Why Language is Important: A Writer’s Interpretation of the Second Trump Impeachment Trial
If you watched the second Trump impeachment hearing, you probably noticed a proliferation of certain “f” words: “fight,” “find,” and, from me, “the fuck?”
Photo from Reuters.
“The president of the United States incited a violent mob against the duly elected government of the United States in a vicious, depraved, and desperate attempt to remain in power. For the sake of our democracy, it cannot and must not be tolerated, excused, or go unpunished.”
I have to admit, when Trump was acquitted by the Senate yesterday, I immediately burst into tears. I didn’t have hope that he would be convicted. The response from Senate republicans was enough to show me that there wasn’t going to be a two-thirds majority to convict. But still, I listened to the House managers, who put together a poignant, heartfelt, and legally sound argument to convict Trump.
And then I listened to the defense.
Again, I say, “the fuck?”
For those who didn’t tune in, the defense basically used a 10-minute “fight club” video as their main evidence for why Trump should not be convicted. While the House managers argued the constitutional legality of the case, prepared a poignant presentation of what occurred on January 6, and tirelessly gathered heaping evidence of how Trump, over the course of months, fed his followers a big lie, the defense put together a montage of democrats saying the word “fight.”
Fuck me, right?
A screen grab from the House managers presentation.
This is why language is critical - because in a case that decides the precedent for what is considered an impeachable offense in the world’s oldest democracy, the defense, who ultimately won and acquitted former President Trump, ignored context, legality, and mounting evidence that painted a swath of guilt over the face of their client.
Context, as well as connotation, are necessary for this discussion. I sit here, disgusted that some personal injury lawyer can stand before the Senate of the United States government and argue that because they say “fight” and not be punished, so can the president who is wholly responsible for the mob that stormed the Capitol, who he did not call off, and who directly threatened the lives of Congress, the former Vice President, and the police and military there to protect them. They also argued that the president was not guilty of threatening the Georgia secretary of state and further endangering our democratic processes when he told the secretary of state to “find” several thousand votes simply because the president said “find” many times on that phone call.
I mean, granted, we must remember that the fate of this impeachment trial was pretty much decided as soon as it was voted upon in the House. But to see the amazing presentation House managers put together next to what the defense dared to call just that - defense - was disheartening. Especially during the vote. And especially during Mitch McConnell’s hypocritical speech afterward.
Still, language is once again our greatest tool in reasoning, learning, and moving past this moment in history - to make a history that our children and grandchildren will be able to look on and think that we have done something great. The question is how we do this, with language, when we are unable to listen.
To the Republican senators who voted “not guilty” in this trial: Grow a spine. Put your country above party, above reelection, and the privileges you so enjoy. I feel like I’m being ripped apart, like my chest is knitted yarn and I’m barely capable of breathing through the mess of it, because, how can we say these things, how can we move past these things, and how can we exist with each other when I no longer feel safe in my own skin in this country? Tell me. Because I don’t know.
If you care to listen, I wrote a poem. Share the heck out of it if you want. I don’t know how else to say it, but, as the lovely Amanda Gorman penned, “Being American is more than a pride we inherit,/It’s the past we step into,/and how we repair it.”
the helplessness of partisanship
i sit on the lip of the congress, watching the way
we fuck each other over. i sit on the beating drum of
pride, of praying for unity while sowing division as
seeds in the skin of my siblings, my neighbors & my
friends. how do you love a trump supporter? they ask,
& i don’t know how to answer except that i have. the
shame sits heavy in my eyes, & everyone i see could be
the last person i lay with, but i don’t tell you that. fight,
says the television & the congressperson & my therapist
until i am a bubbled-over, thin-skinned, liberal-loving vibra-
tion, gumption. endless. it is enough to hate, to be afraid, buti sit on the lip of congress, watching the way we fuck up our
friends & our families, wondering if i’m left-enough to be
hanged by an angry mob peering into my living room. is it
enough to say fight than actually do it? is it enough to stand
in front of a door & to pray? tell me, good god, tell me what
i can do to change when nothing is right-enough or left-
enough? tell me how to avoid the poisoned middle-ground, to
know that actions have consequences, that i am not a victim of
the divide. how do you love someone who wishes you were dead
or that you never existed? how do you listen when your ears are
cotton-plugged picked fresh by a man who crossed borders to feed
his family. his family that knows violence as a daily circadian kind of
thing, & is compassion such brutality now? good god, tell me, please
help me help us. the helplessness is written in poetry, in the skin of my
arms & my name & the crocodile tears of lawyers fighting a fight
they have no right to win.
