CommentsMY TURN-Much of the discussion on social media pages and mainstream media from liberals have been involving the topics of impeachment versus voting Trump out in 2020.
Some are treating this administration as if it were “business as usual” in Washington, D.C., when it is far from that. We have a crazy man in the White House whose sole goal is to undermine everything that he can for a profit and has sold the country out for a bag of Rubles, and this is being supported by spineless Republicans. While we have seen this happening, the law requires that facts be exposed; and now that they are, he will do anything and everything to keep from being removed. This isn’t a time to talk about impeachment OR voting him out, it requires both.
It became quite apparent that William Barr, the Attorney General, is Trump’s lapdog. His horrid spin on the Mueller Report may have bought the conservatives some time before the release of the report, but it also had the result of having a lot of conservatives recognize that he is working for Trump and not the country. The fact that the administration, including Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein, support such a gamble, means that they are throwing everything that they have into the set of lies before the un-redacted copy is given to Congress. All of this takes time, and the American people are already tired of the process.
We are witnessing a Constitutional crisis of epic proportions. Not only was a man illegitimately elected to the highest office in the country, but he has brought on board an unprecedented number of people within the administration who not only hate the departments they are governing, but who have an intent of destroying the checks and balances that keep us and the planet safe. In addition to the attempted destruction of the country, the Republicans are backing a man who has no knowledge of the law and frankly doesn’t care about it.
One hardly has to explain the horrors of what has happened in the last two years, as that will require volumes of books to be read by our children’s children’s children; and they will ask over and over again: “why did you do nothing?” They will sit in shock as they find out that their ancestors were complacent while they devoted their time to checking their social media. How will they view a society that wasn’t smart enough to see through the propaganda or who had the selfish idea that all of the hate and racism was “ok” as long as the economy was good.
Taking steps to remove the orange man and his disgusting associates is not an easy process. The Founding Fathers designed removal as a deliberate move so that the government could not be overthrown. I don’t think they anticipated that an “overthrow” would occur in the opposite direction: one man and an administration would set up a fascist dictatorship, with people who followed acting as if they are in a cult.
The Mueller Report is just the beginning of Trump’s problems as there are multiple states that are taking his crimes seriously and he can’t be pardoned out of those. The minute he walks out of the WH (or should we say being dragged kicking and screaming), the indictments will be flying.
It is because of the severity and volume of his crimes, as well as his approval of the Russian interference that he is doing nothing about, that he and his administration must be both impeached AND voted out in 2020.
Impeachment Can Remove Him OR Tie His Hands
We already know that Trump and his cronies will do any form of cheating to remain in power. For Trump it will help to protect him against the onslaught of indictments and the removal of any monetary power, and for the Republicans in the House, they won’t give up their reign of terror easily. It’s because of these two factors that they will willingly invite Russian, Chinese, or Iranian interference into our election process.
Image Source: the American Prospect
The impeachment process is long and involved and due to this factor, it would probably take longer than the number of months until we reach the 2020 election. As with anything that is associated with the government, it is complex. The ultimate decision to impeach sits with the Speaker of the House, Rep. Nancy Pelosi. However, even if the Democrats go through the motions of impeachment, the final outcome is within the Senate. There are a lot of articles attempting to explain the impeachment process, but when it comes to the role of the Senate, an ABC News article is both well-defined and comes to the point:
“The Senate is tasked with handling the impeachment trial in which there is a higher threshold that must be reached in order for an impeachment to go forward. What that means is that in the Senate, a higher percentage of the body has to vote in favor of conviction than in the House of Representatives. In the House, a simple majority is needed, and in the Senate, they need a two-thirds majority, or 67 percent.”
‘If the Senate fails to convict, then [the president] will have been impeached but not removed,’ Gerhardt said, pointing to Presidents Bill Clinton and Andrew Johnson as examples of this. In neither Clinton nor Johnson’s Senate trials was a two-thirds majority reached.
According to the Constitution, at least two-thirds of the Senate has to concur to convict and remove the president from office. Once the president is removed, the vice president typically succeeds him or the normal course of the line of succession will be followed.”
If a sitting president is impeached and not removed, he can still continue to conduct some political business. In the case of Trump, that could be disastrous. He has no moral compass and is known for his bullying and vindictive outcries. If he was not removed from office, he would throw a tantrum, attacking all of the Republicans who sided with the impeachment process.
Let’s face the facts. Due to his polling numbers, the Republicans have continued to back him, but they exist in a constant state of fear that he will turn on any of them.
You Really Want to Solely Rely on the 2020 Election?
There is no doubting that Trump and his cohorts are trying to put the sandbags out for the flood of indictments and charges that are coming his way. What was “damage control” has not transitioned into an all-out war. There are multiple states that are moving forward with their plans to take down Trump once he leaves office. While the most notable may the SDNY (Southern District of New York), many are pursuing prosecution to the farthest extent of the law. This topic is so egregious that it would take numerous articles to cover each and every lawsuit and indictment.
The fact that all of this will be dumped on Trump the minute that he leaves office exposes the fact that he will be willing to do absolutely anything to STAY in office…including inviting additional foreign interference as well as encouraging Republicans with continued voter suppression and gerrymandering.
In the past, Republicans weighed much of their decisions on both the polls and how the release of the Nixon tapes would affect them. After all, they have their own skins to look out for and many were coming up to re-election. When Nixon’s polls began sliding, they realized that the tapes would wreak havoc on the Party and they encouraged him to resign. We aren’t in that situation now. Instead, we have a Republican Party that has knowingly accepted Russian money that was funneled through the NRA. This was exemplified when they made some major pro-Russia changes just prior to the 2016 RNC convention, including the attendance of various Russian oligarchs.
The Democrats know they have the power to allow a tsunami of public opinion with the Mueller Report, and Pelosi is incredibly savvy to encourage this. Both Trump and the Republicans realize that they are on borrowed time and are jamming through as many of the bills and laws as well as judge appointments as they can before the crash hits.
The problem with Trump is that he is in “survival mode.” When you combine a narcissist sociopath who is experiencing mental decline with the potential of him losing everything, it creates a monster worse than any that we have seen. His standard knee-jerk response is to throw out a constant state of chaos to deflect so that his cult supporters will cheer and follow.
The mere fact that we know Trump would be willing to even start a war to keep himself in office and increase his polling numbers should send shivers down your spine. If this happened it would be so incredibly obvious that people would take to the streets.
There should be NO doubt that we cannot do the “impeachment OR vote him out.”
IT MUST BE BOTH!
(S. Novi is a journalist who worked in the media and continues to seek out truth and integrity. A liberal and one who is suspicious of cults and empty promises. She is a member of Medium.com and a contributor to CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.
