- "The president is guilty of an appalling abuse of public trust," Mr Romney said during the speech, in which he invoked his sense of duty to argue that the Senate vote will be in-turn judged by the American people and history books. At times, he appeared to hold back tears when mentioning his being "profoundly religious" and that he had sworn an "oath before God".
"What he did was not perfect," he continued, referencing the president's claims that his actions were flawless. "No, it was a flagrant assault on our electoral rights, our national security, and our fundamental values. Corrupting an election to keep oneself in office is perhaps the most abusive and destructive violation of one's oath of office that I can imagine."
Romney voted to convict on the abuse of power charge, but to acquit on the obstruction of Congress charge? Wat?? The two are intricately tied into the same narrative. Romney has just shy of 5 years left in office. I'm convinced that his principles factored heavily into his conviction vote, but he also may be calculating that the political landscape is gonna change to favor his vote before November of 2024. I feel for the guy, though. He faces extreme ostracizing in the short term. Trump Jr. is already calling for his expulsion from the GOP. The GOP's singular focus on "winning" (primarily in the interest of maintaining and/or acquiring power) is more cult-like than anything I thought possible in a western/capitalist government after WWII. I'm scurred. Like, I kid, but no, I'm pretty sure we're about to see Trump (and Barr, notably) ramp up their efforts even further to guarantee a win this November. Trump can now openly conspire with foreign powers for help in the election, and he'll cite arguments made in the Senate last week as precedent. Paraphrasing: "This kind of quid pro quo, in which the president acts in the interest of getting re-elected, cannot form the basis for a lawful articles of impeachment." Which, yes, is absofuckinglutely bullshit, but the GOP effectively said "Yup, sounds good, go for it."
I dunno man, there's some 80+ y.o. senators. He might feel like God told him to stay in office as long as he can, to fight mein fuhrer. I've realized that making bets in politics doesn't go well, because we base our reasoning on prior events, and we're so rapidly diverging from previous norms. I would argue that the degree of uncertainty surrounding what's going to happen within the next year alone to the American political system is unprecedented since at least WWII. Maybe the civil war.
It did, in a small way. All of the geniuses saying "Yeah but the House made a bipartisan vote to not pass articles of impeachment" have one less bit of bullshit to sling around. The problem is that they'll never run out of bullshit, of course.