I do not believe for one minute that the members of the Republican Party in Congress are convinced that President Trump is forging the kind of country to which they have always aspired.. What is happening, in my opinion, is that they are so concerned about safeguarding their positions of power that they allow themselves publicly to support an alternative reality.  Certainly, no one could possibly believe, other than the president himself, that his comments on the impeachment trial were more than bad theater.. The bevy of lies and misrepresentations, coupled with delusions of grandeur and illusions of accomplishments that he freely associated, were only superseded by his indecency. The name calling in which Trump engaged is both inhumane and unconscionable— given his titular leadership of the free world. No head of state should speak in such derogatory language against holders of opposing viewpoints in a classic ad hominem fallacious attack.. The pep rally atmosphere of the occasion was appalling and unethical!

The sad fact of the matter is that what Trump did was nothing new.  As a matter fact, we all expected it.  Sadly, it has come to the point where the president of the greatest nation in the world can routinely stoop to the level of bullying, gangsterism, and puerile prankdom without an overwhelming outcry of repulsion by its citizenry—regardless of ideology or worldview.

The President of the United States should exemplify the highest of virtues and values and uphold our documents of freedom in clear and unequivocal ways.  Whereas it is difficult always to demonstrate perfection and equanimity under duress, it is not unduly challenging to personify, most of the time, the high road.  It is a slothful and lazy disposition that makes excusable for oneself sinking in the mire of offensiveness.. The Quaker John Oxenham got it right when he poemed “Decision”:

To every man there openeth a way, and ways, and a way, And the high soul climbs the high way, And the low soul gropes the low, And in between, on the misty flats, the rest drift to and fro. But to every man there openeth a high way and a low; And every man decideth the way his soul shall go.

I am not giving anyone a pass for drifting.  That many people get a kick out of Trump’s defiance of the rubrics of humaneness and social decorum might be overlooked on reality TV; however, when the stakes are so high that they have implications of national security and we nevertheless applaud, ignore, or dismiss his vituperative shenanigans, we become accomplices in the dismantling of the validity of our democratic republic.  Such behavior on our part is repugnant!

How should we respond and redeem ourselves?  We have the opportunity to ensure the so-called American Experiment continues to mature by making solid decisions in the future.  Taking advantage of these available circumstances and making the most of them is our duty as citizens.  I still have hope that we will not abdicate our responsibilities as such and will no longer wallow in some fantastical suspension of disbelief or alternative reality when there is so much at stake!