Trump Was Right
By: Karen Shiebler
Tags: President Trump, Impeachment, Politics

And it’s all because of the two-party system.

Image by Michael Vadon

Do you remember when Donald Trump claimed that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and walk away unharmed?

At the time we thought it was just his hugely inflated ego speaking, but now it looks like he was right.

Watching the latest evidence of corruption, lawbreaking, lying and stonewalling from the White House it has become evident that there is nothing Trump could do to provoke a reaction strong enough to get him out of there.

It’s obvious that no one in the GOP has any intention of turning against “their guy.” And it is not because they have such respect for the man.

Lindsay Graham, one of the best known and most respected Republicans in the Senate, called Trump a “kook” before he was nominated in 2016. After abruptly leaving the House of Representatives, former Speaker Paul Ryan said this about Trump:

I told myself, I got to have a relationship with this guy to help him get his mind right. Because, I’m telling you, he didn’t know anything about government.

One after another, nearly all of the conservatives chosen to work in the Trump administration have either been fired or have walked away from the chaos in the White House.

But other than one or two minor actors in the GOP (Just Amash, Jeff Flake), no Republicans have stepped up to admit that Donald Trump is unfit for the highest office in the land.

Instead, they are choosing to circle the proverbial wagons and stick together to protect their party’s interests.

As infuriating as that behavior is, however, I find it more upsetting that it is taking the Democrats so long to take action against this President.

It seems glaringly obvious that a strong case could be made for the 25th Amendment. There is the strong evidence of a neurological disorder on display every time the President speaks. There are the hundreds of mental health professionals who are convinced that Trump shows a serious personality disorder that makes him a danger to the world.

And then there are the daily lies, the refusal to allow anyone in his circle to testify before Congress, the complete contempt for the rule of law.

From where most of us sit, there is plenty to work with if the Dems decide to proceed with impeachment.

So what is it that makes Speaker Pelosi so reluctant to take any action against Trump? What is it that has the Democratic leadership insisting that “we must have all the facts” before proceeding with an inquiry intended to elicit those very facts?

It sure isn’t a love of the Constitution, that much I know for sure.

In Article II, Section 4 of that famous founding document, the case for removing a President from office reads like this:

“The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors”.

There is nothing in these words to indicate that the decision to impeach should be based on the likelihood of getting a conviction. Nowhere in the Constitution does it suggest that the House of Representatives should initiate impeachment proceedings only if they are positive they’ll succeed in ousting the target of the process.

Nevertheless, that seems to be the thinking among the Democratic leadership.

“We can’t go ahead with impeachment,” the thinking goes, “because the Senate won’t vote to convict and remove the President. That would mean a failure for our party, and we might lose seats in the next election.”

In other words, it doesn’t matter how many high crimes and misdemeanors the President commits, we won’t hold him accountable because that would cause our party to lose votes.

Our party.

The GOP is only interested in protecting the reputation of the party. They want to hold onto the Senate more than they want to save the republic from a crook (or a “kook”.)

The Dems are only interested in protecting their votes in the next election. They want to hold onto the House and flip some Senate seat more than they want to save the republic from a mentally ill, unstable, possibly demented narcissist.

To put it another way, it no longer matters how crazy, how criminal, how dangerous the actions of any future President may be.

As long as that President is a member of the same party that controls the Senate, they will be free to do anything they’d like to do without any worry.

Including, presumably, shooting someone on Fifth Avenue.

The Founding Fathers must be spinning in their graves.