facts”. We won’t have common ground until we have common facts.
But, that won’t happen because Trump has shown the Rs that you can gain power by being divisive – just play to your base and you’ll be okay.
Trump says: “I want to be very clear: I unequivocally condemn the violence that we saw last week.” He says, “Like all of you I was shocked and deeply saddened by the calamity” and “no true supporter” of his “could ever endorse political violence.”
This came out right after the House impeachment vote. I figured Trump was trying to influence the Senate vote (and future criminal prosecution).
One bonus from the impeachment is that it might constrain Trump in his last 5 1/2 days. For example, I was thinking he would pardon everyone involved in the insurrection. But now he has to worry about a Senate vote.
Graham was on Air Force One with Trump this week. He was lobbying his colleagues from the plane. I hope he told Trump that he shouldn’t make those acquittal votes any harder.
The problem is a right wing media that won’t let the Republicans come to the table. Instead, they are taught nothing but to hate the ideas of Democrats. This is Rush, Hannity, and the many others who have sat their and made millions driving a wedge into the minds of their viewers. Masks are stupid, vaccines are evil, global warming is a hoax, green energy is going to bankrupt us. These should all be non-political goals, yet they are evil because Democrats are for them.
Trump is simply someone who constantly reminds them how angry they need to be with Democrats, and has done that very effectively. Some of these things people are angry about - its debatable if the problem is real, or just something people have been told over an over is a problem, so they stay angry.
Fwiw, I appreciate that you are asking a good question. Unity could very well be more important than justice or deterrence or other principles. Unity is what we need most.
But I’m not sure how to get unity. I don’t think it’s as easy as “the d platform is unappealing” because the overwhelming insane messaging has swallowed any notion of shared facts and shared values and shared issues. But I really don’t know the answer, I can’t tell if we are more or less unified with another impeachment. I just wanted to clarify that nobody wanted this to happen. I doubt even dear old Nancy pelosi is happy voting a second time, while the national guard makes camp downstairs beneath a bust of lincoln.
(And as I said I think it’s moot anyway, since we really just can’t let an attack on Democracy slide. It’s not “dirty politics”, and it’s not even good politics, it’s es muss sein.)
Every first aid class teaches that you need to ensure the scene is safe before you can administer first aid. The time for healing is after achieving safety. preventing trump from running again, reducing his voice, is an essential part of achieving safety.
This, and the Republican line is literally the domestic abuser line.
“Hey baby, forget about that stuff I did. What we need now is to heal our relationship, not focus on the bad things (and by healing, I don’t actually mean any sort of counseling.)”
“I’m just trying to find someone else to blame. Like Democrats.”
“Owning the Libs” is a more appealing platform than, oh:
Protecting Americans and Recovering from the COVID Pandemic (I guess acknowledging it is less appealing than calling it a hoax).
Building a Stronger and Fairer Economy. (“They’re gonna tax you!!!” is the typical GOP response.)
Achieving Universal, Affordable, Quality Health Care. (See above response. Also, “Keep your government hands off my Medicare!!!” Then again, it would repeal ObamaCare, that a plus, right??)
Reforming the Criminal Justice System. (“Not Law-and-Ordery enough, so let’s lynch some elected leaders!”)
Healing the Soul of America. (“Sounds Black to me. Probably those BLM Communists!”
Combatting Climate Crisis. (“Everything will cost more!!! Let’s just put tariffs on imports and make Jina pay for it.”)
Restoring and Strengthening Our Democracy. (“Can’t have more Demoratic-leaning voters vote!!”)
Creating a 21st Century Immigration System. (“What’s wrong with the 12th-Century one we have now??”)
Providing a World-Class Education for every ZIP Code. (“A. I don’t want them liberals teaching my kids about Socialism; and 2. I don’t want MY MONEY paying for them’s (YKWIM) education.”)
Renewing American Leadership. (“I think bully diplomacy is better, then we get what we want every time!” Also, whatever Obama did has to be undone. That owns Libs the most.")
Yeah, but Americans are paying attention. The support is slowly drifting away. Even Trump’s approval rating has dropped 4% or so over the last several days. You can be a frustrating and annoying and govern some states with 30% of Americans supporting you, but you can’t govern the country.
I will again say, there is absolutely a seat at the table for conservative polices in America’s future. It is essential IMO that those ideas are heard. But IMO there is absolutely no place for Trumpism. Conservatism is not meant to uphold white supremacy and that is what it was become a platform for under Trump. The US is not a white country anymore and these Trump voters need to realize that and embrace the changing culture. Small government, capitalism, state’s rights, etc are not inherently white supremacist policies and they can benefit minorities just as much as whites, but they can no longer be used as an excuse to continue oppressive policies against non-white non-strait folks.
The interesting thing is that people actually believe that the Republican Party cares about these things… well, maybe capitalism (for those that aren’t already rich, at least).
I’d like to start with all in Congress to admit that Biden is the duly elected president and that there was no fraud. Without that, the masses that support the R’s still have a talking point.
We also need to find out if anyone in Congress had any complicity in the attack. I think that there is going to be a lot of evidence that some were involved. That needs to be thoroughly vetted. If the R’s got a dozen Benghazi hearings, this needs at least one.
I just want to try to explain how utterly insane calls for unity sound to the left. Imagine someone walks into a police station and immediately murders the first officer he sees. Then, when the other cops try to arrest/shoot this guy he objects by saying arresting him wouldn’t lead to unity. That is how calls for unity instead of impeachment sound right now.
Unity is not, should not, be the priority right now.
The gun advocate, newly elected rep from Colorado, Lauren Bobert has tweeted that " Rep. Sean Maloney (D NY) made false and baseless conspiracy claims about me that lead to death threats and hundreds of vile phone calls and emails."
Now the great part about this tweet is that in Maloney’s interview with Nicolle Wallace…he never mentioned her name.
The thing about your scenario is that there’s just one bad clear bad guy and 20 clear good guys.
Reality is more like if we lived on an island with 21 people. 11 voted for a good guy, and 10 voted for a bad guy. Both sides think they are good guys and the other guys are bad guys. A precious few are unsure, but lean towards the good side. Everybody is on edge.
I don’t know if “unity” is the right word, but convincing everybody that the bad guy is bad and the good guy is good is really the most important thing.
These allegations have already been investigated and found to be lacking credibility. In many (I think most) cases it was Republicans who found they lacked credibility.
The issue isn’t that the allegations haven’t been investigated. The issue is that they have been investigated. The answer just wasn’t the one Trump wanted.
To quote Lindsey Graham: if you want to reassure people, putting together a commission with people selected by Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell, and John Roberts is not going to get you to where you want to go.
I agree. Every single allegation was investigated and shown to be false. There was no fraud.
Now what people that actually know what they are talking about are asking is about ballot harvesting and making sure the mail ballots were actually from the people whose name was on them.
I also think Republicans largely would like to require identification, a signature, and showing up in person for all elections. They are not comfortable with the modern approach to voting that took place this year. If they want that to change they should pass legislation. That’s the way America works.
This is pretty much just BS. Republicans have never had an issue with absentee ballots. Republicans have always had an issue with wide spread, easy access to voting. Rank and file “Republicans” who are expressing this sentiment may have an honest concern, but it would easily be assuaged by Republican leaders making it clear that voter fraud is extremely limited and noting that there are several states with 100% mail-in voting that have never experienced any real issues.