Trump Acquitted.. So What Now?
On February 13th, Donald Trump was acquitted at his second impeachment trial. The Senate voted that Trump was not guilty of inciting the violence that took place on January 6th. Trump is now the only president in history to be impeached twice. It has been a month since the Capital Riots on January 6th. The incident seems like a distant memory now. At the time, it seemed that this would be the final nail in for coffin for Trump's presidency, forever cementing his legacy in controversy. The Capital Riots all lead back to Trump when he first started spouting voter fraud conspiracies and refused to concede back in November. He proceeded to spend the next few months riling his supporters up with these false claims. Then in January, the storming of the Capital took place. Flash forward to today, and Trump is acquitted. Which brings the question: So what now? Trump was not held accountable for inciting those acts of violence. Will he continue to dodge accountability? Will there be a repeat of the events that took place in January? Who knows at this point...
What is remarkable to me is that his impeachment trial saw the most bipartisan vote the convict in the history of impeachments, presidential or otherwise. And yet, it was no where close to the total needed to convict. The United States Senate is such a wonky institution. Only there could a "trial" occur with these contexts: no evidence, no witnesses, the hilarious pretense of the most partisan batch of Senators we have ever seen being "impartial jurors", and a Guilty vote of 57-43 falling far short of actually finding the defendant guilty. The Senate likes to call itself the world's greatest deliberative body. As a young American, this to me comes off like a boss purchasing for themselves a "world's number one boss" mug. Nothing I have ever seen in my life has convinced me the Senate is either "great" or "deliberative". All that I see is non functioning body more incensed with holding onto tradition, however broken, in lieu of getting anything done from a legislative standpoint. Oh, the Senate.
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