Should we be pleased that action is finally taken against a corrupt president, or disappointed that it has taken 5 deaths from a violent mob to finally provoke a reaction?

Should we be pleased that some companies are distancing themselves from figures who have actively exacerbated the promulgation of lies and division, or upset that this action is being taken by corporations and not politicians?

Should we be gratified by the statements from the few world leaders who have denounced the recent words of Donald Trump, or appalled that those self-same leaders spent years pandering to him in the full knowledge of who and what he is?

As I look at this situation, I cannot help but wonder why it has taken so long to arrive at this point, to wonder why  there are still politicians that either cannot or will not honestly face up to their own duplicitous actions, and to wonder how it could possibly be that we now seem to rely upon the actions of major corporations to demonstrate morality – in the absence of such from many of those who seek to lead us.  The Vice President on the United States of America will not condemn the actions of Donald Trump and yet the Professional Golf Association will.

It is a sad indictment of our political environment that the surest way to secure a reaction is to bring financial pressure to bear.  The politicians are not concerned by morals, or by what they may have previously said – only that they risk losing campaign funding because of their support for something that even greedy, amoral global corporations find hard to stomach! Senator Lindsey Graham yesterday in the Senate actually had the audacity to stand up and say that “enough is enough” when it comes to the lies of Donald Trump – this from a man who has supported Donald Trump’s claims of fraud, who called the Secretary of State for Georgia and who by the accounts of the Secretary himself tried to get mail-in ballots thrown out.

Of course, Senator Graham is not the only one… some Republican Senators even tried to forestall a vote for impeachment by claiming that a second impeachment would ‘undermine the priorities’ of President Elect Joe Biden to unify Americans – adding that their request should be considered in the ‘spirit of healing’!  This request is quite unbelievable in its level of irony… Such irony however is not limited to the political world.  The Deutsch Bank who by all accounts are now seeking ways to sever their financial dealings with Donald Trump have nevertheless supported him with over $2 billion in loans over the years – when it suited their purpose in seeking an opening into the American banking market…  Likewise Twitter had no problem with keeping Donald Trump on their system until now – I am sure that 88m followers and a President of the United States of America that only communicated by Twitter did wonders for their share price these past 4 years!!!

How can it be acceptable that this environment is controlled now almost entirely by money – and hence large corporations?  How is it acceptable that the judgement of what is a lie and what is an incitement to riot be left to social media platforms?  Where are the independent bodies who can arbitrate on this – or do we really want our entire lives – everything we see and hear – to be esteemed (or otherwise) by global mega corporations?  These corporations are as guilty as the politicians who have aided and abetted Donald Trump for more than 4 years.  Outlets such as Twitter and ‘news’ networks such as Fox have delivered his bile for years, reinforcing the concept that what the President says is correct simply through the total absence of any challenges.  It was only this year that Twitter started to put ‘Get the Facts’ label on to tweets; a statement which is ambiguous at best as far as I can judge and in any case is applied according to internal corporate rules rather than any legal or judicial evaluation.

Politicians refuse to sanction each other, either there is little point because politics has become so partisan that anything anyone of your ‘colour’ does is OK by you, or because they are too scared to suffer the same punishments when it is their turn in power.  When in power, politicians refuse to sanction corporations because corporations pay their re-election funds, and the judiciary have little recourse to act – especially over a leader because they apparently (whilst in office) cannot be arrested or held to any form of legal account.  …and then the politicians gerrymander their districts so that they are no longer accountable to the electorate.

US Democracy didn’t die on Wednesday January 6th… it was already dead.  Perhaps we should be thanking Donald Trump for actually managing to open our eyes to the reality that has been staring us in the face…

(Addendum: I wonder if we can impeach the Vice President for not doing his duty in using the 25th Amendment to remove Donald Trump..?)