Who Will Tell the Story?

By Marilyn Moore

I’ve been thinking a lot in the past two weeks of the final moments of the musical “Hamilton,” as all the characters of the play, Alexander Hamilton’s family, his friends, his colleagues and enemies of the political time, gather round to sing the lament of who lives, who dies, how much time does one have, and who it is who will tell your story.  A complex man, remembered in bits and pieces for accomplishments and failures, by those who survived him, by those who loved him and those who did not.  The final line of the full company, “Who tells your story?”  

That question, who tells the story, rang through my mind as the impeachment hearings were held, first in the House and then in the Senate.  Testimony was compelling, at times, and at other times, not so much.  Legal arguments were engaging, solid, brilliant, and totally without foundation – depending on the speaker and, as importantly, the listener.  It was days and nights and days of hearings, information overload, and still seeming to miss just one critical fact…and what that fact was, depended on the listener….  It was everywhere, it permeated the airwaves, the front pages, the late night talk shows, conversations with friends and colleagues, Twitter, Face Book, and every other communication channel we know.  And then, with two roll call votes in the Senate, it was over.

It’s not over, of course.  The ramifications and consequences will be seen and felt for weeks/months/years to come.  New information drops daily.  In the immediate aftermath, federal employees are punished for complying with lawfully-issued subpoenas.  A book will be published soon, and others will follow.  References to the hearings will play out in ever-increasing volume in the next ten months as we nominate and elect a president.  The characters in this real life, at-this-very-moment drama, will be praised and condemned, glorified and vilified, as the story is told over and over and over….by thousands of story tellers, including those running for office, those who support those running for office, those who write and broadcast the news, and, in their heart of hearts, every single person who steps into the polling place next November.  It’s a story that hasn’t ended, and won’t end.

And whose story is it?  Is it Donald Trump’s story?  Nancy Pelosi’s?  Adam Schiff’s?  Mitch McConnell’s?  What about Colonel Vindman, or Marie Yovanovitch?  Is it their story?  Well, obviously, yes, this story belongs to all of them.  But it’s a bigger story than any one person, or even all of the named persons.  At its heart, this is our story, the story of all of us who claim the United States of America as our country.  It’s the story of our Constitution, our form of government, our understanding of the powers of the president and the limits on that power, our sense of right and wrong and honor and truth.  And right now, in the middle of all of it, we’re a people of shouting and clamoring voices.  Sometimes I want to be part of the shouting, sometimes I want to hear a single, clear, definitive voice of truth and justice, and sometimes, I just want to shut out the noise for a moment, just a moment…. 

This is a story that was pretty much destined to be exactly where it is at this moment.  From the beginning of the House investigations, it seemed likely that the House would impeach, the Senate would not convict, and then we would be emotionally exhausted, but with an election before us.  So why do it?  For many reasons, which have been stated well and with conviction by those who made decision along the way.  From my perspective, another reason is to put into the public record the events of the story, hundreds of thousands of pages of documents, thousands of hours of testimony, all available for those who twenty years from now, or two hundred years from now, will tell this story.  Those historians, the story-tellers in the coming decades, will be telling this story – our story – and they will do it from a vantage point we can’t possibly know.  But we can shape that story, through our actions as citizens and voters, and in that way, we tell our own story.