It has been less than 24 hours since the impeachment of President Trump, and the internet is already full of liberals patting themselves on the back for standing on the right side of history.
Newsweek columnist Seth Abramson envisioned our collective futures like this: “Fifty years from now, if you’re still alive and have grandkids, they’ll ask what it was like the night the House of Representatives had to impeach a President of the United States for violating his Oath of Office, threatening U.S. national security, and undermining our democracy.”
Fifty years from now, if you’re still alive and have grandkids, they’ll ask what it was like the night the House of Representatives had to impeach a President of the United States for violating his Oath of Office, threatening U.S. national security, and undermining our democracy.
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) December 19, 2019
Fifty years from now, if you’re still alive and have grandchildren, they won’t give a flying fig what you were doing the night of impeachment. They’ll be too busy living their lives or caring about the next unscrupulous president whom we push into office.
The impeachment of Trump will have some political implications, of course. But its cultural implications will be small, despite the hopes of many resistance voices that this be a defining moment for all who bravely opposed Trump. He will still be on the ballot come 2020. And when you ask people a few years from now where they were when Trump was impeached, they won’t be able to tell you.
That is, unless we institute an Impeachment Day holiday per the recommendation of Jennifer Rubin. The “conservative” Washington Post blogger unironically suggested that we make Dec. 18 a holiday “in which we honor the heroes and read in every public square the articles of impeachment” in a tweet.
We should make Dec 18 a holiday (like Flag Day): Impeachment Day, in which we honor the heroes and read in every public square the articles of impeachment.
— Jennifer Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) December 18, 2019
Some politicos are trying really hard to turn impeachment into a cultural phenomenon because that would give them more clout. That goes not only for impeachment but also for most dramas of the Trump era.
Veronika Tait, a social psychologist and professor, said in the Salt Lake Tribune last month that she imagines her grandchildren finding her political pins and shirts in the basement 50 years from now.
“As my future grandchildren explore what life was like in 2019, they may wonder, ‘What was grandma doing when Robert Mueller reported on Trump’s obstruction of justice?’” she wrote. “Or when U.S. diplomat William Taylor gave evidence of Trump abusing his presidential power for his own gain?”
We might hope that our grandchildren care more about how we used our relationships or careers to make the world a better place than which buttons we wore to which rallies and how we felt about Saint Mueller. When we observers of impeachment have grandchildren who have the pleasure of not living through the Trump administration, do we really want them to ask us about what we tweeted or whether we applauded when a president was publicly condemned but never removed from office?
As far as they concern individuals, these proceedings are not as significant as some of us want them to be.
If you tell your grandchildren about #Impeachmas in 50 years, they’re probably going to respond, “OK, boomer.” You’ll be so flustered by them using 50-year-old lingo that you’ll protest that you’re not a Boomer and forget to marvel that you tried to make your politics sound impressive, and they really didn’t care.
