By approving the rules on an impeachment inquiry, by having each member of the House of Representatives vote on this resolution, by revealing the number of votes in favor of this resolution, by recording the names of each voter, by entering each vote into the Congressional Record, by making the votes accessible in print and online, Democrats save democracy from themselves.
Their vote is an article of impeachment against their credibility.
Their vote impeaches their assertions about everything.
Either we are under house arrest, at the behest of the White House, or we are free to criticize and condemn the president of the United States.
Either we are able to stand in spite of what divides us, because of what divides us, or no house—not even the people’s house—can endure when a majority of its members and staff, as well as its surrogates in the press and its suffragists (in pussy hats), believe President Trump is a fascist.
What these people say is impossible for a reasonable person to believe: that they are a star of hope against the descent of a long night of barbarism, able to reverse both the night of the long knives and the night of broken glass.
What these people believe would be impossible to say, were we in the third year of the first term of a presidency without end, were we prisoners of the president’s wars, were the president’s appetite for war endless.
These people vandalize history with their resolutions.
They seek to make history.
Too stubborn to drop their campaign and too ignorant to know what they have done, that they have done enough, they continue their reckless cruelty.
At long last, they have no sense of decency.