Impeachment without evidence: Trump on trial for negative emotions. Welcome to “emotional justice”
Donald Trump's impeachment breaks two records in one. It is the first such trial of a president who is no longer in office. And it's the fastest ever. On the first point, the Senate was called to vote on Tuesday 9 February and established, by simple majority (all Democrats and 6 Republicans) that the trial of a former president, although unprecedented, is constitutional. On the second point, however, the mystery remains. How did the Democrats manage to acquire all the necessary evidence in less than a month? Because considering that Trump is suspected of instigating the January 6 uprising, which ended with the assault of his supporters on the Capitol, an accuser must find, at the very least, evidence that proves the president's responsibility in planning and conducting the action.
For anyone who remembers the previous impeachment trials, at Nixon in 1974 and then at Trump himself in 2019, the investigation, the gathering of irrefutable evidence, the summoning and hearing of witnesses, are long journeys. In the case of the trial of Trump in 2019, the time had already shortened enormously because the collection of evidence had not taken place, but only the hearing of witnesses of his phone calls to the president of Ukraine, the subject of the impeachment . The accusation was abuse of power, for putting pressure on President Zelensky, in order to push him to investigate Hunter Biden, son of the current tenant of the White House. The impeachment had stopped in the Senate, not only because the majority was Republican, but also because of the fragility of the prosecution system. The second time Trump goes under impeachment, there are even fewer testimonies and no evidence. But it plays on emotions. This is the real news: to consider the emotion, negative in this case, as the body of the crime.
In the main harangue of the accusation, the Democratic deputy Jamie Raskin tells a story full of memories and personal details, such as the son who died the day before the attack on the Capitol, the daughter present with him and forced to take shelter at the time of the attack, colleagues who send farewell messages to relatives because they were afraid of dying, the sound of rioters' fists on the door "like a drum roll, I will never forget it". His harangue is interrupted by the emotion, increasing the pathos. The rest is rhetoric: quotes from Lincoln and calls for unity and appeals against street violence. But is there evidence against the president? Raskin's speech is paired with the testimony of deputy Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, who on Instagram , addressing a huge online following, told her chronicle of the assault on the Capitol, calling herself a traumatized "survivor". The debate, after this testimony, focused on the circumstances: Ocasio Cortez was not at the Capitol, so his is an indirect experience. But the point is, again: is it evidence against the president?
In the videos shown by the Democrats you see things already known, only edited in a relatively new way. The things already known: Trump's speech, which harangues the crowd and the scenes of the assault on the Capitol. Edited in a (relatively) unprecedented way: the video alternates Trump's words with assault scenes, to demonstrate how the slogans shouted by the protesters were inspired by Trump's own words. And how Trump, in his post-assault tweets, was not genuinely "repentant". But is this proof? Did Trump order his people to attack the Capitol? No. There is no assault order, nor is any planning demonstrated. Trump explicitly condemned the assault on the Capitol . The same day he invited his supporters to go home and respect law and order. He had also invited them to march to the Capitol, true. But many demonstrations, especially of the left, ended with a march under the Capitol, stopping in front of the seat of the legislative power. Yet his unspoken "intention" is being processed. Indeed, the emotion, the negative vibration, which was caused by his words, by his tone of voice, by his attitude, by his obstinacy not to accept the outcome of an election that he considers rigged.
And how to be surprised? Trump's victory was greeted by democratic protesters traumatized by the election outcome, treated in primal scream therapy sessions , students who were allowed to skip exams because they were traumatized by the election outcome and university courses canceled for the same reason: to allow students and professors to recover from the shock. The former Republican president seems to be the embodiment of a phobia of the left, so he judges himself on the emotions (up to the heart attack) that provoke his speeches or his very existence.
The issue is not just about Trump. The whole sexual assault complaint campaign, MeeToo , was based on very little evidence and a lot of subjective emotions. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez herself reported sexual harassment , but without showing evidence and without even intending to bring her attacker to a judge. It is an attitude: the situation and the generic category of aggressors (the male) are stigmatized even if rape is not demonstrable (for which medical proof would also be needed). So many careers destroyed by the MeeToo campaign were of perfectly innocent people. One look too many, one word too many and you still risk a complaint for harassment.
And emotional justice, made up of subjective feelings, has for years been extending to all fields of social interactions. Suffice it to see the names of the new crimes, which seem conceived by psychologists rather than by jurists: homophobia (fear of homosexuals), extended to homotransphobia (fear of homosexuals and trans women), Islamophobia (fear of Islam and of Muslims), they are all psycho-crimes in the true sense of the term and are absolutely arbitrary. Not only are they not demonstrable, not only are they superfluous to condemn acts of aggression, which are already punished by law. But they are not psychologically demonstrable either. There is not even a regime psychiatrist, as he used to in the Soviet Union, who diagnoses you with a phobia for Muslims or gays before sentencing. And then, since when in the West has anyone been condemned for a mental illness? In the judicial field, the problem has never really been raised. And so now the president is judged on the basis of emotions.
But only in one direction. Because it is incredible to see that healthy hate carriers are only on the right. On the left are the victims. If Black Lives Matter and Antifa ravage entire neighborhoods, are they doing it for interracial love and social justice? According to current thinking, they do so because they are objectively victims of "systemic racism", even if they are rich white students , or lawyers armed with Molotov cocktails , who support the cause. They too are objectively "victims". If, on the other hand, you are a veteran who shoots to defend your father from an assault, you are guilty, and an online and live lynching can lead to suicide. But you are not a victim, but a healthy carrier of hatred. It is the new class struggle against the "haters", conducted by the "victims", we pay attention to collective categories, as in all class struggles, certainly not to individual responsibility.
So why be surprised that Trump is now being tried without evidence? He has aroused negative emotions for four years, his very existence instigates violence, he is a healthy carrier of hatred, his words are to be understood as a declaration of war on democracy and must be removed from social networks, even before being tried in Congress. All the violence of the last eight months, which has been committed by the left much more than by the right, is however attributable to his "divisive" rhetoric. That's what goes on trial, nothing else.
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This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Atlantico Quotidiano at the URL http://www.atlanticoquotidiano.it/quotidiano/impeachment-senza-prove-trump-sotto-processo-per-emozioni-negative-benvenuti-nella-giustizia-emozionale/ on Thu, 11 Feb 2021 05:00:00 +0000.