On Symbolic Gestures
We all knew all along Donald Trump would be acquitted by the Senate. Given the perfect storm of partisanship, complicity, and fear of reprisal, there was really no other viable outcome.
Oh, we dreamed of removal from office; we obsessed over it, we spun up elaborate scenarios where it might happen. But these were the political wonk equivalent to planning what you’d do when you win Powerball, in that delicious span between buying the tickets and learning the numbers.
So was it worth it?
Yes. Yes, of course it was.
The hot takes are going to start sizzling any moment now, and all of them are going to revolve around how this affects the scoreboard: approval ratings, election odds, who this process hurt and helped in the Caucus-race of politics. A lot of them will go like this: Republicans won, Democrats 0.
But like that Dodo’s race in Alice in Wonderland, there’s no finish line, and nobody is going to declare a winner. The only thing that matters is what’s happened along the way. And what’s happened is this: one political party has staked out a position that laws don’t matter, ethics don’t matter to them, political processes and precedents don’t matter. The only thing that matters is winning and preserving power.
And that’s exactly why going through the impeachment process has mattered and will continue to matter. Because we need someone in power to visibly advocate for the opposite: that doing the right thing matters, that our laws and oaths matter, that there are some things more important than personal benefit. Sometimes doing the right thing will cost you.
But not doing the right thing has a cost, too. The wrongdoer may not pay it — I’m not a believer in hell and I don’t believe all of them even have a conscience to speak of. But there is a cost to society that all of us will pay, in the end. Because the ability to do good and be good relies upon a group social consensus regarding what values we all share. And if that’s “to each his own” or “fuck you, got mine” or “it’s good if it upsets my rival” then we will all suffer, in the end, from living in a colder, harsher world than we need to.
But people are still trying to do the right thing. Dozens in Congress. Millions in the United States. Billions in the world.
Trump’s acquittal may feel to some of us like a crushing defeat, I get it. But — while I hate to talk about these things purely in terms of winning and losing — there’s one thing I like to keep in mind: You’ve never really lost until you stop trying to win.
