Impeachment gives Trump a chance to rile his minions
How does America move forward after the mob has raided the citadel of American government? How can we still tolerate a president who provoked that violence?
Many Americans watched their televisions with horror at scenes they never could have imagined in their own country, once envied the world over for its centuries of sturdy governance.
What happened on Wednesday at the U.S. Capitol was the work of a scoundrel, a populist president who coiled his way into the corpus of one of America’s major political parties and eventually the White House.
He violated norms throughout his 2015-16 campaign, encouraging violence at a rally in Alabama, mocking a disabled reporter in South Carolina, berating immigrants as “rapists” in New York.
But Republicans made him their standard bearer and eventually carried him into office on 63 million votes.
Leaders in both the Republican and Democratic parties today accuse Donald Trump of instigating the violence that trashed the Capitol complex and killed a woman protester at the hands of Capitol Police.
The New York Times and others have reported unnamed administration sources who say Trump delayed deploying the National Guard to the Capitol to end the insurrection.
Today the call rises from left and right to punish and remove this president in his final weeks, either by impeachment or invoking the 25th Amendment.
New York Times columnist Bret Stephens passionately reflects this view when he writes, “Let every American know that, in the age of Trump, there are some things that can never be allowed to stand, most of all Trump himself.”
Trump’s behavior was scurrilous. And calls for his punishment and removal are just and principled.
But there likely isn’t time to impeach and remove Trump from office while granting him legitimate due process. And the 25th Amendment has tough requirements: Demonstrate Trump is incapable of performing his duties based on medical incapacity, persuade his most loyal lieutenants to turn on him and secure supermajority approval from Congress.
These extraordinary measures may be necessary to send a message that redounds for decades as a warning to other scoundrels who would access the levers of power.
But we’re a nation splitting like deadwood, scorched by fierce arguments and internecine hatred. We Americans don’t like each other. Our cities have been on fire with protest.
We are locked down in a pandemic that denies human contact and raises our anxiety. The normal pressure relief valves are gone and Americans are lashing out.
Further, we are two weeks out from inaugurating a new president who has been the picture of grace in the postelection.
“This is the time to heal in America,” said Joe Biden, after winning the White House. “I will work to be a president who seeks not to divide but unify. I won’t see red states and blue states, I will always see the United States.”
Those voters who opposed him in the election, “are not our enemies,” said Biden. “They’re Americans.”
After a blistering campaign in which his opponents framed him as an old man doddering on the edge of senility, Biden has been enormously big hearted reaching out and forgiving.
“I will be a president for all Americans,” he said. “I will work just as hard for those of you who didn’t vote for me as I will for those who did.”
His highest priority will be healing the American family.
Better we spend the next two weeks calming the waters in Washington than roiling them again with hearings and accusations, protests and counter-protests. Better we not give the demagogue Trump a chance to throttle up his minions.
The earth shifted on Wednesday, Jan. 6.
The MAGA raid on the U.S. Capitol was clarifying in its treachery — an almost perfect indictment of the man who incited it. He is probably destroyed politically. He won’t credibly run for president, because Americans will never want to return to what just happened.
Republicans everywhere are awakening ashamed and chastened that they enabled a man of such indisputable low character. Already the calls are rising to excise Trump from the Republican Party.
In Arizona, GOP stalwarts are learning their long neglect of the state Republican Party has made it a hothouse for fanatics and oddballs. Adult intervention is urgent, because Chairwoman Kelli Ward lacks the mature judgment to helm a mainstream political party.
State Republicans also elected three members of Congress who were so subservient to Donald Trump they tried to invalidate the votes of 3.4 million fellow Arizonans. That’s outrageous, and Reps. Andy Biggs, Paul Gosar and Debbie Lesko deserve the contempt of their fellow citizens and stiff opposition in their next cycle.
If the Republican Party is to have a future, it must remove the malignancy of national populism and Donald Trump. Some Republicans are playing moral equivalency games today and pointing at Democrats and their fanatics.
This is not the time for that. Republicans rioted in the halls of Congress. Voters saw it and will never forget. If principled conservatives with real values don’t take over and reform the party, it’s looking at the long, arduous exile it so richly deserves.