...I will support and defend the Constitution...

I am watching the Trump Impeachment hearings with interest. I watched the events unveil on January 6, and concluded that day, because I had been paying attention for the last four years, that President Trump was obviously responsible for inciting the insurrection. He has spent his entire personal life courting conflict, and devoted his one-year campaign and four-year presidency to provoking, condoning and relishing in violence. Trump is not a difficult man to understand.

At the same time, the big question surrounding his impeachment seems to revolve around what Republicans will do. Actually, this isn’t the big question. The big question is why won’t Republicans do the right thing—and again, the answer appears obvious.

No attempt has been made to hide this fact that Republicans are expected to vote for acquittal because they fear political retaliation from Trump supporters, should they do the right thing and stand up to Trump by condemning the January 6 insurrection. This apparently outweighs the fear the rest of us have of the damage their dereliction to duty will do to our democracy should they give Trump a pass.

I think House managers are doing an excellent job—an effort, we are told, which is being missed by many Republican senators who are behaving childishly, as Trump has often been accused himself, by refusing to pay attention.

Overall, I think most senators are paying attention. As with Trump’s election in 2016, setting a low bar is oftentimes what we do best in this country.

One thing does bother me about the hearings, and I don’t know if changes will be made down the road. I hope so, but fearful they won’t.

Despite the fact that most Republicans appear to have made up their minds to acquit, House managers are proceeding as if they are dealing with impartial jurors, who will ultimately do the right thing.

The nation can count on fifty Democratic senators voting to convict, not because they are biased, un-American traitors as the ex-president suggests, but because they were at the Capitol on January 6, witnessed the violence, and don’t need to be told what an insurrection looks like, or who provoked it.

This impeachment is all about convincing 50 Republicans that what they saw really happened, and that they must do the right thing so that it never happens again. Republicans would have us believe that now is the time to come together and respect President Biden’s call for unity, and question whether Congress can work as a unified branch if Democrats insist on going forward with, not one, but now the second impeachment of Donald Trump.

Democrats, despite their desire to work with Republicans, know they are taking this unprecedented action because Donald Trump has not once, but twice, committed impeachable offences. Democrats are not the villains. Donald Trump is the villain.

Neither are Democrats the jurors everyone is questioning whether they will do their duty.  

House managers should stop addressing the Senate as a whole and start aiming their case directly at the Republicans. This cannot be another, “there were good people on both sides,” or “no harm, no foul.” When the argument is between right and wrong, justice can only be on one side.

There was real harm done on January 6, physical harm and psychological harm, and our democracy was threatened, and continues to be threatened.

Whether this crime is punished rests not with the Senate, but with Republican senators, and House managers need to stop ignoring the elephant—pun intended— in the room, and forcefully and unequivocally address their case to the only people in the room that matter.

It is not a question of, can we allow the president’s actions to go unpunished, but can you, Republican senators, allow the president’s actions to go unpunished.

It is not a question of, can we honor the oath we took and stand up for democracy, but rather, can you, Republican senators, stand up and protect democracy.

It is not a question of, can we muster the courage to stand up to Donald Trump and say no, no more, enough, but rather can you, Republican senators, stand up, finally, and say no, no more, enough.

No effort has been spared to point out that impeachment is not a trial. That is not to say a trial isn’t taking place. Make no mistake; the Republican Party is being put on trial—the trial of public opinion, which I would remind them is where election are won and lost.

There can be no doubt how history will look upon this impeachment effort, and at the behavior of Senate Republicans. History is full of accounts of heroic individuals standing up for what they believed to be right, as well as cowards who for political expediency did what they knew to be wrong.

The senators should be aware of this, but for those that aren’t, House managers should make the case, so that there can be no doubt, that this impeachment will not be decided by the Senate. The decision to convict will be determined by Republican senators, and history will hold them accountable, and the accountability in question might very well be, who was responsible for the fall of democracy in America.

  

The Life, Times & Adventures of Hoag Franklin: Indian Scout, Buffalo Hunter, Lawman & Vaudeville Entertainer

Like many of the people who settled  the old west, Hoag lived a full and adventurous life, which would have gone unnoticed had an unpublished manuscript telling his story not been discovered in an antique store.

Hoag crossed paths with many of the people, whose names we recognize—Calamity Jane, Annie Oakley, Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull and a host of lesser known individuals, each of whom played vital roles in settling the west and creating the nation we know today.

He fought alongside the legends of his time—Buffalo Bill, Kit Carson and Bat Masterson.

Yet, no one has ever heard of Hoag Franklin—until now.

His story begins when, as a young man still in his teens, he rides off on his first buffalo hunt before joining a wagon train as a scout, and eventually heading off to California in search of gold. For the next fifty years, he did almost everything a man could do as the nation expanded from the Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean. He even did things few men ever do.

These are his adventures, in his own words, written in the seaside town of San Pedro, California at the turn of the last century, a town he visited regularly during his Salt Lake City to Los Angeles stage coach run.

My latest novel, The Life, Times & Adventures of Hoag Franklin: Indian Scout, Buffalo Hunter, Lawman & Vaudeville Entertainer, with illustrations by Danielle Grandi.  

ThemVersUs

Historically, the roles of the Republican and Democratic parties seem to hinge on blaming the other party for everything that goes wrong and taking credit for everything that goes right—and staying as far away as possible from working together to find real solutions to real problems.

This is harsh, but justified criticism for two groups that somehow manage to bilk American citizens out of millions, billions, and soon to be trillions of dollars every election cycle. For what? Balloons, yard signs and annoying and harmful 30-second divisive, fear-mongering ads.

The one thing both parties can ever seem to agree on is American Exceptionalism, not because they have done exceptional things, but rather because they believe the American people have done exceptional things, and the parties aren’t above taking credit for what the people have done.

In reality, the only exceptional thing we have done was when 56 men assembled in Philadelphia in 1787 to create a government, which had probably been imagined but never before seen. Everything after that—the Civil War, the land grabs, racism, labor struggles, self-interest infighting and deceit has been more or less standard fare.

As human beings, Americans haven’t behaved much differently than the ancient Persians or Egyptians, the feudal societies of the Middle Ages, the Conquistadors of imperial Spain, or the European opportunists who divided Africa up in the late 19^th century. A basic flaw in humanity has defined our behavior from the earliest days of the Stone Age right through to the Space Age we now live in. Again, instances of exceptionalism such as what occurred in Philadelphia in 1887 have been rare.

This flaw in the human condition, which keeps both individuals and, by extension nations, not only in constant conflict, but prevents them from being truly exceptional, is the Us/Them factor, which after watching a lot of TV and being subjected to too many pharmaceutical ads,  I’ve reduced to one word, ThemVersUs because it is so basic to understanding humanity.

We (us) have always been suspicious, fearful, or threatened by them—anyone who isn’t us. This isn’t an American problem. Just as we are not exceptional, neither are we the only culprits in the world. Neither is ThemVersUs a political problem, which government can fix—no matter how many balloons and yard signs political parties buy, to convince us they are the solution.

The ThemVersUs problem, as basic as it is, manifests itself in many different ways, both between nations and within nations. Obvious in this country is racism, but it also surfaces in class struggle, labor relations, economics, health care, housing, education, and anything else where there are two positions creating us versus them situations—even mask wearing during a pandemic. Rural communities and large cities distrust each other, as do sparsely populated states and heavily populated states, and people owning guns thinking people without guns are going to take their guns away—by, I dunno, twisting their arms.

Taken to the extreme, Middle America fears the inhabitants of the two coasts are conspiring against them and vice-versa. Our forefathers couldn’t have foreseen this because Middle America back then were the coastal states of Maryland, Virginia and the Carolinas.

There’s an old Woody Guthrie where he takes on one job after another in order to convince his girlfriend what a hard worker he is, to the point where he just about wears himself out. If we truly want to lay claim to being exceptional, we don’t have to do a whole lot of things, but each individual acting in concert with other individuals will actually have to do something exceptional—something that historically has rarely been done. Namely, deal with the ThemVersUs by learning to get along with them, which ironically, will actually entail less effort than attacking them, and be easier on everyone in the long run.

As I’ve said, this is not a political issue so much as a humanity issue, but the divisions created do prevent the exceptional government designed by our forefathers from working, and even threatens to bring about its collapse as in 1861, and again more recently on January 6 when us/them went after them/us.

If Americans truly want to lay claim to the title of exceptionalism, we will have to do something truly extraordinary, learn to live with and not fear them who surround us, or we will suffer the same fate that has plagued every other society and cursed humanity from its earliest days—a never ending struggle that has no winners.

It won’t be easy. Being exceptional has never been easy, certainly not as easy as being predictable, which requires no special talent or effort. It wasn’t easy for those 56 men in Philadelphia, but despite their differences, they understood that ordinary people can do exceptional things, once they stop doing the senseless things they think they’re expected to do.

The conflict between us and them cannot be won in the courtrooms, or in Congress, or on the battlefield where the war has been waging continuously ever since Cain first determined Abel represented a threat and needed to be killed. It can only be won when we stop fearing them, and learn to live with them—or even better, when we learn that there is no us and them, but only us.