“Let the people vote” has become a rallying cry for
Republican apologists during the impeachment. Their argument goes that what
Trump did was bad (or maybe it was perfect, depending on the pundit), but it wasn’t
impeachable. Since we’re close to an election anyway, Trump’s defenders say, we
should just let the voters decide whether Trump should be fired for his
transgressions rather than going through the impeachment process.
The Republican defense breaks down almost immediately
because every last one of the Republicans making this argument, even the ones
who say that he behaved poorly, are endorsing Trump for re-election. Put
simply, Republicans believe that Trump abused his office and that voters should
reward him with a second term. The Republican argument is simply the first step
of a two-part plan in which President Trump escapes all consequences for his
actions.
The reality is that Donald Trump is the most lawless
president that most of us have ever seen, inclusive of Barack Obama with his
pen and phone. The grounds for impeaching Trump do not begin and end with the
whistleblower and the Ukrainian quid pro quo. President Trump has a long
history of flouting the law and the Constitution that he swore an oath to
uphold. The Mueller report’s allegations of obstruction painted a picture of a president
who valued personal loyalty over adherence to the law. His use of national
emergencies to subvert the will of Congress was a blatant attempt to escape the
outcome of the 2018 midterm elections. The president’s frequent and repeated
attempts to intimidate witnesses are evidence that the president is either
ignorant of traditional legal norms or willfully disregards them entirely.
Finally, the Ukraine whistleblower scandal represents a naked attempt to use
his own version of a Deep State to take military aid earmarked for an ally at
war with Russia and leverage it for his own personal benefit.
The common thread among these and other actions by President
Trump is that they represent a pattern of abusing his position as president for
personal gain. To ignore such a lengthy list of offenses and reward the
offender with a second term would be to invite further abuse, not only from
this president but from future executives of both parties. Given the flagrant
and unprecedented abuses by Donald Trump, Congress had no real choice but to
take action against the president. To do otherwise would be to accept a
diminished constitutional role as the president usurps Congress’ authority. Of
course, the House should impeach Donald Trump.
Impeachment does not overturn an election and it is not a
coup. Donald Trump will still be president unless and until he is removed by
the Senate. If President Trump is removed, Mike Pence will become president,
not Hillary Clinton. It would be a poor excuse for a coup that left the
president’s own party in power.
What impeachment does mean is that history will record that
Americans found Donald Trump’s behavior to be inappropriate. Impeachment will
be a black mark against Trump’s name that will stand as a warning to future
presidents that such abuses of power will not be tolerated.
That President Trump is deserving of impeachment is
underscored by the fact that Republicans have not offered exculpatory evidence
or witnesses to refute the allegations of abuses of power. Instead, witnesses
from the president’s inner circle have been ordered not to testify and the
White House has not cooperated with subpoenas for White House emails and
documents. Republican defenses have largely been limited to attacking the
character and motives of witnesses, most of whom are Trump appointees, a tactic
that does not dispute the facts of the case.
The Republicans in the Senate are unlikely to vote to
convict and remove Donald Trump from office, however. And that’s okay. After
the impeachment, after President Trump has been punished by the House, is the
appropriate time for the people to vote.
After impeachment, voters will have their say on whether
Democrats overstepped or whether their actions were within reason. Voters can
decide whether President Trump’s behavior over the past four years was a series
of abuses of power or whether they want four more years of Twitter diplomacy.
Over the next few weeks, I expect to see de facto proof that
the Republicans who say that Trump’s actions were not impeachable were wrong. That
proof will come when the House votes to impeach the president for his cumulative
abuses of power, of which, the Ukraine whistleblower scandal is only the most
recent and well-known example. President Trump should be punished for his
abuses of power and impeachment is an appropriate reaction.
However, after impeachment, it will be up to the people to
decide whether President Trump should be removed from office. If voters want to
reject the politics of deceit and division, they should send a strong message
at the polls next November and fire not only Donald Trump but his Republican
enablers. Then they should keep sending messages in subsequent elections and
hold other politicians accountable for their behavior as well.
Originally published on The
Resurgent
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