Had a convo with one of my oldest friends from high school (a liberal lawyer) about just how bad, objectively, our politics has affected our ability to judge others. How the burden of proof for those we tend to agree with is much different than it is for those we disagree with.

For instance, there’s no solid proof that Trump did anything impeachable outside of semantics. Case in point, remove the word “candidate” from Joe Biden and the investigation into a former VP’s son’s relations with a corrupt foreign business becomes a much different conversation.

Nobody WANTS (or should want) to see the second highest office in the land being indirectly influenced.

That said, Trump is a garbage human and so we all find ourselves believing - reasonably so - that he would use his position to enrich himself, financially or politically. And all it’s taken for the majority of us to find him guilty is third-person testimony and hearsay.

That’s the new “reasonable” in public discourse. That’s where we are. That’s where we’ll be until society as a whole completely and utterly collapses on itself and our country looks like LA in the Double Dragon movie (1994).