Damn straight it was. There will be some handwringing and pontificating—because, you know, pundits gotta pundit—but the fact is Trump’s actions were deserving impeachment and conviction many times over. The “good arguments on both sides” folks are just covering ass,1 and you know who you are, and you know where you’re going, which is not exactly Hell, but close to it.2 Consider the following:
Trump farmed out the implementation of American foreign policy with regard to Ukraine to his self-appointed, unpaid lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, a man with, obviously, no security clearance and entirely unbound by direction of anyone in the U.S. State Department or any other branch of the U.S government, a man who, moreover, would claim “attorney-client privilege” with regard to any and all communications he may have had with the president.
Giuliani proceeded to conspire with any number of sordid individuals to undermine the reputation and authority of the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, precisely because she believed in honest government. Giuliani’s whole goal was to promote corrupt government in Ukraine, to turn it into a country that would do his and Trump’s bidding on any issue they chose, to turn it into a client state, not of the United States, but of Donald Trump and his henchmen, using the U.S. State Department, and any other power of the U.S. government he could lay his hands on, to further that purpose..
Donald Trump cut off foreign aid to Ukraine both authorized and appropriated by the U.S. Congress in exercise of its “power of the purse”, of which Republicans in Congress used to endlessly prate when they were trying to sabotage the Obama Administration, something he had no authority to do. In a personal interview he bullied the president of Ukraine with obvious threats unless he agreed to announce investigations into entirely false and imaginary “crimes”, with the purpose of enhancing his personal reputation and electoral prospects in 2020.
When the matter became public, Trump lied about it endlessly, and continues to lie today, uttering numerous threats against anyone who defies his will, and defied Congress by “ordering” both public officials and private persons not to testify before Congress, even if subpoenaed to do so, running roughshod over the Constitution over and over again. Only Watergate offers similar examples of public corruption for private ends, and Nixon cooperated with the constitutional process to a far greater extent than Trump, though, of course, he continued to lie until the very end as well.
Trump is not “vulgar”. He is disgusting. He is a man who embraces proudly the very worst aspects of human nature, and those who do not explicitly oppose Donald Trump embrace him and them as well, embrace him and all his works.
UPDATE
"There are those that say" (to sound like Richard Nixon), that the Democrats should have built a "stronger case" against Trump. Well, sure, the Democrats didn't do a perfect job. But a perfect job, or, I guess, "the perfect job", whatever that might be, would not have garnered a single additional vote, unless, perhaps, a tape could be found of Trump calling out Republican senators one by one by name and ridiculing each as a cock-sucking pussy. That might have turned things around.
The only person who could have seriously damaged Trump, other than the cabinet officials who are almost as guilty as he is, is John Bolton. If Bolton had launched a direct assault on Trump, instead of his "monetized" passive-aggressive semi-stab in the back, perhaps a half a dozen Republicans, or even more, might have voted for conviction, which probably would have fatally damaged Trump in 2020. But Bolton clearly had no intention of being known as the man who brought down Trump. The Republican Party, whatever was left of it, could never forgive him.
1. Particularly “amusing” to me have been the efforts of Jonah Goldberg to cut a “thoughtful” path separate from both Trump and the Democratic Party, which, naturally, simply encourages a deluge of rage upon poor Jonah’s head from the true Trumpians, who will accept nothing less than utter submission to their Master’s will. In this piece, Jonah begins “As the impeachment trial fizzles out this week, I’m left wondering if the GOP has lost its mind, because the only other choice is that I have.” Here’s a hint, Jonah: You’re NOT crazy. All your “friends” are.
2. Dante, thinking, I’m pretty sure, of the Florentines who did not support his forced exile from his ancestral city but did not oppose it either, more or less invented a special kind of damnation for those who refuse to take sides, forever wandering outside the gates of Hell, rejected by both God and Satan alike—“Of them the world endures no memory;/ Mercy and justice them alike disdain./ Speak we not of them: glance, and pass them by” (The Inferno, Canto III, lines 49-51, translation by James Romanes Sibbald]
Alan Vanneman, my high school classmate, I barely knew you because you were in the “smart” group and I was in the “outcast” group. The more I read of your writing, the smarter you become. Thank you for you many thoughtful posts! GMHS ’63
Connie, thank you so much for your kind words. Yes, high school was definitely “high school”, wasn’t it? If it’s any comfort to you, I was pretty miserable for three of my six years at GM, happy at the beginning and the end and miserable in the middle, which at least is better than the other way around. Let’s hope the rest of life works out that way as well.