I have nothing new to say about impeachment, because everything about it has already been said. I only have what I have to say, so I will.
In the fall of 2018 when I was door-knocking for various candidates in Minnesota, we tried to follow a script with voters. We were instructed to ask people what their #1 issue was – healthcare, the economy, the environment, etc. Talk to people about why these state house races were so important. Mostly people didn’t want to talk about local issues – “we need to do something about Trump.” If pressed, they would say, “he is out of control, he has too much power, there needs to be a check.”
It was only a year ago, which feels like a lifetime, that the “blue wave” happened – and it brought on the check that voters asked for.
So the House is now doing it’s job. There is a laundry list a mile long of probable or possible impeachable offenses, but the House settled on two – abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. They ran the proceedings flawlessly, they have overwhelming evidence, and they will vote to impeach tomorrow. And they should.
Regardless of whether Trump gets removed from office (and it’s looking like he won’t), the House had a job to do.
Trump is corrupt, unfit, a human rotten to the core, but the point now is that he’s done things that are impeachable. So he must be impeached. It’s just that.
(As an aside, obviously, there will be a lot of Congresspeople, mostly men, mostly GOP, who will vote against impeachment – that’s their right, that’s how democracy works. As long as we still have a working democracy.)
The chips will fall, the political consequences to both Democrats and Republicans will become known over time, but that’s not the point. The House fulfilled its duty to uphold the Constitution and do its job as a co-equal branch of government. It had to be done. To sit on their hands now would have been a greater risk to the rule of law and democracy. No one is the above the law, and Democrats did what they could with the tools they had. And I am proud to stand on the side of Democrats right now, let me say that.
As we move to the trial in the Senate, it is looking like the GOP will do their best to muck up the works, like they tried to do in the House hearings. McConnell and Graham have already come out and said, out loud even, in their outside voices even, that they will not be impartial. If Trump is acquitted in the Senate he will claim total victory and we will again be annoyed, frustrated, outraged, like we have been all along. Impeachment is not enough to shame him because he is shameless. He will probably dig in and do more to punish anyone who is against him, like the Democrats who are “human scum”, because that’s his MO. Impeachment will piss some people off and convince them to vote for Trump again in 2020. If people want to take that route, so be it.
The House has passed “election protection” legislation, but it has been held up in the Senate by Mitch McConnell who refuses to bring it to a vote. I can only conclude that the GOP chooses to do nothing to strengthen voting rights or prevent foreign interference in elections because weak election laws and interference help them win. Losers cheat to win.
But remember that Trump barely won in 2016. He is not king (yet). He is not a dictator (yet). He is a mere mortal, a deeply flawed and incompetent one at that, running for President in a country that still has free elections (for now). He can be beaten. He should be. But only if everyone and their mother, their father, their brother, their sister, their aunt, their uncle, their grandma, grandpa, babysitter, boss and bartender works to beat him, and then votes. Everyone. Congress didn’t sit on their hands – we can’t either.
The chips will fall but we still needed to do the right thing. That’s the lesson of all this. And even though I sometimes have a hard time choosing, or taking sides, and I often flip-flop on complicated issues, this is one time when I know beyond a doubt that I have chosen the right side. Impeach the MF.
(And if you’re not doing anything at 5:30 today, attend an impeachment rally. You can find one at – impeach.org)
#IMPEACH
©Rebecca Larson 2019
THE UNREACHABLE ITCH 