Removing a president from office is a two-step process; the U.S. House of Representatives can impeach a president but only the Senate can vote to remove an impeached president — and there is the rub.
The House has only impeached two presidents: Andrew Johnson in 1868, and Bill Clinton in 1998. But the Senate removed neither from office. It is a given that if the House impeaches President Donald Trump, the Senate would not vote to remove Trump from office; Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell may not even bring the question to a vote.
Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had been very careful about calling for impeachment hearings, and is only moving forward now because the offenses Trump has committed have reached epic proportions and can no longer be ignored. She was well aware that when the House impeached Clinton and the Senate did not remove him from office, his popularity soared from to about 75 percent. It is without question that if Clinton had been impeached during his first term he most assuredly would have been re-elected.
Why? Because the wounded hero fantasy of fighting the good fight and winning against all odds is so ingrained in parts of our culture that it has become the American ideal. One example of this mythology is the Alamo, whose defenders are called heroes because they fought for a position with no military value. Another example is how President Ronald Reagan’s popularity soared after he got shot and survived — there couldn’t have been a better cowboy in a white hat coming to rescue America from itself than Reagan with a bullet in his chest.
This mythology has a powerful influence over how many people decide to vote. A significant number of people vote according to how a candidate makes them feel, regardless of that candidate’s record. Impeaching Trump without removing him from office will turn Trump into that mythological savior — and the votes will follow.
The danger of re-electing Trump is he lacks the capacity to restrain himself. If re-elected, without the threat of removal or the tempering effect of having to win another election, Trump would be like, well, Trump on steroids.
The House is investigating Trump for a long list of impeachable offenses to discover what Trump knew, when he knew it, and what action he took. Obstruction of justice seems to be a prime offense because every time Trump refuses to cooperate with an investigation, he obstructs justice and violates his oath of office and the Constitution.
But conducting these investigations behind closed doors will do nothing to make Trump’s guilt crystal clear to the public. Because most people get their news from divisive partisan sound bites, secondhand reports of what the House uncovers will not help inform the public and bring us together. Instead these partisan reports will serve to divide us even further.
A more effective way to investigate the multiple impeachable offenses Trump has been charged with is to holding public hearings similar to the hearings that unequivocally showed President Richard Nixon had directed the illegal actions of his administration. With public hearings, everyone can see exactly who said what and draw their own conclusions, free from partisan spin.
The televised Watergate hearings were held under conditions similar to those that exist today, such as intense political division and a high probability of impeachable offenses committed by the president. Public hearings now will be equally effective in showing the public that Trump is guilty of multiple impeachable offenses.
Let me be clear here: Holding televised hearings now would result in the public, especially Trump’s supporters, clearly seeing that Trump is not the defender of American values they thought he was. Consequently the public will call for Trump’s removal, a call that McConnell would have little choice other than to honor. Without public hearings that make Trump’s guilt crystal clear, it will be politics as usual, and McConnell will not allow the removal Trump, no matter the charges.
It is for these reasons that public hearings are necessary. The nation cannot wait until the 2020 elections to see if the public removes Trump from office.
Failing to impeach and remove Trump from office, and waiting for the 2020 elections, win or lose, will tell every future president that they can commit impeachable offenses and there will be no consequences.
Tom Waddell is president of the Maine Chapter of the Freedom from Religion Foundation. He can be reached at: president@ffrfmaine.org
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