On Tuesday, Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) voted along with dozens of House Democrats, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, in favor of beginning an impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump over the president’s strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities over the weekend, a decision made unilaterally by the executive branch without the consultation or approval of Congress.
In his five-page measure, Green argued that Trump “disregarded the doctrine of separation of powers by usurping Congress’s power to declare war.” Unfortunately, most Democrats, 128 to be exact, disagreed that Trump should be impeached, so they voted against the measure along with every single House Republican who was present for the vote.
In fact, not only did 128 Democrats vote the opposite way of the 79 Dems who agreed that Trump should be impeached, but, apparently, many of them are upset that the vote even happened in the first place.
From Axios:
“A completely unserious and selfish move,” one House Democrat told Axios on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly about a colleague.
Another House Democrat said there is “a lot” of anger about the vote — adding, “I think you heard it from leadership today, they’re frustrated.”
“Most people think it’s unhelpful,” a third House Democrat told Axios.
Several lawmakers noted that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) voted against the resolution, as did House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
Here’s the thing: if the impeachment process were as simple as many people seem to believe it is, Trump’s entire time as commander in chief (including his first term) would serve as a reason to give him the ax. A president should be removed from office when that president is a compulsive liar who normalizes hate speech against Black and Latino migrants, spreads propaganda about white Afrikaners fleeing a fictional “white genocide” in order to justify letting them into the country, weaponizes the National Guard and Marine troops against largely peaceful protesters, decides he only needs to uphold the Constitution when it’s convenient for him, launches a disasterous tariff war against numerous nations, including our allies, and illegally moves to defund any instittuion that doesn’t fall in line with his racist, sexist and propaganda-reliant war on diversity, equity and inclusion. (And this is really just a short list of reasons Trump should not be president.)
However, even if Democrats could find an impeachable offense against Trump that no elected official with integrity would deny, Republicans would still deny it. Even if House Democrats were able to successfully impeach the president — which, in this case, would have been a long shot even if Democrats were on board, as the GOP still holds the House majority — the U.S. Senate, which is also Republican-controlled, would have to vote to remove him. (There’s a reason Democrats couldn’t successfully remove Trump even after he instigated a domestic terrorist attack on the U.S. Capitol by spreading baseless propaganda about the 2020 election being rigged against him.)
So, maybe those 128 Democrats are spineless politicians who refuse to get out of their own way and lack the courage to go up against arguably the most corrupt president in any of their lifetimes, or maybe they just know a losing battle that will do more harm to their party than good when they see one.
Or maybe, when it comes to foreign policy (including blind support for Israel), Democrats just aren’t much different than Republicans.
Either way, Trump ain’t getting impeached or removed (yet), and the nation is all the worse for it.
