Opinion

Poor Elijah: A last act

By PETER BERGER
By Peter Berger

Loyalty and self-interest are powerful forces.

We teach our children that loyalty is noble, whether to friends, family, or country. Loyalty is a Boy Scout virtue. It’s what makes dogs “man’s best friend.” It wins our admiration in stories and real life. Disloyalty, whether the private sting of a friend’s unkindness or Benedict Arnold’s public treachery, shakes us to our foundations.

Self-interest doesn’t inspire lofty regard, but we generally encourage it, provided it’s bridled by consideration for others. We recognize it as a useful spur and guide that gets us out of bed, keeps us studying at our desks and working at our jobs, hones our skills, expands our ambitions, and broadens our horizons.

There are limits. If I’m a candidate for a job, or public office, self-interest doesn’t justify lying to advance my cause. Neither does loyalty justify lying to advance the cause of a friend.

We are now engaged in a presidential impeachment. Were I a voting member of the House or Senate, I would keep an open mind until all the evidence is presented. As a citizen I should do no less. It’s impossible, though, to ignore evidence and events as they develop. The mass of evidence and corroborated testimony against President Trump, including the testimony from his own mouth, and the twisting, inconsistent defense he and others have offered, lead me at present to support his impeachment and removal.

He lost me the day he descended his golden escalator. I recognized the tactics and trappings of a demagogue — reliance on scapegoats, narcissistic insensitivity, serial lies, vanity and boasting, and his insistence that he alone can save us.

His ignorance of history is dangerous. His arrogance and apathy in the face of his ignorance are more dangerous.

His faults aren’t fake news. Every critic isn’t a traitor. Loyalty to him isn’t loyalty to the nation.

And yet, as convinced as I am about all this, whenever an advocate speaks in his defense, I consider what he says.

I see no willingness to remain open-minded among his Republican defenders. At times some have identified some hypothetical evidence that would prompt them to reconsider their position, but their willingness to reconsider has habitually expired as soon as that evidence came to light.

None of this is meant to suggest that all Democrats are more courageous or morally upright than Republicans. In this case, however, it is Republicans who’ve marched in partisan lockstep from the start while Democrats have arrived at their impeachment positions more gradually. I cite this as an indication that Democrats have proven more willing, at least this time, to change their minds as the evidence has mounted.

It’s plain to me, in addition to the other offenses I count since his election, that President Trump solicited and attempted to coerce a foreign power to influence an election in his favor. In a reasoned debate our representatives would be grappling with two remaining questions. First, how serious an offense is that? Second, is impeachment and removal the appropriate response?

I can tell you what the founders said. Washington described “foreign influence” as “one of the most baneful foes” of a free republic. Adams wrote to Jefferson that foreign interference posed a particular “danger” to elections. One of the principal reasons for including impeachment in the Constitution was to guard against election “corruption,” specifically corruption in an upcoming election by a corrupt sitting president. Madison foresaw situations where waiting until the next election “might be fatal to the Republic.”

Impeachment isn’t a punishment. It’s a safeguard.

Republicans rail against overturning the last election and urge instead that we wait for the next election. Except impeachment is in the Constitution precisely for those times when we can’t wait until the next election, like when a president has expressed and demonstrated his willingness to corrupt that election.

Forget the charges of “secret” hearings in the Capitol basement. That’s just where the room is, everybody knew the hearings were being held there, and both Democrats and Republicans on the committees involved could ask questions. As for being closed, so were the Benghazi hearings run by Republicans during the Obama years.

Forget the whistleblower. The whistleblower saw the smoke and pulled the fire alarm. The witnesses who have since come forward, as well as those the president has barred from testifying, saw the flames. Some even saw the arsonist.

You may not know these things, but your representatives do. The Republicans who condemn impeachment as a hoax and a witch hunt do. Their constant repetition of what they know to be false, misleading distractions is evidence of their insincerity in pursuit of the truth.

It also validates Alexander Hamilton’s warning that the greatest danger in an impeachment proceeding is that members of Congress will base their decision on party allegiance and not on “the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt.”

Some of the president’s advocates are doubtless torn between their consciences and self-interest or loyalty to party. Some may rationalize they can better serve the country if they win reelection and fear the wrath of Trump for disloyalty to him.

But there are times when loyalty isn’t justified.

There are times when self-interest is just selfishness.

There are times when your best, most enduring act in government is resistance to corruption and impending tyranny, even if it proves to be your last act in government.

Peter Berger has taught English and history for 30 years. Poor Elijah would be pleased to answer letters addressed to him in care of the editor.

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