Most Republicans don’t claim Trump is innocent. They say, “Let the people decide in November.” That means you.
Next Wednesday, at 4 pm ET, the Senate will vote to acquit Donald J. Trump. Our constitutional system of checks and balances has failed because of Republican cowardice. What our nation needs now is a massive turnout of voters in November who are determined to evict Republicans — not just Trump but all of them — from the public offices in which they’ve so abjectly served.
Here’s what their abrogation of responsibility and empowerment of a dishonest and immoral bully means for us and our country (excerpted from CNN; see complete article here):
“Trump has changed the balance of power in the United States
“We … know that the government that emerges from this has changed. Here’s what we’ve learned so far from the impeachment by Democrats and presumptive acquittal by Republicans of Donald John Trump.
“New separation of powers … what’s absolutely clear from this impeachment is that the presidency has risen far above the other branches of government, freeing the occupant of the White House from the system of checks and balances designed to constrain him. The Senate ceded power by declining to call witnesses or hear evidence against Trump. His attorney Alan Dershowitz claimed new and expansive power for the President by arguing the President’s personal interest in reelection can be synonymous with the national interest. The Senate granted that power to the President by acquitting him.
“Rep. Adam Schiff, the lead House impeachment manager, called this ‘a descent into constitutional madness.’ … But Schiff’s warnings didn’t matter, since Republicans frustrated by Trump’s behavior decided not to act against him. The President now has new power until a President, in the future, is checked. …
“There are new rules for US politics
“New precedent set … It is now presumably OK, in the eyes of the Senate, for a President to use his office and US foreign policy to do political harm to his rivals. Trump has argued it was absolutely above board for him to seek political help from Ukraine. And he’s asked China for the same kind of help. Democrats continue to howl about it and some few Republicans complained in statements on their way to acquit him. But there is, as Mitch McConnell would say, now precedent for it. …
“Trump tainted Biden
“When Donald Trump picked up the phone to call the Ukrainian President, his goal was to push in the American public the idea that there wasn’t something quite right about Biden’s son being hired by a foreign natural gas company. That call … unleashed the Biden/Burisma conspiracy theory more effectively than Trump could ever have imagined. … Democrats would ignore at their own peril Trump’s ability to politically slime his opponents.
“Donald Trump will stop at nothing
Trump has now faced and survived impeachment. The man who once said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose political support now knows that no matter what he does in office, his party will rally behind him. … Trump has tested the Constitution and survived. The only way to end his presidency is at the ballot box.
“Trump owns the GOP
“Some few Republicans have criticized Trump’s behavior — Lamar Alexander called it inappropriate in the statement where he announced he’d vote to acquit Trump and let Americans decide who should be President in November. ‘The question then is not whether the President did it, but whether the United States Senate or the American people should decide what to do about what he did,’ Alexander said. “I believe … the people should make that decision in the presidential election that begins in Iowa on Monday.’ …
“Two choices: acquit or remove — Marco Rubio said in a mind-bending statement that he assumed all the allegations were true and still decided to acquit Trump because, in part, it would further divide the nation. ‘For me, the question would not just be whether the President’s actions were wrong …’ Rubio said. ‘ … Just because actions meet a standard of impeachment does not mean it is in the best interest of the country to remove a President from office.’ He didn’t need to hear witnesses confirming the story because he was assuming it was true. And he said there are other ways for Congress to contain the President, rejecting the binary choice offered by the impeachment trial. Those are nuanced arguments … likely to be lost as Americans …. [T]he bottom line: Trump’s party protected him from the ultimate accountability for his conduct. …
“Democrats had to impeach Trump
” Even as … it was always pretty clear Trump would be acquitted, it should be equally obvious that Democrats had to impeach him. If they are to argue that he is a danger to the Constitution and to the Republic and prove that the GOP will do anything he asks, they had to reveal that fact.
It’s now up to American voters and the Electoral College to use that information in November.
“Trump’s paranoia about a deep state is only going to grow
“Trump survived impeachment, but he’s not likely to be more comfortable with the government he leads as a result …. His political appointees all … refused to cooperate with the impeachment inquiry. But career civil servants at the Pentagon, the State Department and on the National Security Council all did, providing testimony that backed up the allegations of the whistleblower … who raised a flag to Congress about Trump’s behavior. Republicans and supporters of Trump have continued to vilify the whistleblower, who should be protected by law. Roberts refused to read the name of a person thought by some to be the whistleblower during the Senate trial, but it’s clear from the repeated efforts to unmask the whistleblower that Trump’s allies will not let this go.
“We will learn the truth about all of this
“Arguing they had to act before the election, Democrats didn’t wait for the courts to force cooperation by the White House. They … impeached Trump for what they knew … in December and took the case to the Senate, where the Republican majority voted its political interest and acquitted him. But John Bolton’s book will ultimately come out, despite this latest attempt by the White House to stop it. All of the documents that likely confirm the storyline still exist. … All the people who refused to testify will ultimately answer questions.”
But it’s too late. While history will not exonerate Trump, he has revealed how our fragile our constitutional democracy is, and how easy it is for a demagogue to summon mobs to destroy it. Has he paved the way for an American Hitler? Will he become that person if he’s re-elected or manages to steal the 2020 election? His party won’t stop him.
Maybe they think can control him, or at least keep his worst impulses contained. That’s what the powerful men of Germany in the early 1930s thought about Hitler, too. They were wrong. Our Founding Fathers couldn’t have foreseen the Nazi dictatorship and the horrors it unleashed, but they had experience with human nature, and knew not to give one man as much power as Trump now has. Don’t forget that it was the Republicans in Congress who gave it to him.
Actually the constitutions checks and balances has worked.
The house was smart enough not to impeach Andy Jackson. Used to be Democrats understood some basic about power and the consequences of impeachment. Which is why the House decided to censure Jackson because the votes to impeach were not there in the Senate. Rather weak tea, but that House operated in the world as it was, perhaps the current House needs to do the same, rather than the alternate world they think we are in. After all Trump could win reelection. Probably hold onto the Senate, and may or may not win the house. Depends on if independents think that since the Democrats want a parliament, we can arrange that, only the Presidents party will control the House and no possibility of retaking it in 2022, though we voters tend to have short memories, and our American politicians are forever thankful for that.
Trump got away with obstructing Congress and you think checks and balances worked? Really?