THIS IS AN UPDATE OF AN EARLIER ESSAY

Careful, Dorothy, we’re not in Kansas anymore. 

We’re in a land where nothing is as it seems. Where the truth is never real, and the real is never true.

Welcome to the land of Republican Senators. Or, as they are often described by journalists and observers—and will be remembered by future historians—“Cowards, Sycophants and Accomplices.”

Oh my! 

Yes, in this land, you do not need to be true to your vows, or vote by the light of your conscience, or speak the truth about what you see with your own eyes, or act in a way that will make your children proud. 

In this land, the thing of most importance is to remain true to Donald J. Trump, no matter how dastardly his deeds, no matter how violently he desecrates the Constitution, even if his most damning behavior cries out for condemnation and abhorrence.

In this land, an attempted coup is of no great constitutional importance, nor is the death of six individuals whose lives were lost to the lies and lust of a man who would not relinquish the power bestowed upon him by the electorate and taken away by that same sovereign body.

In this land, political power is supreme, so unstoppable in its sweep that time and again it upends reality and turns common sense on its head. When that happens, falsehoods and lies light the fires that lead the way in the dark. 

In this land, there will never be a final word on the crimes and unspeakable villainies of Donald J. Trump. Just when you sigh in the belief you have seen the limit of his Evil Enterprise, he shocks you once again with his unlimited capacity to broaden its harmful effects. Nor will there ever be an end to the bottomless treasury of excuses or deflections used by these spineless desecrators of their office in shielding a man who deserves neither the respect of the office he defiled or the obeisance to the power he has amassed.

Twice these handmaidens to a man whose behavior resembles a mob boss more than a president have refused to set a high water marker on the limits to the evil they will accept and condone from Donald J. Trump. Twice they have seen him desecrate his office and the constitution, and twice they have declared him innocent and free to commit harm in ever new and creative fashion. And now we are seeing them rush to defend their mob boss against the perils he has created by stealing vital state secrets for a purpose we can only shiver to imagine.

In February of 2020, those lies allowed Donald J. Trump to escape conviction for his crimes in the first impeachment trial. An escape that led as surely to this second impeachable offense, a year later, as night follows day. Thus the 52 Republican senators who voted to acquit Donald J. Trump in his first impeachment trial, and the 40 in the second, were not only his jurors, but his accomplices in all subsequent crimes since his acquittal.

It is on their heads that the ultimate responsibility and guilt for Trump’s crimes must lie.

Cowards, Sycophants and Accomplices.

Oh my!