What does it take for Congressional Republicans to grow some integrity, do the right thing, and place country over party? An insurrection orchestrated by a sitting President doesn’t meet the threshold? An angry mob destroying property and chanting death threats for members of Congress wasn’t enough? Lives lost in the wake didn’t trigger it? And now Republicans are asserting that an impeachment trial is unnecessary because it’s all “over and done with”? Following this logic, a murder trial is unnecessary because the victim is already dead.

People. We have a dead body here. It isn’t a “John Doe.” It’s our Constitution. It was assaulted by the President himself, who inflamed an angry, mindless mob to do his bidding, and then stood back and enjoyed the show.

Trump’s own inauguration speech four years ago was a dark, dystopian ulcer on the soul of this country, that grew as the weeks and months ground on. He referred to ending the American carnage in that speech and, ironically, created more carnage than any other president in history. And not merely in the figurative Constitutional sense on January 6, but in reality. More than 400,000 Americans — and the numbers climbing every day — are dead due to the Trump Administration’s feeble response to the COVID pandemic. Essentially the Trump Administration’s response was “pretend it’s not happening.”

Well, it’s happening. There are so many bodies stacking up, many cities are bringing in refrigeration trucks to store them all, and funeral homes are backed up for weeks. The culpability of the Trump administration in the lack of planning for this horrendous pandemic is now being disclosed by Dr. Anthony Fauci, who revealed last week that he was unable to tell the entire scientific truth at press conferences, and Dr. Deborah Birx, who revealed on Face the Nation last night that charts about the pandemic didn’t reflect the facts and figures she presented, and were instead fabricated by someone else. She didn’t specify who that “someone else” was, but… follow the stink and you’ll find the rotting flesh.

Isn’t Trump’s failure to deal with COVID and his obfuscation of scientific truth, and a train of corpses ten miles long, enough for impeachment? Pile on top of that the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol Building, with enraged, frothing domestic terrorists roaming the hallways and storming offices to find Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Mike Pence so they could harm and possible murder them. If either of these two things combined, let alone both at once, aren’t grounds for impeaching a President enough, then the concept of “impeachment” is meaningless.

So, why impeach now? It’s not just to rub Trump’s orange nose in his own shit, it’s to ensure that he can’t hold public office ever again, even if he creates his own party. It’s to protect our country and our Constitution from ever being subjected to his incompetence and willful carnage again. The man is a criminal, and deserves to face justice, or the concept of “No one is above the law” is just a sad, tired little trope.

And yet, the Congressional Republicans are crowing, “No, no no! What we need now is unity!”

What utter horse shit.

To Republicans, “unity” means doing things the way they want. I’m sorry, but in my book, that type of unity is called “acquiescence.” There isn’t an ounce of integrity in a ton of Republicans. That said, Democrats historically do a lot of that sort of Republican “unity” in a naive belief that if they cooperate, so will Republicans. Learn from your mistakes, Democrats! Lucy is ALWAYS going to pull the football away, Charlie Brown! Aim your kick at her next time, not the ball! You must stop bringing poetry to a knife fight, and start toughening up or be plowed over by the Republican phalanx yet again.

Congressional Democrats, hear me. Please. If ever there was a time to grow some collective balls and do what must be done, this is it. You have the entire future of this country, its Constitution, and democracy itself at stake. Do not acquiesce. You hold justice in your hands, right here, right now, on February 9. Don’t let it slip through your fingers. You need to find 17 Republicans to stand with you, for the sake of our country. Maybe you can remind them how history — and voters — will judge them if they fail to perform their oaths of office to “defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Appeal to their self-serving natures and re-election prospects, which may be the only thing that resonates with them. Loyalty to the Constitution certainly doesn’t do it.

In the case of this non-existent pandemic response, it’s obvious who is responsible. In the case of the January 6 insurrection, you have Trump on tape giving the order to “charge.” And that’s exactly what his mob did. And no nonsense about, “Well, he didn’t personally charge into the Capitol with them.” More horse shit! Charles Manson died in prison for his responsibility for multiple murders, yet he was never even at the scene of the crimes. His lackeys did his work for him. And Manson? GUILTY. Even figurative blood on your hands is still blood in the eyes of the law. And Trump? His legacy is littered with corpses, both literal and figurative.

There’s a dead body lying there.

Someone is responsible.

Bring the killer to justice.