“We will hold his feet to the fire.”
Remember that?
“We have to vote against Hillary in order to save the Constitution!”
Remember that?
“We know Trump is not a conservative, that he is a liar, and that he cheats, but if he does anything, we will be the first to call for his impeachment and then we’d have President Pence, which would be even better than Trump and way better than Hillary.”
Remember that?
Yeah…good times.
So let’s recap the last three years (these are just quickly off the top of my head…I can’t possibly remember everything):
- Trump lies to the American people on a daily basis, continuing the demagoguery that put him in office.
- Trump buddies up to despots and disparages long-standing allies.
- Trump profits off of his presidency like no other.
- Trump publicly and dishonestly attacks private companies from the bully pulpit for personal reasons.
- Trump, on the world stage, throws our intelligence community under the bus and sides with one of our biggest adversaries instead.
- Trump publicly threatens and intimidates would-be witnesses against his wrongdoings on a regular basis.
- Trump, on nearly a daily basis, divides the American people like no other.
- Trump claims to have unlimited power (“Article II says I can do anything I want”) combined with absolute immunity.
- Trump installed an AG that is willing to lie for the President. Contrary to the Bubble of Bullshit narrative that the Mueller Report exonerated Trump, it did the opposite, providing massive amounts of details of wrongdoing at impeachable levels.
- Trump blatantly and irrefutably abused his power with the Ukraine scheme and then blatantly and irrefutably obstructed the investigation into it.
Those are just the first ten things that popped into my mind. As I said, there are many more things we could add to the list. Many more things.
What I have described is the very situation, the very demagogic person, that the framers of our Republic were most concerned about as they were debating and developing our system of exceptional government.
What I have described is the very situation that they envisioned that would require including the impeachment clause in the Constitution.
Not only have our Republican officeholders not held Trump’s feet to the fire, but they have also joined him in all of these activities, either directly or by way of sitting idling by.
In the name of saving us from increased socialism, which would inevitably lead to authoritarianism and, then, despotism, the Republicans have skipped right to authoritarianism.
Make no mistake, what the Republicans are about to do is not simply rejecting the Democrats efforts at removing Trump because they either don’t agree that Trump did what he is accused of or that they know he did it but it doesn’t rise to an impeachable offense.
That would be bad enough.
Rather, by the way they are doing it, by accepting the arguments that are being made by Trump and his team, they are essentially handing a crown to the President. And not just to this President. All future Presidents will reap this reward.
So much for saving the Constitution.
The arguments that are being made state that impeachment has become too partisan and too easy to do and will be used every time one party controls the House and another party the Presidency. They want to stop the “age of impeachment”. That’s absurd. What they are doing is removing the threat of impeachment, the only real check on the Executive, completely from the realm of possibility.
Contrary to what they are claiming, it seems to me that our problem is just the opposite. We have gotten to this point by not using the impeachment clause enough. The increased partisanship over the past decades have rendered the threat of impeachment nearly non-existent. This has created a monstrous Executive Branch, totally out of control. Instead of fixing that, the Republicans are making it exponentially worse.
By saying that only an actual statutory crime can be impeachable, that abuse of power is not impeachable, that if a President believes that his victory in the election is in the national interest then no matter what he does to achieve that cannot be impeachable, by encouraging and working to destroy our whistleblower laws, by allowing the Executive to enjoy “absolute immunity” by not allowing any oversight from the Legislative Branch, and by condoning all of the above actions of Trump, The Republican are literally destroying the fabric of our Constitution and our system of separation of powers and checks and balances.
There can be absolutely no denying this. It is blatant and it will be devastating.
The power shift toward the Executive over the past 100 years has been immense. Congress has abdicated its authority to the Executive in many ways. Republicans/conservatives used to be the ones who understood that and decried it and worked every day to stop it and reverse it.
We have witnessed the opposite of that during that past few years. But it’s no longer fun and games. It’s no longer simply relishing liberal tears. It’s no longer just triggering the snowflakes. What they are now doing, with this impeachment trial and the votes they are about to take is no joke. This is not hyperbole. This is them handing what is, in essence, unlimited power to the Executive.
No matter how much you hate the Democrats, no matter how much you hate Hillary, Pelosi, Schiff, Schumer, Obama, Biden (Joe or Hunter), the Squad, Warren, or Bernie…no matter how much you hate CNN and MSNBC…surely you can see the extreme danger there is in granting the President (any President) such immense, unaccountable, power.
The Republican Senate is about to do that. And Republican voters are cheering for it.
This will not end well. I weep for our Republic.
