This would be another national service— responding in some appropriate way to how Donald Trump called you a liar about your “oath to God.” It would help people see something.
“Another” because it was a great service you performed in your speech telling your colleagues — and especially the nation — why you were breaking Party ranks and voting to convict President Trump.
A “national service” because what you did really mattered: your words really dominated the day, not the voice of acquittal. Almost like the kid saying “The Emperor Has No Clothes,” your speech — delivered by one who was the standard bearer for the Republican Party not very long ago — exposed not only the Truth about Trump’s crimes being serious but also the nakedness of your craven colleagues, even if you didn’t intend that.
Your words had great power because you were a man who was quite transparently making a decision that he regrets having to make, who feels obliged to decide in the direction that is required by an oath he took to God. And you take your religion seriously. It is, you said, at the center of who you are. And you were compelled both by your Oath to God and by the judgment of your own conscience, to vote to convict Donald Trump.
The palpable sincerity of your statement was underscored by those twelve seconds of silence you took while you worked not to burst out in tears or sobs or something quite profound about the moment to you, as you talked about the religious basis for your act of conscience.
And then what does Donald Trump do? He strikes back at you, to punish you as he punishes all those who cross him. And how does he strike? He questions your sincerity about your religion:
“I don’t like people who use their faith as justification for doing what they know is wrong,”
said Trump in obvious reference to you.
I can understand that you’re already on the Trumpian firing range, and likely do not relish the attacks. But I think this is an opportunity to do more for the nation: that you can respond in some way that can further help the nation see what’s what at this dangerous moment, when Trump has defeated the forces of “the rule of law.”
Not only is Trump the guy who committed impeachable offenses of “great severity,” as you said, but he’s also the guy whose terrible character is revealed by how he degraded what you said, and how you said it, how he accused you of faking your concern about fulfilling the obligation to God that you had undertaken. Your being true to God was bogus, according to Trump. A lie.
But anyone who witnessed your speech should know that it is Trump who doesn’t care about the truth. Or what might be worse: cannot even recognize the obvious truth that your vote to convict was cast out of a sense of solemn, even sacred, duty.
But the American people should be reminded not only of the truth that led you to vote as you did, but also the truth about Trump’s character — how unworthy it is of the Presidency of the United States — displayed by Trump’s dismissal of your religious sincerity.
You do not have to say anything directly about that unworthiness in order to convey the truth of it.
Even though your vote did not succeed in getting this lawless man out of the Presidency, your helping the people to see what Trump revealed about himself would perform another national service by helping people make the decision next November that this man must be removed from the Presidency by the only remaining means. I.e., to vote him out of office through the 2020 presidential election.
Shine a light on Trump’s ugliness in this affair.
(And shine it also on where you were coming from — keeping faith with your vow to God — showing good faith unique among Republican senators.)