Photo: Pixabay
The impeachment of Donald J. Trump, the 45th President of the United States, began in September 2019 with the launch of a House inquiry into an August 2019 whistleblower complaint alleging the President's abuse of power. After a long and tedious process that involved witness depositions, public hearings and arguments from both sides, the House of Representatives impeached the President on December 18th, 2019 on two articles - abuse of power and obstruction of congress. The articles were then sent to the Senate for a trial which ended swiftly on February 5th, 2019 with acquittal on both articles. Trump and the Republicans claimed victory, Pelosi and the Democrats cried foul, and a poor Mormon got himself stuck in between. The mainstream media and the late-night hosts, however, had only one thing in their mind "It was a perfect phone call, it was perfect. I need a favor though ..." After all, what in the world could be more perfect than half-a-year of non-stop fodder for breaking news , err opinions, and late-night jokes - if only if it had dragged along a little longer!
Photo: Pixabay
The votes to impeach President Trump fell almost exactly along party lines on both articles in the Democrat-controlled House. As shown in the Trump Impeachment - House, Art. 1 and Trump Impeachment - House, Art. 2 maps below, 230 (all Democrats) of the 431 representatives in the House voted in favor of impeaching the President for abuse of power (article 1) and 229 (again, all Democrats) voted in favor of impeaching the President for obstruction of congress (article 2). Since only 216 votes are needed to pass in the House, the President was impeached on both articles.
The votes to acquit President Trump for both articles also fell almost exactly along party lines in the Republican-controlled Senate. As shown in the Trump Impeachment - Senate, Art. 1 and Trump Impeachment - Senate, Art. 2 maps below, 52 (all Republicans) of the 100 senators voted against convicting the President for abuse of power (article 1) and 53 (again, all Republicans) voted against convicting the President for obstruction of congress (article 2). Since a two-third majority is needed to pass in the Senate, the President was acquitted on both articles.
While the President was acquitted of the abuse of power charge, the media may very well be guilty of the same. Instead of using its power to bring people together, the media seems to be on a never-ending quest to divide us further by injecting dubious opinions and propaganda into news and late-night shows. They know that if they tell us what we want to hear, irrespective of whether it is true or not, we will come back to hear more of the same. This became very apparent during the impeachment trial, where the pro-Trump media would support the President no matter what and the anti-Trump media would criticize him no matter what. Evidently, the primary mission of the media has shifted from delivering news to appeasing viewers, with the sole goal of increasing subscription and viewership. The sad part is that it works, and the impeachment season has been a money minting period for them with record high ratings. And now that the impeachment is over, they seem to be going through a post-impeachment depression phase of sorts, while at the same time scrambling for the next big story to cook up. We wish Stephen Colbert, who had a very successful Don and the Giant Impeach segment going on during the impeachment process, had gathered up the courage to echo the state of the media by confessing, "It was perfect, though dot dot dot."
Photo: YouTube
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