It was a mind-numbing spectacle, devoid of morality and ethics, 
the kind of political theater that characterizes despotic regimes. 
No one in the House chamber was protecting the Constitution. 
No one was seeking to hold accountable those who had violated it. 
No one was fighting to restore the rule of law. 
The two parties, which have shredded constitutional protections and rights 
and sold the political process to the highest bidders, have engaged in egregious constitutional violations for years and ignored them when they were made public. 
Moral stances have a cost, but almost no one in Congress seems willing to pay. 
The political clashes are not substantive, despite what we heard 
in the impeachment hearings. 
They are rhetorical and largely inconsequential. 
The Republicans and the Democrats recently passed a $738 billion defense bill 
for fiscal year 2020, a $21 billion increase over what was enacted for fiscal year 2019. 
The vote was a lopsided 377 to 48. 
The U.S. spends more on its military than the next 10 countries combined. 
Also, a day after the impeachment of President Trump, the Republicans and Democrats 
in the House passed a thinly veiled rewrite of the Clinton administration’s 
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), 
the 25-year-old free trade agreement that hollowed out our manufacturing centers 
and sent U.S. jobs and production to Mexico. 
Again, the vote was lopsided, 385 to 41. 
When the wealthy and our corporate masters want something done, it gets done. 
Our elected officials serve them, not us. 
We are to be controlled.

chris hedges,
truthdig