We can’t wait another day. New articles of impeachment for Abuse of the Public Trust must be drawn up immediately. Every day Trump tries new ways to choke the life out of American democracy.
On Jan. 20, 2017, Trump vowed with his hand on the Bible to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. He could not belie that oath of office more directly than to pressure county and state officials to violate their own oaths of office and refuse to certify election results for nothing more than partisan desperation, claims based on zero evidence.
In an era of jaw-dropping abuses of power, this latest one deserves to be the final Trump gut-punch to the American psyche. It shows just how far he and McConnell have strayed from honorable democracy. Together they already redirected the course of America towards #RepubloFascism, where domestic oligarchs and CEOs dictate policy and budget for their own needs with nary a care for 99% of Americans.
The pivot point came when McConnell led his #OathBreakersCaucus in denying live witness and documentary evidence testimony in the impeachment removal trial. We now are seeing naked partisanship strip away every honorable facet of American governance.
McConnell gave Trump not only a pass on all previous transgressions, but also a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card for future travesties. That choice to leave a severely flawed leader in office has cost perhaps 200,000 America lives, put our economy on the brink of a deep depression, and allowed the destruction of integrity within every government agency to protect or deflect his lies.
Now, the US House can make this week’s actions by Trump the final straw. The Constitution has spelled out the processes for a smooth transferral of power, and Trump has put his own desires above that. He knows that NY state indictments await his return to the private sector, and retaining the presidency is his only shield against that.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi can and should announce that Congress will start to #REpeachNow, citing Abuse of Public Trust. The levers of Trump’s conspiracy to flip the election need to be investigated, with the paper trail and co-conspirators exposed daily. With the elections over, there can be no claims that impeachment is merely being used to sway them. The justification for taking this step will be undeniable.
McConnell and most Congressional Republicans have gone along with Trump’s baseless insistence that he won the election, and they have to pay for that.
And there’s still time to make that happen.
With wins in both US Senate seat runoffs in Georgia on Jan. 5, Democrats can flip the Senate. Then the filibuster can be voted out, paving the way for Biden to add more Supreme Court seats to offset the ones stolen by McConnell and the GOP.
GA Senator David Perdue is a proud member of the #OathBreakersCaucus, and every ad that Jon Ossoff runs between now and Jan. 5 should label the incumbent as such. Both races should be an indictment of the GOP brand, and spotlighted as the only path to removing McConnell as Senate Majority Leader.
It’s also time to define McConnell and his ilk as #CORPservatives, not conservatives. They are pious with a corporate bias, legislating only in servitude to corporations and billionaires. By differentiating between good-hearted conservatives and CORPservatives, the groundwork is laid for a more honorable incarnation of the Republican Party to take shape.
Trump will not want to be the only President to be impeached twice. The Senate will not want to vote to save his neck again, knowing his power to lash back at them will soon be minimized by the NY charges. #HumptyTrumpty will soon fall, and the upside of standing in the way will be short-lived.
This is what can happen if Democrats have the spine at the very top. REpeachment starts, dominating the headlines and exposing the methods of Trump has used to chip away at democracy. Knowing that an impeachment vote in the House is likely to end any chances to win at least one of the two GA Senate races, pressure will be put on Trump to resign before that point.
That will present Trump with the favorable notion of Pence taking office briefly, doling out pardons to Trump, his family, and perhaps some of his other enablers. That outcome is what many Republicans in Congress secretly want, because once Trump resigns his retribution powers will be largely gone, limited to the Twittersphere and right-wing talk radio. And that industry will see a comeuppance of its own.
So let’s make Trump the lamest duck ever. Please spread the #REpeachNow hashtag. And someday we will look back at Jan. 5 and call it our #REindependenceDay, the day America sent RepubloFascism to the doghouse and welcomed back honorable, middle-class-centric democracy again. Progressives throughout Congress can send bills to President Biden that will point our nation back towards calmer seas, and a rightful return to the leader of the free world. And lost in our wake will be this damaging flirtation with the most destructive aspects of capitalism.