One of the reasons To Kill a Mockingbird still resonates as a beloved novel, a classic movie, and – now – a Broadway play is the searing indictment of American justice. One’s soul barrels towards Bethlehem when Tom Robinson is found guilty, for he is so clearly innocent. The verdict, as a result, punctures the innocence of the novel’s young characters and brings into question at large the authenticity of America being a republic that promises “liberty and justice for all.”
The Depression-era setting of rural America, with its white, male jury deliberating the fate of a simple black man in the teeth of the Jim Crow south, does not belie the gross abdication of justice of which said jury participated under oath to uphold the law.
That said, how does one even compare this fictional denial of justice in To Kill a Mockingbird with what is happening right now in the United States Congress? Or, at least, what’s happening on one side of the Legislative Branch of the greatest democracy the world has ever known. How is it that not a single Republican member of the House of Representatives found the President of the United States guilty of the impeachment charges brought against him via a cavalcade of reputable witnesses, rolled out systematically through a sober and thorough narrative, who detailed in cogent, compelling testimony precisely what the President did.
And it was bad as it was obvious. Those who testified were career diplomats, foreign-affairs experts, ambassadors, intelligence officers, decorated veterans all of whom were intimate with the details of the events that a 2nd grader could identify as a clear quid pro quo and a clunky, craven one at that. Those who listened on the Republican side had no interest in the truth.
But the Democratic majority prevailed, and the two counts of impeachment went from the People’s Chamber to the Upper Chamber where 100 Senators would, under oath, as the jury in a trial setting, determine if the President of the United States should be removed from office.
The fact that the result was a foregone conclusion before the trial began is a sad testimony to the times in which we live and a tragic status of the state of our Democracy.
The only drama was whether or not a measly four Senators would break ranks and vote to allow witnesses and new evidence in the trial. Witnesses and new evidence in the trial. What a concept. Even Tom Robinson, in 1930’s Jim Crow American South, had robust representation and the trappings of a thorough trial.
But no, no witnesses and no new evidence in 2020 at the impeachment trial of President Donald J. Trump in the United States Senate overseen by the Chief Justice John Roberts of the Supreme Court. Nope. Seinfeld’s “Soup Nazi” would be proud.
It doesn’t matter that compelling new evidence has emerged from a Guiliani goon who knows too much (and has the tapes to prove it) or that former National Security Advisor John Bolton has volunteered to provide testimony that obliterates the last straw of the President’s attorneys’ defenseless defense.
We are now at the point where the President’s lawyers no longer deny the wrongdoing but claim the President can do no wrong in his quest for reelection since it is, in his belief, in the best interest of the country.
And still, the Republicans in the Senate remain steadfast in their obstinance. Some even want to out the Whistle Blower who started this investigation just for spite.
What do you have in a democracy when men and women of its most esteemed legislative body have no appetite for justice?
Adam Schiff did his best Atticus Finch. The jury paid no mind.
To Kill a Mockingbird is, at its core, a coming-of-age story, the venerable narrative form where a young person recognizes the flaws in their innocent perceptions. Maybe this is America’s “Mockingbird” moment, where we as citizens recognize that our precious democracy was far less formidable than we believed.