THE WILLFUL IGNORANCE OF TRUMP'S "AMERICANS"

I have few illusions anymore about what is happening to our country.

When the impeachment process started against President Richard Milhous Nixon in 1973, the percentage of Americans that were for the investigations sat at tedious thirty-one percent (31%).  However, the number changed as the cream rose to the top of the impeachment milk and it became a forty-nine percent (49%) approval, with again, the majority being Democrats.  Nixon resigned before the trial so as to save what was left of his dignity.

What vastly differs between the comparisons of this impeachment of Donald J. Trump and that of Nixon is that when Nixon was impeached, there was no internet.  There were no unseen voices behind keyboards posting items on your membership pages of networking sites telling you how you should feel about such an event, or simply creating new ideas of the event even without verification.  If anything, the impeachment process of Richard Nixon was a voluntary process, one that required the participation of the American people to understand the charges levied against the sitting president, and what their rights as citizens were to respond.  It required listening to the hearings, reading between the lines of the witnesses for both sides, and then forming an opinion.

What we are seeing today is a refusal of the American people to take part in that process, regardless of what the charges are, or what is being said, and those Americans fall completely along party lines.  The difference here is the level of chosen ignorance, of willful defiance.  As of this November 15, USA today article, Americans are willfully choosing NOT to pay attention, yet forming an opinion anyway:

The poll found that 21% of Americans have been following the impeachment inquiry hearings "very closely," and 37% have been following "somewhat closely." But 42% said they were not closely following the testimony." 

Trump ran on the idea he was going to 'drain the swamp.'  That meant those being drained included anyone that had been seen as a reason the swamp existed in the first place.  Democrat, Republican and Independent -- no one has been spared the wrath of those Trumpsters that wanted him in office to start with.  Forget about previous standards of decency and decorum.  That's code for bullshit language that no one in Trump's camp cares about or wishes to hear anymore.  Forget about respectful diplomacy -- just get in front of the microphone, standing by your friend or adversary, and say whatever you mean to say.

However, draining the swamp is also about removing the favors, the cronyism, the corruption of the wealth and giving the power back to the people who have rights.  So if you want to drain the swamp, that's one thing, but to then turn around and be in direct dereliction of your civic duty as Americans is another.  It is Trump's policy as we all know that not everyone should be an American.  In fact, those refugees rushing to America for protection and a new opportunity at life have been welcomed with stops in detention centers, separations to the different court systems resulting many times in the loss of their own children, and deportations.  Yet the whopping forty-two percent (42%) that aren't paying attention are vastly Republican and most often Trump supporters.  So while denying the privilege they were born into to others who would die for it, they, in turn, have turned their backs on their own government systems that were put into place to protect them.

Taking direction from the person you support is understandable.  Turning your back on the checks and balance systems of the Constitution you claim to hold dear for one leader is unforgivable.

The impeachment process will move to the Senate shortly.  Trump, while preventing all material witnesses with 'first-hand' knowledge that House Republicans claimed were missing from testifying, has chosen to attempt to make this a circus in the Senate, where he'll try to deflect all of the allegations from himself to Joe Biden, the man he never cared to investigate until Biden suddenly became the Democratic front-runner for the presidency; the man who he knows carries more of a center base, and is more likely to grab independent voters than some of the more left-leaning candidates.  He will choose to ignore his actions, as has been his pattern of behavior, and will look to chastise and debase the seventeen witnesses that have already come forward thus far.  No defense of his behavior will be given except that it wasn't wrong in his opinion. Yet, seventy percent (70%) of Americans, including a good portion of Republicans, think what he did was wrong. 

For some reason, a good portion are willing to give him a pass because it's an election year, just like they seemed willing to give Mitch McConnell a pass for not holding a hearing on Merrick Garland because it was an election year.  Legally, election years mean nothing to law, but if set this as a precedent, going forward that will be tested.  If a pass is given in an election year, then it will be argued, at some point, a pass can be given in a non-election year.  After all, whatever it was at the time wasn't considered serious enough to do in an election year, why should it matter if it isn't an election year?  This is how law works to eventually move ahead.

It is beyond comprehension that any American, born into the voting and representation privileges they are granted simply for coming out of the womb in one of the safest and most free societies on the planet would simply ignore them now that they feel they have a representative just like them in the Oval Office.  To have your feelings and desires verified and cherished by a leader is a great thing, but it is not the issue. 

Law is law.  In having a representative form of government, if you want laws changed, you lobby your own representative and have them draw up a bill for consideration in Congress.  What is already law, however, is not up for your disobedience or willful ignorance, simply because you disagree with it.  If this was the case, there would be no law as long as you didn't know about it or thought it wrong.

Voters changed leadership in 2018 in the house no doubt because they wanted a check of sorts on this President.  Considering the number of convictions the Mueller Report has yielded in addition to the number of Trump cohorts being investigated and/or already in jail, labeling anything purely partisan in this long stream of corruption is again willfully ignorant.  It's time that the country turn back toward its civic duty of understanding the Constitution, its laws, and the powers of the President: both what he can and cannot do.  If you fall into the seventy percent (70%) who believe the President willfully committed a wrong, then a pass is not warranted.  The President is supposed to be the best and brightest of us.  If he speeds through a stop sign, he deserves a ticket, just as you do.  If he abuses his office, the one you gave him, he deserves more than a slap on the wrist.

Draining the swamp was and is about all Americans getting the same privileges that the supposed 'liberal elitists' have.  Assuming that was the entire point, and not to simply juxtapose those privileges from elitists to those who don't consider themselves so, it's time to hold the President to account.