After the first few hours of House impeachment “debate” on Wednesday, the arguments and eloquence on both sides were decidedly weak, even pathetic, but the demagoguery came almost entirely from Republicans.
It’s usually a good rule of thumb when watching these staged blather fests that if one side repeatedly accuses the other of bad motives while the other generally refrains from attacking the character of the first side, then it is the accusers’ behavior that is actually less honorable. Complaining of motives rather than debating facts is usually a cheap trick. This is especially true when the accusers yell into the microphone, trying to replace sense with volume.
On the House floor Wednesday, Republican after Republican all but yelled into the microphone that Democrats were horribly motivated, supposedly acting out “partisan motives” involving “hate” for President Trump or “fear” of ordinary Americans. They claimed Democrats were trying deliberately to “overturn an election” merely because they didn’t like the result and, often in quite colorful terms, accused them of acting entirely in bad faith. Rep. Chris Stewart of Utah went even further, saying that Democrats not only hate Trump but also “hate the Americans who voted for this president.” Missouri’s Blaine Luetkemeyer called the Democrats “Stalinist.”
Nowhere, not once, was there any admission that anything Trump did was at least troubling or that there had been any reasonable grounds for inquiry. Nowhere was there any acknowledgment that Democrats might be merely mistaken in their conclusions rather than malicious. Not once.
Contrarily, one could search far and wide for any Democrats attacking the motives or character of their Republican House colleagues. Yes, they often repeated tired talking points, but even their tired talking points involved evidence and conclusions rather than ad hominem assaults on the integrity of their Republican opponents. With only one or two exceptions, their voices were steady, serious, and measured.
Rep. Cedric Richmond of Louisiana said that “today requires us to be statesmen or stateswomen.” Democrats may or may not be meeting that high standard, but at least, unlike most of the Republicans, they aren’t eviscerating it.
