Letter to Senator Lee

I wrote the following letter to Senator Lee today regarding the second impeachment trial for Donald Trump:

Senator Lee,

I’m sure you, like the rest of your GOP senate colleagues, wish that you did not have to deal with the upcoming impeachment trial of the now-former president Trump. Almost the entire GOP caucus in the Senate has been twisting themselves in knots trying to get out of it – from the true believers like Sen. Cruz and Sen. Hawley to those, possibly including yourself, who know that what President Trump did was a horrible breach of his oath of office but who mistakenly think that holding on to the angry voters on the right fringes of the GOP is more important than holding an ex-president accountable for his unconscionable actions surrounding the election and its aftermath. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Have you ever watched a doctor stitch up a deep wound? They don’t just sew it closed as fast as possible. That’s what Sen. Graham is trying to do with his talk about unity. What those doctors do first is open the wound as wide as possible and clean it out as completely as possible before they sew it up. They hope to do this quickly but complete cleansing is more important than fast closure. Politically this means having a full airing of the uncomfortable facts about how this now-departed President inflamed animosity and pushed falsehoods in hopes of subverting the outcome of the election for his own benefit. It also means concluding that trial with a guilty verdict and the removal of any opportunity for Trump to hold office again – no matter how remote you may think that opportunity may be.

The GOP is facing an internal day of reckoning between those who peddle in lies and anger with a platform that begins and ends with “support Trump” and those who believe that we must respect the results of the election and work to persuade more voters to support limited government. Regardless of which side you choose there will be some who no longer support you.

I was an enthusiastic supporter in 2010 – in fact I ran into one of your boys at the GOP convention that year and told him, “we’re going to make your dad the next Senator from Utah,” but if you cannot bring yourself to support the conviction of this former president – and work to persuade other senate colleagues to do the same (perhaps focusing on those who are not up for re-election in 2022) – then I will put every ounce of energy I have into electing someone who can acknowledge the damage from Donald Trump in your place. Senator, this is worth sacrificing your political future on if necessary. Those who insist on supporting Trump at all costs may be speaking the loudest but there are others like myself who will feel it necessary to leave the party if it cannot break out of its trance to this destructive demagogue.

Please by like Rep. Adam Kinzinger and do the right thing even if it doesn’t seem like the politically prudent thing at the moment.

Sincerely,

David Miller