The impeachment and acquittal of Donald Trump is finally over. I write this now because when most of the strident calls for Trump’s dismissal was done when I was not really aware of it, being in hospital for a serious illness.
It has taken until now for me to gather my thoughts about this political hoax (word derived from most Republicans), but I thought I would opine on the events even at this late time.
First, impeachment was not intended to be a political cudgel to wield on an unpopular President. This remedy was to be used on a Chief Executive who was an out-of-control autocrat who needed to be reined in by a bipartisan majority of Congress, but the strict party line votes in the Senate and the overwhelming vote in the House contradicted what the Founding Fathers intended.
Also the denial of due process in the House “investigation” of the President’s actions was antithetical to the American standard of fairness expected from our elected leaders. This included no questioning of certain witnesses by the minority party, no legal representation during such proceedings and the refusal to countenance minority witnesses.
Finally, the two charges brought against President Trump were not even close to matching the Constitutional standard of “treason, bribery and other high crimes and misdemeanors” as enshrined in that document.
Further debasing of the process was the choice by Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler to lead the charge against the President. Neither showed the gravitas needed in so solemn a proceeding, hurling insult after insult against Trump. Furthermore, despite her repeated assurances that impeachment was a solemn occasion that should be bipartisan in nature, not a single Republican House member voted for it and were in fact joined by two Democratic “no” votes. Nonetheless, Pelosi gleefully forged ahead, cheerfully handing out engraved pens to other Democrats as she signed the Articles of Impeachment. Fortunately, I missed most of this and had to rely on stale reports after I woke up to get the flavor of the actions.
Since I have studied history and politics for over fifty years, I was conversant with the other two serious impeachment inquires during my lifetime — the hearings surrounding Richard Nixon in 1973 and 1974 resulting in his resignation on August 9, 1974 and the impeachment of Bill Clinton in 1998 and 1999, which ended in his acquittal in February 1999.
Both of those were conducted with propriety and respect for the accused. Both were bipartisan in nature, with 31 Democrats voting to impeach President Clinton, and only 4 Republicans demurring in the investigation of President Nixon.
History will regard the impeaching of President Trump as the culmination of a hyper-partisan attempt to dislodge a duly elected President that the minority did not like, perhaps solely because he defeated a preferred Democrat in the 2016 election.
We can only hope that this does not happen again, but the political scene has been so polarized and poisoned by the process that my guess it will be repeated. Already there have been noises about having another impeachment inquiry into President Trump should he win another term.
With the country doing well economically, internationally, and internally, one would hope the Democrats have learned their lesson. Most of the American people are happy with the path the nation is on; if the public is so dissatisfied with how the President is doing, the proper path is to vote him out of office on November 3. That would be the American way — not impeachment.
Perhaps I need to fall asleep again; maybe I would wake up to a different American landscape, where all is well and the Democrats would once again become the “loyal opposition!