Impeach, Convict, and Remove Trump From Office — Today

(AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

This morning ought to mark President Donald Trump’s last in the White House. It’s not so much an argument as it is regretfully axiomatic; just as it’s axiomatic that he will remain.

The president has achieved much that so many of his reflexive, liberal critics refuse to acknowledge — and so often conflate with his true failings. To name only a few, he’s slashed onerous taxes and burdensome regulations, struck blows against progressive absurdity on gender issues and DEI, crippled the Iranian nuclear program, and put three superb justices on the Supreme Court.

But before the clock had struck 10:30 a.m. on the east coast Thursday, the most powerful man on the planet suggested that six political opponents ought to face charges “punishable by DEATH!” That’s it, that’s the entirety of the case for his removal. And if our politics was not utterly crippled by low expectations, partisanship, and cowardice in the face of partisanship, that would be case enough.

On Tuesday, six Democrats — two serving in the Senate and four in the House of Representatives — published a video advising military and intelligence community members that they not only “can refuse illegal orders,” but they “must refuse illegal orders.”

“This administration is pitting our uniformed military and intelligence community professionals against American citizens,” asserted the group. “Right now, the threats to our constitution aren’t just coming from abroad, but from right here at home. Our laws are clear: You can refuse illegal orders. You can refuse illegal orders. You must refuse illegal orders.”

On Thursday morning, Trump responded as only he would.

“It’s called SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL. Each one of these traitors to our Country should be ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL. Their words cannot be allowed to stand – We won’t have a Country anymore!!! An example MUST BE SET,” he raged before adding “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR FROM TRAITORS!!! LOCK THEM UP???”

Then, the president’s crash out reached a terrifying, spectacular crescendo. “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” he declared.

There’s a helpful explainer to be written about the legal argument being made by the Democratic lawmakers that induced the president to publicly fantasize about their execution. What do the Constitution and U.S. Code have to say abou-,

No, that’s not the point. The president publicly fantasized about the execution of federal lawmakers this morning. Donald Trump has bent our sense of perspective to his will so successfully, and our eyes have been glued to the looking-glass for so long that we no longer blink at what would have once caused us to gasp.

He instructs his Department of Justice to persecute and prosecute his enemies, and it complies. He launches destructive, illegal trade wars with no casus belli. He alternates between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde on the world stage. And if a female reporter displeases him, he derides her as “piggy.”

One of these things is not like the other, yes, but they’re all demonstrative of why it was so dangerous to elect him president in 2016, negligent not to impeach, convict, and bar him from office after the Capitol riot, a remarkable risk to put him back in charge last year, and why, if Congress wasn’t a veritable hive of mediocre cravens, he would be stripped of his title before the day was out.

Trump is almost singularly deficient of not only so many of the virtues one might expect of any leader — selflessness, self-control, honesty, integrity — but of capital-C Character. There is nothing to speak of there; no word, deed, or even thought resulting from anything but self-interest.

No electoral or policy victory — and the president has many to his name — is worth the risk of entrusting such a man with so much power.

For reasons we all already understand, but should not accept, it will be a miracle if more than a handful of Republicans in Washington so much as rebuke Trump, much less move to give him the boot after this morning’s events.

Still, better to state the truth out loud — even if it’s never to be acted on — than to let it go unsaid. This morning ought to mark President Donald Trump’s last in the White House, and that it won’t be is an indictment of all of us.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.