Dear President Trump,

You’re no doubt aware that there’s a lot of talk about the GOP Senators who’ve already gone on record saying that they plan to acquit you. Actually, you’ve probably been sorting them into “naughty” and “nice” piles ahead of Christmas as the early adopters (co-opters) put their tent stakes through the heart of the Constitution. I’m also certain you could give a rip about the fact that their impartiality oaths will be worthless when it comes time to swear or assert them. It goes back to what @grudging1 said the other day on Twitter:

“The clumsy obviousness of his corruption makes it all the more infuriating.”

I think it’s safe to say that the clumsy obviousness of your GOP toadies’ single-minded (as in you all are in a mind-meld) support of you is also infuriating. And, I dare say, it’s by design. Once again, if you all are willing to go on camera and say this outrageous shit to the American public, legions of your peeps are going to assume it’s righteous and above board.

The central figure who’ll be running the Senate trial has sworn fealty to you and has forsaken his obligations to the American people and to uphold the Constitution (yes, your very own Mitch McConnell in the saggy flesh) so it doesn’t matter what anyone else has to say about it. He and your other senators could say the oath in pig-Latin or wearing devil horns and tails and as long as he makes the rules, it’s apparently ok.

But we all know it’s not ok. It’s just not.

You all have claimed that it’s only fair that “your” Senators go into the removal trial with their minds made up because Democratic House members were public about their desire to impeach you – basically a tit-for-tat sort of thing. I’ve not heard this yet, but it’s just a matter of time before you also claim that the Democrats in the Senate aren’t going to give you a fair hearing and have already made up their minds too. Because I maintain what now feels like a silly allegiance to fair play and honesty, I feel obliged to note that all of the Democratic Senators running for President supported holding the House impeachment inquiries and several have said the evidence they’ve seen is leading them to strongly consider voting for removal. So, on the surface, it seems like it you all may have a reasonable argument.

However, someone pointed out in the HP (I think) today that the GOP was angling for ways to impeach President Obama starting early in his first term and there were strategies being developed during the campaign to impeach a would-be President Hillary Clinton had she won. It’s painfully obvious that this was just to assert your all’s White (and later Male) dominance – it must have been a pisser not to be able cook up something that would make Obama look bad enough to warrant at least an impeachment inquiry. So the fact that a handful of Democrats wanted your self-dealing, racist, xenophobic, divisive, sexually assaultive self out of office from the get-go cannot legitimately be used to justify Senate GOP members going into the removal hearings unwilling to consider the evidence, or even allow evidence to be presented.

Everyone is playing politics to one degree or another, there’s no getting around this. But for the Senate Majority Leader to go on national television and say that he’s coordinating the entire removal hearing in lockstep with the White House is a show of politics the likes of which we’ve never seen before.

And we all know it’s not ok. It’s just not.

May we safeguard democracy.
May we figure out what we are willing to do to safeguard democracy.
May we see that democracy can’t survive such assaults.
May we hold fast to integrity and honor because without them, we have no chance.

Sincerely,
Tracy Simpson