I’ve written a letter to my Representatives in Congress that I would like to share with you Kosaks. Please let me know what you think.
The Honorable Richard Neal
The Honorable Ed Markey
The Honorable Elizabeth Warren
cc: The Daily Kos
Why I remain an Impeachmenot.
Many of the folks who have known me over the years have been perplexed, and increasingly irritated by my continued opposition to impeaching the Orange Menace.
They suggest in a somewhat condescending way that I don’t understand the problem with questions like, “Don’t you get the existential crisis that is Trump?” or “Don’t you understand the constitutional oversight responsibility of the Congress?”
Yeah, I get the problem, we differ on the solution. So I’ve decided to take pen in hand and try to explain my thinking in the hope that, in some small way, it may impact yours.
First, a brief warning. Impeaching a president is serious stuff and if the democrats launch a formal impeachment investigation and then try to stop the train before sending it to the Senate, they will face an outraged electorate that could put control of the House in play and will create a precedent that will be crippling to future presidents of both parties.
So without further preamble, the six reasons I remain an Impeachmenot.
REASON 1: Don’t bring a knife to a gunfight.
Trumps support in the senate hasn’t wavered despite porn star payoffs, caged babies, and the release of the Mueller Report to name just a few.
So unless a video emerges of Trump beating up kittens, if impeached he will be acquitted in the Senate.
REASON 2: Don’t throw me in the briar patch.
Impeaching Trump will make it more likely that he will be reelected.
His acquittal by trial in the Senate will give him an opportunity to do a victory lap in the run up to 2020 justifiably claiming total vindication of both collusion and obstruction of justice.
Can you imagine the tweets?
So if you share my concern that POTUS is a dangerously impulsive, narcissistic man-child with the nuclear codes, then I repeat, impeaching Trump makes it more likely that he will be reelected.
To put it another way, since you ain’t got the 67 votes to remove him in the Senate, four years is better than eight.
REASON 3: Mike Pence
Obviously the political landscape could change (it won’t). So what would convicting Trump look like? Oh yeah, we get Mike Pence, the most anti-choice, anti LGBTQ, anti-science member of the Senate before he got his current gig.
Who knows, Pence could make DeVos his Veep and Bolton his Secretary of Defense. We’ll be bombing schools in Iran in a week.
REASON 4: We had to destroy the village in order to save it. (Staff will probably have to Google that reference).
The Congress of the United States is a far weaker institution now than when I landed my first job on Capitol Hill during the Carter Administration (I was hired by Nick Rahall, WV).
Rampant corruption abetted by the Supreme Court has engendered a hyper partisanship (the donors aren’t paying for reasonable compromises) that I believe threatens one of our most basic rights. The right to govern ourselves.
Think that’s hyperbole? The foundational concept of our government is that it derives its authority from the people.
Ask ten people of any political ideology if they believe the Congress works for the public or for special interests groups and rich donors.
Now add a bitterly polarized public, an irrational president, an increasingly politicalized judiciary, a legislative branch whose legitimacy is doubted by most citizens, a radicalized right who believe the democrats tried to invalidate the votes of 60 million Americans, and yes, under continued attack from the Russians.
IMHO these are among Speaker Pelosi’s considerations when she said impeaching Trump is “not worth it.”
It is truly ironic that people always say they want politicians to put the country first, but when one does, the pundits call her a liar, assuming she’s just making a political calculation.
“Nervous Nancy” is responsible for passing the ACA and from keeping the democrats (so far) from doing to the country what Thelma and Louise did to a Ford T-Bird. We should thank her.
REASON 5: A better way.
Given all of the downside of putting the country through an ultimately futile impeachment, censuring the President is a far better option.
Censure need not be simply a sternly worded rebuke. The Speaker could inform her caucus that she will bring Articles of Censure to the floor next spring at which point she will schedule debate and a recorded vote on each indictment.
For example she could schedule debate on each of the ten obstructive acts cited by Mueller plus any other malfeasance discovered by Jerry Nadlers team followed by a recorded vote on each.
Such a process would be time consuming. The House of Representatives would become, for all practical purposes, a Truth Commission.
Censure would allow the House to enter into the Congressional Record not only the High Crimes and Misdemeanors, but also the deeply troubling albeit less impeachable behavior of Trump such as lying to the American people 10,000 times.
While censure will be unsatisfying to some, it will put House Republicans and Democrats on record regarding the behavior of America’s most unfit president, meet its Constitutional obligations, as well as stand up for decency and truth and there won’t be a damn thing Mitch McConnell can do about it.
REASON 6: Get up, Stand up!
Ask ten people what angers them most about Trump and you’re likely to get ten different, yet all perfectly reasonable responses.
You’ll hear about misogyny, constant lying, undermining of the press and law enforcement, exploiting the military for political stunts, filling his cabinet with crooks and dunces, and reckless trade policies.
For you it may be his narcissism, his willful ignorance, foreign policy by Jared, efforts to dismantle the ACA, his impulsive embrace of dictators as he undermines our treaty obligations and allies.
For me, what really pisses me off about “the Donald” is his trafficking in white nationalism.
Whatever your particular peeve, it is for these reasons that Trump should be driven from office, not because he had corrupt intent in the commission of an obstructive act.
I want Donald J. Trump and everything he stands for at the top of the Republican ticket next year and I hope he takes down with him those who now stand with him.
Congress did not elect Trump, we did. So it is now up to us to rise up and set the record straight. For the people of the United States to emphatically state, for those at home and abroad, who we are and what we’re about.
Sincerely and respectfully,
