It is up to the American people and our elected representatives to use every legal means available, from impeachment to protest.
Five years after the violent January 6, 2021, insurrection in Washington, DC, aimed at overturning the election results, members of the activist group Rise and Resist gathered outside the New York Public Library, holding signs and banners for a public reading of the new list of impeachable offenses attributed to Donald Trump during his second term and to demand the release of the Epstein files.
(Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images) Ninety minutes before his self-imposed deadline to begin genocide against an entire “civilization,” Donald Trump announced a temporary ceasefire in the war he senselessly launched against Iran. The details of this “deal” are of no concern to me, although I understand that ships will have to pay to pass through a strait that they once could pass through for free. What worries me is that we now have two weeks to take down the murderous madman running the country before he threatens world peace again. The responsibility for preventing further catastrophe rests squarely with the American people and their representatives in Congress. If we fail to do this, whatever happens next, it will be our fault.
Rarely has a people benefited from such opportunity to stop the madness of their government. In most evil regimes, the leader is so far removed from any responsibility that he cannot be touched or legitimately controlled. Usually, this leader totally oppresses his own people before attempting to commit atrocities around the world. In these situations, only illegal regime change can remove a leader willing to commit war crimes to achieve his goals.
But we are lucky. We have several legal ways to eliminate our despot before he is allowed to commit further horrors. We need to use these methods now. If we do not do this, we will be complicit in every way possible in the atrocities to come. This is our moment, and if we fail, history will not only blame Trump and his MAGA acolytes for terrorizing the world; she will also blame us, the ineffective opposition. And it will be good to do it.
Given the immediacy of the problem, a number of commentators and members of Congress have turned their attention to the 25th Amendment. The amendment, in theory, allows for the immediate removal of the president based on a declaration by the vice president and a majority of the president’s cabinet that the president is “unfit” to continue in office.
I too would like to think that the 25th Amendment would solve all our problems. It would be quick; it would be direct. But even if this amendment may seem like a miracle solution, this is really not the case. First, we’d have to have JD Vance join us, which… isn’t going to happen. Vance was apparently against the war, but he sided with the president, then went to Hungary to lick the boots of another authoritarian. Vance has less dignity than Mike Pence, and Pence stood by Trump until Trump tried to have him killed. There is simply no way Vance would invoke the 25th Amendment.
And don’t even get me started on Trump’s hand-picked cabinet. None of them can be counted on to say that Trump is unfit to lead – not War Crimes Secretary Pete Hegseth; not the Trump defense attorney who currently runs the Justice Department; not the reality TV guy who runs the Department of Transportation. Person.
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But even if Vance and the Cabinet were visited by the ghost of a future nuclear holocaust and invoked the 25th Amendment, the president could simply say “Wrong” — and then immediately take back power. The vice president and cabinet must then vote a second time to impeach the president, in the face of open opposition from the president, and then the issue is sent back to Congress, where both houses must vote to impeach the president and install the vice president in his place.
But there is a second option, which is the original (constitutionally speaking), and in my opinion the simplestway to impeach Trump: impeachment. Since Trump has already been impeached twice, everyone should know the procedure. Impeachment is a charge brought by a simple majority in the House. The trial on these charges takes place in the Senate, where a two-thirds majority is required to convict and then remove the president from office.
Given that Trump has been through this twice — and survived, it may seem pointless to do it again. But here’s why I think the most common arguments against any attempt to impeach Trump are flawed.
What will be different the third time?
I would like to think that the reality of an illegal, unpopular and blatantly criminal war of choice will mean that this time differentbut I’m not (that) naive. I know that most Republican senators would rather see Iran bombed and risk dirty bombs exploding at Penn Station, than risk losing a primary to a more MAGA challenger. You can’t become a Republican senator without an overwhelming disregard for the well-being of others.
But two things have changed since Trump’s last two impeachments, one legal and the other political. The legal change is important. When Trump escaped conviction on January 6, then Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said“President Trump is still responsible for everything he did while in office.” I think McConnell meant it when he said it. And it was true when he said it. But that’s no longer true. The Supreme Court has since ruled that Trump is immune from prosecution for criminal acts he allegedly committed while in office. If Trump is impeached again, the Senate will know that his conviction is the only form of accountability Trump will ever face.
The political change is that Trump is now a lame-duck president. Certainly, during the second impeachment, Trump was functionally removed from office and most people didn’t think he would ever run again. But this time he can’t run. Impeachment and removal would end the Trump era more definitively than anything we’ve seen before. This might interest some senators.
Is that enough to get 67 votes for conviction on an impeachment charge? Probably not. Again, I’m not stupid. But conviction is not the only way to achieve the most essential goal.
Trump won’t let the lengthy impeachment process slow him down, so why bother?
Oh, I disagree. If your goal is to “make Trump behave like a normal president,” this battle is lost. My goal is not to make Trump “behave”; my goal is to prevent him from unleashing America’s nuclear arsenal to try to annihilate Iran, or any other non-white nation that will then piss off Trump. I think impeachment can go a long way toward restricting that behavior. I don’t think a president seriously facing impeachment would want to start dropping nuclear weapons. I don’t think Trump would want to turn his trial into a Senate referendum on the illegal war he started. Even in the face of likely acquittal, impeachment and the credible threat of impeachment may be the only thing keeping Trump’s war crimes “conventional.” I don’t necessarily think impeachment alone will end Trump’s illegal war; for this, one must go as far as “condemnation” and expulsion. But I think that impeachment excludes the irradiation of an entire people.
Your theories are intriguing and I would like subscribe to your newsletterbut maybe we should see them again in eight months if Democrats take control of the House.
No, now is the time to try impeachment. Again, the charges in the House only require a simple majority and there may currently be the few Republican votes needed to start this process. Remember, Trump’s war is unpopular, even with many of his usual racist supplicants. Trump wants to play brinkmanship with World War III every fortnight. The world cannot be held hostage by a nuclear-armed madman every time new information is leaked from the Epstein files. Impeachment and removal, or at least the possibility of removal, is the only political action left to elected officials of conscience.
Democrats should lead this charge. The party’s current posture can be summed up as follows: “This dangerous psychopath is going to kill us all. Unfortunately, there is nothing.” We can do it until November, but you know who could show some real courage right now? J.D. Vance. He would be welcomed as a liberator.
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How is this management going? How is it that Democrats are scrambling to call on their enemy’s pool boy to put country before party (and his own political career), yet they refuse to put their careers (or bodies) on the line to stop a global atrocity?
For Democrats, impeachment should be the priority. It should be the least they are willing to do. “I will support the articles of impeachment” should be the secret phrase Democrats must say before being allowed into the locker room.
At the high end, Democrats should try to bring the government to a standstill until the genocidal maniac is removed from office. Throughout history, elected representatives have literally walked away and refused to participate in governments as bad as ours. At some point, you have to decide whether to be Charles de Gaulle or to become Philippe Pétain.
Our representatives would not even need to go into exile as de Gaulle did. All they need to do is use every legal means available to remove Trump from office and use all political power possible to prevent a massacre from happening.
You know what’s even better than a filibuster? A human wall of elected officials preventing the House and Senate chambers from opening their doors, preventing the government from doing business, until Trump is impeached and removed from office.
And politicians are not the only ones with an obligation to act. It’s easy to focus on elected officials because they are the ones who hold the political power and the political platform. They are the ones who literally asked to lead. But the moral imperative of the moment also extends to all of us. THE burden of democracy is that we are all collectively responsible for the actions of our government. We can’t just say that the actions of a powerful few have nothing to do with the rest of us. Not in our system of government.
I don’t know what you’re doing. I write. I discuss. These are my skills. Right now, I’m trying to use these skills to write and argue against a president who intends to commit war crimes. Whatever you do, whatever your skills, I implore you to use them to fight against our evil government. All skills are necessary, and any skill can have value against this man. Maybe your skill is fundraising? Spend time raising money to support anti-war efforts. Maybe your skill is organizing documents? Spend time helping activists organize their resistance. Maybe your skill is playing video games? Spend time arguing on forums that atrocities should only be inflicted in the game and cannot be allowed in real life.
Earlier this week, I despaired on social media that the country was simply waiting to see if a global calamity would be prosecuted “in our name.” Many people answered “not in My name.” The answer seemed to me to miss the point. It’s not enough to say, “I didn’t vote for that.” Not when the threat of mass atrocities is at stake. It’s not enough to come out like Homer Simpson and just say, “Don’t blame me, I voted for Kodos.”
There may be no way to stop the madman in the White House. But if the worst happens, it doesn’t matter if it’s someone else’s fault. The Iranian people will not find themselves crammed into a fallout shelter thinking, “It’s a shame JD Vance didn’t have more courage.” » They will think that Americans, all of us, are responsible for our country’s crimes. We will have no answer to the accusation, and our only answer must be that we did it. anything we could think of to prevent harm.
Trump can’t destroy “an entire civilization,” even if he tries. What he can do is kill countless innocent people. We have to stop him. We must impeach and remove Trump from office. You have to at least try.
Elie Mystal Elie Mystal is The nationjustice correspondent and columnist. He is also an Alfred Knobler Fellow at the Type Media Center. He is the author of two books: New York Times bestseller Let me respond: A Guide to the Constitution for Black Men And Bad Laws: Ten Popular Laws That Are Ruining Americaboth published by The New Press. You can subscribe to his Nation newsletter “Elie c. US » here.
