The Atlantic
February 9, 2021
AP / Bloomberg / Getty / The Atlantic
One casualty of a moment in American life when politics seems to pervade everything is an inability by many prominent people to tease apart what is and is not a matter of politics.
The second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump, which gets under way today, offers several prime examples. As the refrain went during Trump’s first impeachment, in 2019 and early 2020, the impeachment process is political and not legal, even though it resembles a criminal trial. Yet in both the Democratic House managers’ case for prosecution and (more seriously) the defense brief from Trump’s attorneys, there is a confusion between matters that are appropriately legal or factual, and those that are political.