The president’s impeachment acquittal was never in doubt, because that’s how the US constitution was meant to work
Donald Trump has not, as he claimed this week, been “fully vindicated and exonerated” of impeachment by the US Senate. Vindicated instead are the 63 million voters who backed him in 2016 and who have, in effect, terrorised their senators into keeping him in office. The issue is not whether Trump was innocent as charged, any more than was Bill Clinton in 1999. The Senate dismissed Trump’s case without even hearing the evidence. The acquittal was political, not judicial.
I love America. I love it above all because I admire the raw vitality of its constitution. That constitution – bequeathed by British and French liberals – was intended to create a melting pot for global migrants as they colonised their way across America. Hardly changed since the 18th century, it remains archaic, ramshackle and flawed. But it works. It keeps the melting pot stirred, and above all it sustains an internally stable nation. Compare it with Britain’s de facto constitution, which is so overcentralised it may soon lose its entire Celtic fringe.
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Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
