Impeachment for Dummies

I hope we can all agree with the following statement: It is not a good thing for foreign governments or entities to be involved with our elections. If you disagree with that statement, it’s best that you move on because this article has nothing of value for you.

Essentially, what I’m saying is that we don’t want the Russians, Koreans, Chinese, Ukrainians, Swahilis, or any other non-American citizen influencing the outcome of our voting. We want to elect our own people—thank you!

Therefore, to invite or encourage a foreign government or entity to become involved in our elections is also a bad thing. President Trump has, by his own admission and according to our own eyes and ears, done that. During his campaign, we all heard him invite the Russians to “find Hillary’s emails.” He was clear during a TV interview when asked directly and confirmed he would accept foreign interference. We all read the transcript of his phone conversation with the Ukrainian president and asked him to investigate Joe Biden. We also listened over the roar of the helicopter as he encouraged the Chinese also to investigate Biden. There is no doubt Trump sought foreign interference in our election. His supporters don’t even dispute this fact. He did!

Now, here’s the point of the entire article. Pay attention to what I say next. If Trump is not impeached for what he has already done, what is to keep him from doing the same thing on a larger scale?

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Fiction is Not as Strange as Fact

Way back, well before my time, American author Sinclair Lewis wrote a novel with the title, “It Can’t Happen Here.” It was 1935 to be precise. It’s not unusual for a novel to be colored by the current historical situation of the day when they are written, and that’s certainly true with Lewis’ book.

Hitler was coming to power in Germany and fascism was spreading around Europe. In the United States, a wild card from Louisiana named Huey Long was making preparations to run for president in the ’36 election. However, he was assassinated shortly before the novel was published.

The story is about a character named Berzelius Windrip, more frequently referred to as Buzz. Windrip defeated FDR in the primary and was eventually elected as President. His campaign was based on creating fear and promising a return to patriotism and traditional American values. Does that last sentence sound familiar to you?

The similarities between a fictional President and our current President nearly 80 years later are eerie. Here’s a list of some of them:

• Had a ghostwritten book that was a big seller and made him popular
• Wife not involved in his campaign, stayed home to raise the kids
• A strong supporter of veterans
• The New York Times was anti-Windrip
• Most religious periodicals wrote that he had been called of God
• Strong emphasis on patriotism
• Promises to return the country to greatness and prosperity

Fight or Flight

As a writer, I spend a great deal more time writing for other people than for myself. I’m not complaining because it pays well, and it also forces me to research stuff I would never think of on my own. During some recent research, I learned something about the brain.

I’ll readily admit I know little about the physiological aspect of the human body. However, I do know enough about the brain to recognize when people are using theirs or when they have left it in the garage. This recent research led me to the discovery of how the brain reacts in frightening situations.

Specifically, I wanted to know what happens when a police officer, soldier, or any person is confronted with the possibility of death. For example, when a police officer responds to a shooting situation and hears gunfire or sees an armed suspect. The sympathetic nervous system is activated, caused by the sudden release of hormones. This results in an increase in heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing rate. Perhaps you have heard of this condition labeled as “fight-or-flight.”

What is happening is that tiny part of the brain that controls emotion asserts itself over the much larger frontal cortex which controls rational thought. You can imagine what happens when emotions are more powerful than reason. I was surprised that the conditions of tunnel vision and tunnel hearing are common for a person in that state. In other words, their attention, both sight and sound, are narrowly focused, to the point they miss out on everything in the periphery.

This can be a good thing if there is only one source of danger and that danger is the object of your focus. However, it also means you fail to consider other pieces of information. There might be other dangerous people in the area, or you might be focused on the wrong thing, or there might be an even greater threat.

This condition can be exacerbated for the person who frequently faces the threat of danger. If a cop is frequently in dangerous situations or a soldier is in combat for an extended period, then the ability to cope with everyday life is reduced.

I described all of this to suggest our country might be in a prolonged period of stress and danger. I’m not a historian or psychologist, but it might be correct to say that this period of stress began in September of 2001 (you remember what happened then). Here’s how it has gone since then. We spent an intense time learning who attacked us and then watching our military exact revenge on two countries.

My Attempt to Offend Everyone

Since the middle of summer I have been suggesting that it is a good option to not vote for either candidate in this year’s presidential election. I have not changed my mind.

However, I have paid careful attention to the campaign for the past year and a half and I do have some observations to make. I will strive to be an equal opportunity offender so if you make it to the end of this article without being offended you might want to reread it because you might have missed something.

First, I have noticed there seems to be three groups of people who support Donald Trump. The first group, and perhaps the largest, is those who hate Hillary. This group has been organizing and planning for two decades, and I’ll be honest, I have never understood the hate and vitriol they possess. These folks will vote for anyone else but Hillary, regardless of the character, qualifications, or politics—Trump has proven that to be the case.

There is nothing that can be said or done to change their opinion. If God Himself wrote with his finger on the side of the Lincoln Memorial and told us to vote for Hillary, these people would not do it. The only way for these people to be happy is for Hillary to lose the election and disappear from public service. However, since it appears this is not going to happen, we are in for at least four more years (or possibly eight) of anger.

The second group of Trump supporters is those who tend to be single-issue voters and that issue is abortion. Trump is the only candidate who is opposed to abortion, although such was not the case just a few years ago. Their hope is that a pro-life President will appoint Supreme Court Justices who will overturn Roe v. Wade and eliminate abortion.

However, these folks need to put a little more thought into their position. It is time to reevaluate the idea that government and the legal system is going to solve the abortion issue. I wrote about this four years ago and you can read it here if you wish (nothing has changed). This is a complex issue that has been around a long time and there is no reason to believe that Donald Trump is going to contribute to clarity or resolution.