By JENERALI ULIMWENGU

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This is surely as good as it gets, if the Republican tribe in American politics think it is necessary to compare Donald Trump’s impeachment blues with the Passion of the Christ, which in any sane Christian environment would be considered blasphemous.

But they are doing it with aplomb. One legislator compared the impeachment that was decided on by the Democratic-dominated House of Reps as worse than what Pontius Pilate did to Jesus before the Nazarene was crucified, that is, that Pontius gave more magnanimous rights to the Easter accused, Jesus, than Nancy Pelosi and her Democratic legislators are willing to consider for poor, persecuted Trump.

It puts one in all sorts of states to think that these avowed Christian faithful can find something democratic in the man who sanctioned the execution of their saviour. Forget that the words ‘democratic’ or ‘basic justice’ were unknown then, just think that the whole narrative is about the triumph of good over evil.

Also discount the fact that we are in the festive season, not the week of crucifixion, which the overzealous Republican congressman may have mixed up.

You may think that any comparison between the Christian messiah of the scriptures and the ogre in the Oval Office should be offending to believers, but then where are these believers when bigotry, racism and misogyny have completely taken over their politics?

Is there anyone at all among Trump’s supporters who still believes in turning the other cheek, or is Christianity that label you wear on the sleeve as you go about your daily ungodly dealings?

There is no way Trump could be held up as a champion of Christian righteousness, unless you also want to make people believe that I am Shaka the Zulu. His whole political philosophy seems to be anchored in exclusion and thriving on sentiments nourished by the most depraved instincts of his ignorant followers who gobble up every inanity he utters as if it were gospel truth.

A couple of weeks ago, he was this big tough cookie goading Nancy Pelosi and her “do nothing” Democrats to impeach him. “Bring it on,” he taunted.

Finally they called his bluff and impeached him, and now he is screaming foul all over the place, claiming he is not being the opportunity Jesus was given before Pilate.

As someone said, Trump was goading the Dems to impeach him only as a deterrent, because no one expects the Senate, controlled by the Republicans, to actually vote to remove him from office. That is the arithmetic impossibility that has shielded the other two impeached presidents in US history.

But Pelosi and her people must have reasoned that it is better to be seen by posterity as people who took the necessary step to countermand encroaching tyranny, even if it does not amount to removal from office, than to keep quiet and do nothing, thereby condoning and institutionalising impunity.

Trump has always wanted his predecessors to be impeached. He wanted George W. Bush under the bus for the Iraq war. “He got us into the war with lies”. He wanted Obama impeached for “gross incompetence”. It is interesting to go back to what Trump said about if Obama, his immediate predecessor, would feel if he were impeached:

‘Do you think Obama seriously wants to be impeached and go through what Bill Clinton did? He would be a mess. He would be thinking of nothing but. It would be a horror show for him. It would be an absolute embarrassment. It would go down on his record permanently”.

The beauty about this little passage is that it reads like the speaker was speaking about himself. What the Democrats have done is to ensure that, using the muscle of their number in the House of Reps, they have carried to Trump’s lips the chalice of the poison he had wished to be delivered to Obama’s mouth. It is called poetic justice, though I see no poetry in that.

Trump has manifested enough hatred for the Clintons since he fought a bitter election campaign in 2016 and defeated Hillary. Still, he seems to be still sore from that campaign than the woman she beat. Yet here he is now, only the third president impeached in the history of the US, seated within touching distance of the second impeached president, husband to the woman from the 2016 race.

Jenerali Ulimwengu is chairman of the board of the Raia Mwema newspaper and an advocate of the High Court in Dar es Salaam. E-mail: [email protected]