Impeachment Done Right

Like many tools, impeachment can be used for better or worse, skillfully or recklessly, wisely or in the manner in which some organizations and wealthy individuals are now pursuing it.
As documented in John Nichols' BOOK The Genius of Impeachment, the U.S. Congress has used impeachment a great many times, against presidents and many other officials, often creating effective pressure for reform prior to actually impeaching. It's a process that has sometimes taken months, other times years. But the U.S. government would be even less representative than it is of the public will without this history.

Moves to impeach presidents, including Truman and Nixon, did a world of good. Popular, and not strictly partisan, movements advanced principled demands around substantive abuses of power. While the worst war crimes were not passed as articles of impeachment, they were part of the discussion. The results included, not just the end of particular abuses, but the creation of a climate in which others expected to be held accountable.

The impeachment of Bill Clinton, in contrast, focused with such hypocrisy, partisanship, and vindictiveness on such a lesser charge -- with serious offenses, never entering the discussion -- that the result was not only no conviction in the Senate and no reform in the government, but also a horribly damaging aversion to the tool of impeachment.

The refusal of Congress to meet the public demand for the impeachment of George W. Bush cemented in place a sense of presidential impunity – especially on war powers – that has been flaunted by Bush, Obama, and now Donald Trump. This has helped to transfer powers from Congress to the White House, and Congress members' diminishing identification with their branch of government (together with the increase in "campaign contributions") has radically increased their identification with their political parties. This process erodes representative government. It must be undone. But it must be undone in a manner that does not make things even worse.

Since inauguration day 2017, RootsAction.org has been building a list of proper impeachable offenses. Read it here. These are major abuses of power that set horrific precedents, and they are documented beyond any reasonable dispute. They require no investigation, only political will. Impeachment and removal on these grounds, if created by public demand, would create wonderful precedents, including the threat of a similar impeachment hanging over the head of Mike Pence or whoever next enters the oval office. Allowing these abuses to go unchecked, in contrast, risks nuclear and environmental apocalypse and guarantees severe suffering for millions. It also guarantees that the office of the presidency will be a tyrannical institution, no matter the merits of the man or woman who enters into it.

Nowhere to be found on this list of impeachable offenses: Russia.

Others are advocating Trump’s impeachment because of what they call a Russian “act of war” against the United States, feeding right into the Trump administration's own new policies of declaring cyber- and other crimes to be acts of war to be responded to with actual war. This type of impeachment campaign risks getting us all killed. It also risks a failure to convict due to lack of evidence -- which failure would truly entrench dictatorial powers beyond any likely reform.

“Russiagate” was begun as a distraction from the content of Democratic Party emails, which documented unfair treatment of candidate Bernie Sanders by the party establishment. The claim that the Russian government or Trump was behind leaking those emails has yet to be proven. But if it were proven, it would be one more outrage to pile onto a list that includes the mistreatment of Sanders that the emails confirmed. Other serious outrages involving "assaults on our democracy":

  • The massive boost that corporate media, especially cable news, chose to give to Donald Trump IN 2015 AND 2016.
  • The intimidation and incitement to violence engaged in by candidate Trump.
  • The racist removal of voters from the roles by Republican governors and legislatures.
  • The unverifiable vote counting, and the failure to do proper counts even where possible.
  • The denial of a popular outcome by the Electoral College.
  • The exclusion of most candidates from the media and the nationally-televised debates.
  • The gargantuan financial corruption by corporate interests.
  • The hurdles placed in the way of registering to vote.
  • The ID laws and other hurdles placed in the way of voting.

This was not an election system that could be noticeably worsened or improved by a single act of leaking, no matter how inappropriate the source.

Nor have we yet seen evidence that would hold up in a court or in the U.S. Senate to prove that the Russian government organized any serious campaign on social media that could effect the election, much less that it did so together with Trump. That Russian state media outlets openly tended to prefer Trump to Clinton had no major impact on the election, involved Trump in no impeachable offense, and parallels the sorts of positions that U.S. state and private media outlets routinely take in elections around the world.

That the United States government has in recent decades taken more serious steps to interfere in 84 elections including in Russia, and actually overthrown 36 governments, attempted to assassinate over 50 foreign leaders, and bombed over 30 countries, does not in any way excuse similar crimes by others. But it illuminates the hypocrisy of many who want Trump impeached over "Russia's assault on our democracy."

Let's build a wise, effective, strategic movement for impeachment, not for World War III.

 
 
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