Taking a deep breath after the Trump impeachment

"When philosophy paints its gray on gray, then has a form of life grown old, and with gray on gray it cannot be rejuvenated, but only known; the Owl of Minerva first takes flight with twilight closing in."
- G. W. F. Hegel, "Preface," Philosophy of Right

I have to find an excuse to roll out my favorite Hegel quote every now and then. I wanted to include it here with a quote I couldn't find online but that I heard from the late great Molly Ivins the one time I heard her speak live. So I'll quote it from my admittedly imperfect memory from circa 1995: "You should always remember that no matter how bad you think things are now, there's always a good chance you'll look back on now as the good old days."

What brought this to mind was my own feelings of something like letdown after Congress impeached Trump. Because it's a big validation for those of us who have been there with Congresswoman Rashid Tlaib who wanted to impeach the em-eff-er.

But as much as we would like to see Trump get the removal from office he so richly deserves, that does look unlikely at the moment. And, like everything else in the future, we don't actually know how it will play out, though I'm intellectually confident that it will help the Democrats politically.

So times like this make me want to roll out the famous Owl of Minerva, who we can all envy for not having to fret about the future, because she's going to get to deliver the authoritative verdict when she decides it's time.

Minerva, who gets to deliver the official verdict on the meaning of historical events

But I'm not feeling entirely negative. Because WE IMPEACHED THE EM-EFF-ER!!! That's a good thing. Minerva will at least have to take notice of that.

Since I was around during the Nixon Administration and took tremendous pleasure, not to mention political validation, when he resigned, a "mere" impeachment just doesn't provide the same rush.

I started thinking, well, maybe I'm disturbed because in the Nixon and Clinton impeachment processes, both parties in Congress at least pretended to treat it as a solemn occasion. But then I remembered that all I would have to do is browse through Joe Conason's and Gene Lyons' The Hunting of the President: The Ten-Year Campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton (2000) to remember how grotesquely shameless the Republicans were during the Clinton impeachment.

But the Democratic leadership was pushed into undertaking the Trump impeachment against their will and against their own bad, lazy, cynical inclinations. And that's a good thing. A very good thing. And I'm willing to take "yes" for an answer. In the new year, we'll have plenty of time for rending of clothing and gnashing of teeth over the chronic fecklessness of the Democrats and the astonishing shamelessness and villainy of the Republican Party.

Which reminds me, the brilliant Roy Edroso has captured the trajectory of the Republican Party, writing that in Trump, the Republicans have "found their dreamboat -- more senile than Reagan, more crooked than Nixon, and even more outrageously fake-Christian than George W. Bush." (Never Their Own Fault Alicublog 12/18/2019)