As the House debated articles of impeachment Wednesday, the president’s defenders reached all the way back to the biblical times, and across the globe to Pearl Harbor, for metaphors to describe what they said was happening to President Trump.
Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., compared the impeachment of Trump to the trial of Jesus Christ.
“Before you take this historic vote today, one week before Christmas, I want you to keep this in mind: When Jesus was falsely accused of treason, Pontius Pilate gave Jesus the opportunity to face his accusers. During that sham trial, Pontius Pilate afforded more rights to Jesus than Democrats afforded this president in this process.”
Loudermilk then yielded back, neglecting to mention that Pilate eventually let the crowd decide Jesus’s fate. Recent polls have shown a slim majority of Americans approving of Trump’s impeachment. Rep. Fred Keller, R-Pa., later said that he would pray for Democrats, using the same language as Jesus praying for his executioners on the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
Trump has refused to cooperate with the impeachment inquiry in any way, declining to supply requested documents and instructing his top aides not to testify.
Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., brought up the “belly of the beast,” an allusion to the story of Jonah and the whale, in a rambling commentary on the culture war he felt was being perpetrated by Democrats.
“I have descended into the belly of the beast,” Higgins said. “I have witnessed the terror within and I rise committed to oppose the insidious forces, but this unjust and weaponized impeachment brought upon us by the same socialists who threatened unborn life in the womb, who threatened Second Amendment protections of every American patriot and who have long ago determined that they would organize and conspire to overthrow President Trump.”
Higgins displayed a map showing all the counties that voted for Trump in 2016, making it appear as if he won an overwhelming share of the vote. (In fact, the 63 million votes he received, a figure frequently cited by his supporters, was nearly 3 million fewer than Hillary Clinton’s total.) “Our republic shall survive this threat from within. American patriots shall prevail,” he intoned.
