What happened to the purist Republican Senate during the trial of Bill Clinton? In 1999, President Clinton was charged and impeached by the House of Representatives for lying under oath and obstruction of justice. The independent counsel who brought the charges against Bill Clinton, Kenneth Starr, served as one of Donald Trump’s defense lawyers.

In 1999, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., challenged the idea of a trial without witnesses. He said that if the Senate did not call meaningful witnesses, they were basically changing the meaning of impeachment. Graham believed back then that witnesses were the only real means of getting to the truth. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, during Clinton’s trial, made the statement that the American people have the right to get a full understanding of how the Senate reached its decision in such a momentous matter.

The more Donald Trump’s lies are exposed, right-wing media, such as Lou Dobbs, continue lying and attempting to convince the American public that the president had been set-up by George Soros. They claim that Soros controls a large part of the career foreign service diplomats with the State Department.

We wonder how we find ourselves at this place at this time. It was by one step at time. We’ve become numb to the lies, misconduct and obstruction of justice.

History recorded that Mrs. Elizabeth Willing Powel, wife of Philadelphia Mayor Samuel Powel, asked Benjamin Franklin whether we had a Republic or Monarchy. Franklin replied that we have a Republic if we could keep it. He continued to say, “the Executive will be always increasing here, as elsewhere, till it ends in a Monarchy.” Mrs. Powel was said to ask, “and why not keep it?” To which Franklin replied, “Because the people on tasting the dish, are always disposed to eat more of it than does them good.”

Ever since 1789 at the start of a new Congress, newly elected members of Congress take an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

In a message, preached after the acquittal of President Trump, Dr. William Barber preached a sermon titled, “The impeachment cover-up.” Dr. Barber stated that America has always had great difficulty living up to what she says on paper. He stated there would never have been a Donald Trump if there had not first been the election of a Black president. He said Donald Trump fans the fears of a white nation, of a new world conspiring against their interest, with a demographic change in race and class. He said every attempt toward equity and inclusion has always been met with some backlash.

During the Reconstruction Period, from 1866-1877 following the end of the Civil War, 16 African American men served in the U.S. Congress, more than 600 Black men were elected to state legislatures and hundred to local offices across the South.

Trump’s “Make America Great Again” is not an original idea. In 1872, it was coined as the “Redemption Movement.” The Ku Klux Klan was formed to go after white and Black people who were part of the Republican Party. White southern Democrat’s reigned terror and killed hundreds of white and Black citizens. One by one southern state governments were taken over by white supremacist Democrats, who declared that they were restoring, “A white man’s government.”

In 1877, the Rufus B. Hayes compromise happened. In order to be declared the winner of the 1876 presidential election, Hayes agreed to pull federal troops out of the South, which formally ended the Reconstruction Era. In 1901, President Woodrow Wilson, a blatant racist, re-segregated all federal offices.

It was the passing of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act of 1964 and 1965 which outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin and prohibited racial discrimination in voting.

Today we find ourselves at another crossroad. The heart, soul and moral health of this nation are being tested by this corrupt executive. Will we remain silent and allow this president who has successfully co -opted the Republican Senate and Judicial Department to remain as the executive of this country? We will only remain a Republic if we fight for it.