Impeachment is a Duty

Say we're working at the very top of a very tall building. If I burst into your office and say "the building is on fire!" you will be concerned, galvanized, ready to take action. You'd be thinking of evacuation, of raising the alarm, calling the fire department—and understandably so. A building on fire is very bad news, particularly if you happen to work at the very top of it, and it happens to be very tall.

But what if I then returned to my office and very calmly went back to work? What if, after telling you we were all going to die in a horrible fire, I refused to pull the fire alarm (let's pretend the only one was in my office) and explained that fire alarms are a loud distraction, and generally unpopular with the building's other residents? What if I refused to call the fire department (let's pretend I have the only phone), explaining that unfortunately the fire department wasn't close enough to the building to successfully fight the fire?

You might start to wonder if I was having a laugh, or taking the piss, or mobbing the jolly, or some other British expression that I may or may not have made up, meaning “unserious person.” Your confusion would be understandable, because my actions wouldn’t be telling a story consistent with my words. No one who actually believed the dire nature of my warning would be behaving this way. My actions would speak over my words. 

What's my point?

My first point is that people tend to disbelieve stories when the actions don't meet the words—even if the story is true. In fact, if the actions of those telling the story don't match their words, people tend to stop believing the story is true despite mounting evidence of its veracity.

My second point is that Donald Trump is a threat to our democracy and to everyone living in it, and that means that he must be impeached, as much as possible, as often as possible.

This essay was written for and is cross-posted on the site of Citizens’ Impeachment, "a grassroots, watchdog organization dedicated to impeaching, convicting, and removing Donald John Trump from office. Trump is an unfit president and a clear and present danger to democracy – impeachment is a patriotic and non-partisan position. Every citizen can demand that their Member of Congress honor their oath of office to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Sign up here to join the fight and to get personalized guidance on how to effectively advocate for impeachment."

Most every Democrat in Congress will agree that Donald Trump is a danger to our democracy. This statement is not just true; it’s an understatement. Trump is a danger to democracy in the same way as an active fire is a danger to a building. Any eventual Museum of Trump's Dangers to Democracy will have several wings; one devoted to corruption, one devoted to kidnapping and brutality forces, one devoted to the insurrection, one for collusion with foreign governments, and so on. It looks increasingly likely that there will be a wing devoted to his participation in a child sex trafficking operation, which one would hope would be disqualifying.

Happily, it so happens there is a very specific remedy set aside within our Constitution specifically for the occasion of a president posing a threat to our democracy and its people and the Constitution itself. This process is known as impeachment. There is a new reason to impeach Donald Trump every day—one reason at least. And yet motions to impeach are few and far between. There have only been 14 attempts so far, and only 3 this year, which is amazing in a dismaying sort of way.

There are reasons for this inaction that those who oppose impeachment offer. Unfortunately, they're all bad.

We're told that impeachment would be a distraction from the necessary work of Congress. But, if Trump represents an ongoing, persistent, and present danger to our democracy, then Congress has no other business but impeachment, just as workers at the top of a building on fire have no other business but escape from the fire, and firefighters no other business but extinguishing it.

We're told that the Democrats do not have the votes to successfully remove Trump. But if Trump is an ongoing, persistent, and present danger to our democracy, impeachment is not just an idea; it is a sworn duty. Fire fighters do not fight fires because success is assured. They fight fires because fighting a fire is their job and their duty. Nobody should have to beg them to do it. Likewise, impeachment is the remedy for a tyrant available to Congress, it can be done as often as needed, and there are no shortage of impeachable offences. Congress refusing to impeach Trump for his unconstitutional actions because the “votes are not there” is like a fire chief refusing to hook up the hoses to conserve the water while the building burns.

Moreover, Republican efforts to do the vile, harmful, immoral, illegal things they are now doing began long before now, back when such actions were "unthinkable" and "impossible." Think for example of the effective repeal of the Affordable Care Act, which will immiserate and kill people by the millions. Republicans achieved this not by waiting until they had all the votes they needed, but by insisting that they could do it, should do it, and would do it—and then proved they meant it by putting the matter to failed vote after failed vote. These "failures" told a coherent story, and convinced voters who want vile, harmful, immoral and illegal things that immiserate and kill people by the millions (an electorate that unfortunately numbers in the tens of millions) that the Republicans would deliver. Democrats, too, could set themselves on a path for future success, if they were willing to get on that path and walk it.

We're told that regular failed impeachment will desensitize the population to the severity of impeachment. But regular failure to impeach does something far more dangerous: It desensitizes the population to the danger, because when a president does something and is not impeached for it, it effectively becomes something a president is allowed to do.

Finally, we're told that "the people" are against impeachment, so impeachment would be a political loser. First, this is not true; a majority of American voters support impeachment.  Second, this puts the cart so far in front of the horse the horse can't even see it. Even if we grant the false premise, we must ask: How much harder is it for "the people" to favor impeachment when nobody is impeaching? Why would "the people" think impeachment was necessary when the leaders whose duty it is to impeach refuse? Failing to impeach Trump while insisting he is a threat to democracy tells an incoherent story, and people don't believe a story the tellers themselves seem unconvinced by—even if the story is true.

Impeachment is the thing that members of Congress do if they believe the president is a threat to democracy. Not impeaching a president is how Congress indicates that they do not believe the president is a threat to democracy. When Congress won't impeach, then their actions shout  the lie "Trump is not a threat," while their lips whisper the truth that he is. They are yelling "fire!" and then sitting back down in the burning building. They are indicating that not only will they not fight the fire now, but they are showing people (whether they mean to or not) that they never will.

Trump must be impeached as a matter of duty and a matter of truth. He should be impeached for each of his impeachable crimes, which number nearly a thousand in this term alone. Members of Congress who believe Trump is a danger to democracy should impeach him every day of his natural life. Those that won't impeach him should be replaced with members of Congress that take their oaths of office seriously enough to do so.

Any action other than regular, consistent, impeachment tells an incoherent story about matters of fire. The reality of the situation really is that bad. There really is a fire in our building.  We really are on the top floor. It is time to pull the fire alarm while something remains to save.

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A.R. Moxon is the author of the novel The Revisionaries and the essay collection Very Fine People, which are available in most of the usual places, and some of the unusual places. You can get his books right here for example. He is also co-writer of Sugar Maple, a musical fiction podcast from Osiris Media which goes in your ears. He ain't wastin' time no more, 'cause time goes by like hurricanes and faster things.