My earliest political memory is Nixon’s resignation. I came into the TV room and my grandfather seemed agitated so I asked what was going on and he said the President was resigning. I understood that it was a major thing but I didn’t really grasp any of the context because I was too young. I don’t recall any particular mood or conversation around my house in the runup or after; I was a little kid, I cared about books and bike rides and exploring the neighborhood, and my grandmother had died the year previously so things were still fraught in my family. But a President resigning to avoid being impeached was the start of my political understanding.
I honestly don’t remember a lot about Clinton’s impeachment either. At the time of the vote I was coming off a brutally hard work stretch (at the time I had a job where I would work 80-hour weeks for two months at a time) and was involved with an abusive partner who would mistreat me because work was keeping me from devoting my attention to him, so it was all pretty bad and my thinking and memory were not clear or fully functional. I know I was angry about the circumstance of what led to the impeachment, even as I had significant reservations about Clinton’s political and executive behavior around the relationship with Lewinsky (as opposed to his personal behavior, which was disgusting but not a matter of governmental concern in my view). I was relieved when the Senate didn’t convict but I recognized that there was worrisome fracturing in our political systems.
And now the second impeachment in my lifetime has happened. After the vote on the second article spouse poured us a little scotch and we had a recognition of the historical significance. And then I started crying, because while this was absolutely necessary and absolutely the correct thing to do, it’s utterly wretched that we are here, and that it is unlikely to lead to anything changing because the Republican party has given its allegiance to Trump instead of the Constitution. I remain convinced that this country won’t survive Trump, one way or another, and not least because our vaunted system is hopelessly inadequate for the size and fractiousness of the nation as it is now; and I’m pretty sure I’ll recall this moment as the point where it began to break apart. But I doubt I will forget how I felt about it.
Popcorn & Pretension 