About two months ago, Donald J. Trump became the third United States President to be impeached by the House of Representatives. He was charged with two things: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Evidence showed that President Trump pressured Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 election by investigating his political rivals. Republicans admitted that Trump’s conduct was wrong.
Nonetheless, President Trump remains in the oval office.
Collectively, the American public understood that this impeachment process most likely would not result in Trump’s removal from office (chiefly due to a Republican-majority senate). In fact, the Democratic Party’s failure to remove Trump from office may only prove to increase his political power, as he emerges relatively unscathed and effectively untouchable.
Yet, the Democratic Party’s goal through these impeachment trials was not necessary to achieve the unrealistic by removing Trump from office.Rather, they sought to present the people of America with the sheer facts of the morality of the Trump Administration and the Republican Party. What Donald Trump did is ethically reprehensible and deeply un-American. He attempted to obstruct our democratic process for personal and political gain. The Senate voted to reject witnesses and thereby decided to disregard critical information. Donald Trump’s actions are the antithesis to our shared values of truth, justice, and liberty — and yet he somehow remains the single most powerful person in the country. Our democracy has failed us.
The Democratic Party, able to anticipate the Senate’s ultimate failure to convict President Trump, proceeded anyway. Now, we, the American public, find ourselves at a moral crossroads. Put everything you know about Donald J. Trump aside — the supposed tax evasion, the lack of political experience, the several failed businesses, the rampant racism, the “pussy-grabbing”, etc. What has now been explicitly revealed to us is that our President deliberately attempted to involve Ukraine in the upcoming 2020 election. In doing so, Trump has demonstrated that he values his personal and political gain over the welfare of the citizens of the United States of America — and the majority of the Republican Party has shown their blind loyalty to our current President.
Armed with this information, the American public has a decision to make: will we be complicit in Donald Trump’s wrongdoings by re-electing him as president (if presented with the opportunity) come November? Or, in moral opposition, will we be able to take a collective stand against this abuse of power?
This whole impeachment process has been ridiculous, and it is our moral responsibility to be loud about it. The absurdity of Trump’s acquittal should not further numb us; rather, it can serve as indelible ammunition against a potential second term. Express your frustration, and please, do not be discreet about it. The moral character of our country — and the fate of our politics beyond the mere scope of the next four years — depends upon it.
