Looking For The Truth

The impeachment trial of our former President is going in the Senate chamber of the Capital building. A little over a month ago, these same halls were filled with angry insurrectionist doing their best to prevent Congress from carrying out its democratic duty. Mike Pence was being hurried down back stairs while armed individuals were calling for his death by hanging just a few hundred yards away. Nancy Pelosi and other members of Congress were hiding in fear before they too were ushered to safety just before the doors to the chamber were breached. Now the Senate is deliberating to determine whether the former President should be convicted of inciting this insurrection.

Given the past unwillingness of the Republican Senators to challenge Trump, the final outcome of the trial will most likely be acquittal. But history is being written through the exposure of email and video footage of the events leading up to and including the armed assault on the Capital building. We, as a people, are trying to get to the truth of what happened.

The Senate is being asked to look at the events that happened from several different perspectives. The Democratic House Managers of the impeachment are presenting many perspectives showing Trump in the worst possible light. Then his lawyers will have the opportunity to present the same evidence in the best possible light.

This is a time-honored practice in societies that value truth and justice. It sounds like it should be simple and that after looking at all the evidence from a variety of angles, the ‘truth’ should be obvious. But ‘reality’ is not as straightforward as it seems. Eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable and many a trial ends with doubt and continuing differences of opinion.

Polls are showing that most Democrats think Trump is guilty of the charges and that most Republicans think that he was just exercising his right to be inflammatory and politically incorrect. But lives were lost and the government of the United States was directly attacked, with nearly catastrophic outcomes. This is not a small matter and the issues of how much was planned and who was involved in that planning are of central importance.

One of the key issues of this impeachment trial is the degree to which someone, in this case a sitting President, can be held accountable for their words. While our country takes great pride in our ‘so-called’ freedom of speech, in fact, we have always recognized that some speech should not and cannot be allowed. You can be sent to prison for being involved in plotting a crime. You can be fined thousands or millions of dollars for willfully telling lies that damage another person’s reputation or income.

News outlets and public figures have always been liable for the impact of false words they may speak. Part of the way out of our current state of polarization may be to begin to hold virtual platforms accountable to some modicum of truthfulness as well. The righteous anger of the insurrectionists was clearly fueled by lies that were told and repeated leading up to January 6. That you can be held accountable for the truthfulness of your statements and for inciting others to violence seems a fairly reasonable position.

The stories we tell about how we got where we are are part of how we create the future we move into. I hope that the Senate proceedings may allow us all to see more clearly into the events leading to the storming of the Capital and might allow us to recognize the value of a shared truth and the power of our words.