It would not be going too far to say that a number of Democrat politicians had probably made up their minds to demand the impeachment of President Donald Trump even before his inauguration. Less than five months into Trump’s first term, Texas Representative Al Green took to the House floor to call for the president’s impeachment. While Democratic Party leaders have largely avoided the issue, their more vocal and extreme underlings have kept up the cry, oblivious to the damage this rhetoric does to the nation as a whole and the awful consequences such a course of action would trigger.
No president has ever been removed from office, though Richard Nixon may well have been, had he not resigned first. Only two have been impeached by a vote in the House of Representatives; Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton. Neither was convicted by the Senate. The standard for impeaching a president is extremely high for a reason. The framers of the Constitution realized that, sooner or later, politicians would attempt to use impeachment as a weapon.
America’s Enemies Are Applauding the Impeachment Crowd
When Russian agents meddled in the 2016 election, they were not attempting to shape the actual outcome of the vote. Had that been their plan, they would surely have invested a vastly greater amount of money, resources, and personnel in the endeavor. Their aim was to sow distrust, confusion, and division, as well as undermining the future president. Like almost everybody else, the Russians assumed that Hillary Clinton would be that future president and, so, she became their primary target.
Nothing pleases America’s foreign adversaries more than to see instability in the country’s political system. Thus, if any U.S. politicians were to be judged – by their actions – as co-conspirators of Vladimir Putin, it would surely be those who continue to call for the ousting of a sitting president over nothing more than ideological animosity.
The continued talk of impeachment damages the presidency – not just the man currently sitting in the Oval Office, but the office itself. It damages the nation; further polarizing the two sides of the political divide; it sets a terrifying precedent for decades to come, where every future chief executive may find themselves under threat of impeachment for merely pursuing an agenda that angers one political faction or the other.
A Very Steep Hill to Die On
For a president to be impeached, he must be found guilty of treason, bribery or “other high crimes or misdemeanors.” Since the day Donald Trump secured the Republican presidential nomination, an army of the establishment media’s most tenacious journalists, researchers and investigative reporters have been frantically digging for dirt on him. They have been joined in their efforts by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Justice, the Democratic National Committee, the Clinton campaign and at least one or two ‘never-Trump’ Republicans. Now the task is spearheaded by Robert Mueller and his team of crack prosecutors.
Between them – in two years – all of these formidable institutions combined have come up with nothing more than some hush-money payments to a porn star and a couple of ‘models.’ If Maxine Waters and company want to impeach Trump, they’re going to have to do a lot better than that.
What, then, if the Democrats won a majority in the House of Representatives? What if they introduced articles of impeachment and on what would those articles be based? Would the House really vote to impeach Trump and, if it did, would the Senate convict? Unless the Democrats also win a sizable majority in the Senate – which is the least likely thing that could happen in the upcoming midterms – the answer to that last question is a resounding ‘no.’
It seems that some Democrats have chosen impeachment as the hill they are willing to die on. This is a very steep hill and it appears that they are unlikely to make it to the top.
So what has anyone to gain from calling for Trump’s impeachment? Such calls are nothing more than red meat to a base eagerly wrapping itself in shades of red; the red of communism, the red of blood and the red of rage.
The Worst Possible Consequence
All that aside, there is one final question that should be asked: If all the ‘ifs’ fell into place for the Democrats and they were able to impeach, convict and remove Trump from office without proving an impeachable crime, what would happen to the nation? How likely is it that the tens of millions who support Trump would merely shrug and go on with their lives? It is not at all likely. Rather, it is far more likely that a politically-motivated ousting of Donald Trump would bring civil war to America.
It is true that elections have consequences. Removing a duly-elected president from office without just and legal cause would have far worse consequences. Al Green, Maxine Waters, and their ilk would be well advised to ponder those consequences before they go further down this particular road.
