First, I want to share Adam Schiff’s closing words from January 24, 2020:
Sometimes I think about how unforgiving history can be of our conduct. We can do a lifetime’s work, draft the most wonderful legislation, help our constituents, and yet we may be remembered for none of that, but for a single decision we may be remembered, affecting the course of our country. I believe this may be one of those moments, a moment we never thought we would see, a moment when our democracy was gravely threatened and not from without but from within. Russia, too, has a constitution. It’s not a bad constitution. It’s just a meaningless one. In Russia, they have trial by telephone. They have the same ostensible rights we do to a trial. They hear evidence and witnesses. But before the verdict is rendered, the judge picks up the telephone and calls the right person to find out how it’s supposed to turn out. Trial by telephone. Is that what we have here? Trial by telephone? Someone on the other end of the phone dictating what this trial should look like. The founders gave us more than words. They gave us inspiration. They may have receded into mythology, but they inspire us still. And more than us, they inspire the rest of the world. They inspire the rest of the world. From their prison cells in Turkey, journalists look to us. From their internment camps in China, they look to us. From their cells in Egypt, those who gathered in Tahrir Square for a better life look to us. From the Philippines, those that were the victims and their families of mass extrajudicial killing. From Elgin prison, they look to us. From all over the world, they look to us. And increasingly, they don’t recognize what they see. It’s a terrible tragedy for them. It’s a worse tragedy for us because there is nowhere else for them to turn. They’re not going to turn to Russia. They’re not going to turn to China. They’re not going to turn to Europe with all of its problems. They look to us because we are still the indispensable nation. They look to us because we have a rule of law. They look to us because no one is above that law. And one of the things that separates us from those people in Elgin prison is the right to a trial. A right to a trial. Americans get a fair trial. And so I ask you, I implore you, give America a fair trial. Give America a fair trial. She’s worth it.
Schiff’s final words are searing. And troubling. I know too well how consistently we have fallen short of what is invoked when he speaks of a fair trial. Justice for all is too often merely justice for the elite. The vote has been suppressed violently, stealthily, and systematically. The structure of our Senate and the electoral college award power based on geography, not population. The brutality of this administration is staggering, but injustice and brutality are not new to our country. What is also not new is that there have been hard-fought victories that we should celebrate and simultaneously losses that exhaust our ability to grieve.
The challenge to live up to the ideals of democracy is not new to this moment. It will always be an ambitious goal that will break our hearts again and again.
In the past, though, when we failed, we could still agree on what we were trying to achieve: democracy, fairness, justice… life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, even if we disagreed on how to achieve these goals. We frequently failed to see what was missing or to include everyone. We must push for a government of the people, by the people, and for the people that actually serves and protects all of its people. Democracy and justice are actions, not outcomes, an endless journey to places we cannot yet imagine.
There are some who claim power due to the absence of perfect outcomes. They say that because promises of democracy and justice were made but not yet attained, we will promise you nothing and you must be content. Since perfect isn’t possible, you have to accept despair and cynicism.
So what is at stake in this impeachment trial is not the question “Are we democratic and just?” That will always be a work in progress.
No, it is something more chilling, dark, and desolate. The question is “Do we still aspire to be democratic and just?”
The defenders of this White House say no.
reader. writer. 