But in the end, they did what their party always does. The plan was to kick Trump while he was down, repeat ad nauseum how bad he is and distract attention from their collusion in the duopoly. Democrats knew they wouldn’t get the two-thirds majority vote in the Senate that was needed to convict. After weeks of hyperbole and a vote to call witnesses, they chose not to in exchange for reading a statement into the record. They made a mockery of claims that the sky was falling.
Cheap praise was the order of the day. Black Capitol police officer Eugene Goodman’s name is now a household word simply because he did what he was paid to do. He led an angry mob away from senators he is charged with protecting. As a result of doing his job he has been lauded by Congress and the media. He was already invited to escort Kamala Harris to the inauguration but the accolades don’t stop.
The New York Times calls him a “reluctant hero ” but pours on the propaganda just in case Goodman continues to demur. We learn that he served in the army in Iraq, where he was sent to kill people. (That is the point of the military after all.) According to the Times he was “calm, cool, and collected under fire,” “serious and focused,” yet “quick with a joke,” and that his commanding officer “trusted my life with him.” He and others in the Capitol police force will be given the Congressional Gold Medal, an obscure honor but now useful to the fake opposition as they use bait and switch to cover their tracks.
Meanwhile, the stimulus with its inadequate help for working people winds its way through the process. No wonder democracy is said to be on its last legs. It certainly is, but not because Trump loving yahoos overran the capitol building.
-- Margaret Kimberley, "Freedom Rider: Impeachment Theater" (BLACK AGENDA REPORT).
