Trump’s Second Impeachment
In 1973, Jonathan Schell published a piece in The New Yorker about the repercussions of the Watergate scandal. The illegal break-in, and the subsequent investigation, posed a challenge to the country’s political system. In America, Schell wrote, we are not allowed the luxury of seeking out the truth about high crimes and misdemeanors and then simply ignoring what is discovered. “In a democracy,” he observed, “certain forms of truth do more than compel our minds’ assent; they compel us to act.” This week, the Senate begins deliberations in Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial—and the resulting verdict will tell us much about the direction of our country. There have been only a few other moments of such political consequence in American history.Today, we’re bringing you a selection of pieces about the significance of impeachment. In “Among the Insurrectionists,” Luke Mogelson offers an in-depth look at the January 6th Capitol riot and the far-right extremist rhetoric that fuelled it. (“Trump supporters had Tasers, baseball bats, and truncheons. I saw one man holding a coiled noose. ‘Hang Mike Pence,’ people yelled.”) In a special video segment, the magazine offers exclusive footage of the chaotic siege. In “The Invention—and Reinvention—of Impeachment,” Jill Lepore chronicles the complex history of the process. Finally, in “Trump’s Impeachment and the Degrading of Presidential Accountability,” published last February, Amy Davidson Sorkin offers a prescient warning about the consequences of a failure to convict in the impeachment trial of 2020: “Trump, for his part, will undoubtedly see an acquittal as license for further abuse.” As Schell put it, nearly fifty years ago, at certain key moments we are compelled not only to confirm the truth in our own minds but to move forward with certitude and act upon those convictions.—David Remnick |
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