Since Jan. 20, many have spoken of a constitutional crisis, the wanton lawlessness of a president trying to make himself a king in all but name. But by and large, elected Democrats have bent over backward to avoid using a certain word. Their alarm bells ring hollow when the unavoidable implication is left unstated.
But it’s time to stop beating around the bush: Trump must be impeached and removed from office.
A few members of Congress understand this and are willing to say it. It’s a start, and one where public pressure is essential. It’s more effective than you might think at breaking the silence.
There are a number of objections behind the conventional wisdom against talk of impeachment, but they don’t hold up.
A group of self-organized volunteers has been recruiting voters in every House district and started simply asking congressional offices. “Operation Anti-King,” they fittingly call it. In addition to Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, who has already called for impeachment — and has done so many times since Trump’s first term — they quickly found seven more willing to go on the record: Reps. Suzanne Bonamici and Maxine Dexter of Oregon, Sam Liccardo and Maxine Waters of California, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Shri Thanedar of Michigan, and Hank Johnson of Georgia.
In a statement to this group, Dexter made the obvious connection: “Donald Trump’s cruel, chaotic, and unlawful actions have put our democracy at risk. ... I will not stand by while our democracy is eroded. I support impeachment because no one is above the law.” Bonamici likewise affirmed her support because he is “violating the Constitutional rights of people in this country and ignoring the rule of law.”
There are a number of objections behind the conventional wisdom against talk of impeachment, but they don’t hold up.
The theory of a backlash in Trump’s favor has no real evidence. There was no such reaction against his first impeachment, after which Democrats went on to win a trifecta in the next election, or the second, after which Democrats beat expectations even with an unpopular president in 2022. Similarly, the idea that it’s “too soon” since last year’s election would amount to giving presidents license to destroy the Constitution so long as they do it promptly.
Trump’s approvals are already falling sharply, especially since his tariff fiasco threatens to drive the economy off a cliff. And millions have already turned out across the country for mass protests.
It is a severe failure of imagination to think his public support is some static fact of nature, or that the present crisis will not continue to escalate. As America slides into open authoritarianism and economic ruin, we can’t afford an opposition that, as MSNBC’s Chris Hayes recently told Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, is doing nothing more than “the kinds of things you’d be doing if Mitt Romney were president.”
As the government flings itself apart, we will keep coming back to the grim reality. Trump can’t be restrained, or reasoned with, or babysat for the next four years. The only way to bring power back under the rule of law is to remove a lawless man from power.
Members of Congress don’t swear an oath to defend the Constitution only if it tests well in a focus group, or with pundits and consultants. Nor does Republican opposition justify inaction. Refusing to do the right thing because you expect others won’t join is just another form of complying in advance.
Trump’s approvals are already falling sharply, especially since his tariff fiasco threatens to drive the economy off a cliff.
Alexander Hamilton explained impeachment covers offenses that “are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself.” Thus it is entrusted not to courts but to our elected representatives. They are accountable for failing to use it, both to their voters and to the harsh judgment of history.
Under the House’s Rule IX, impeachment is a “question of the privileges of the House” and must be voted on within two legislative days. Speaker Mike Johnson could intervene with his own rules resolution, as he has on other matters. But this also requires a vote of the full House, which then effectively becomes the same thing. Thus, any individual representative has the ability to make all the others, in both parties, take a position.
Would it pass the House, much less reach two-thirds in the Senate? For now, obviously not. Down the road? It’s not impossible.
Either way, delay only deepens the reluctance, the sense of resignation, fueling the constitutional collapse. It is succumbing to despair, when in fact just a few hundred people have the power, and the sworn duty, to end the insanity. It might be the only efficacious power they have left.
One question naturally arises: impeach him for what? Not because there is any shortage of high crimes and misdemeanors but because there are so many. Usurping the power of the purse, imposing massive tax hikes, creating illegal pseudo-offices, attacks on the First Amendment, threatening opponents, obstructing the courts, flagrant bribery, threatening to invade allies, disappearing people to a foreign torture camp. But there is one charge encompassing the sum of it all: the supreme constitutional crime of tyranny.
Tyranny is the charge made by the grassroots effort’s model article. It is an idea with deep roots, from ancient Rome, to the American Revolution, to post-World War II Germany. A head of state whose design is to become a despot has destroyed his own claim to legitimacy.
Evoking the Declaration of Independence, the draft insists “he has demonstrated his character is marked by every act which may define a tyrant.” Arguably a truer description of Trump than of George III. He openly pines for dictatorship, autocracy, even un-American monarchy. He recognizes no limits on his power, no law he must obey, no rights he must respect.
It’s an ugly truth, but we can’t evade it by refusing to confront it, in plain terms, openly and unapologetically. Every member of Congress, like the nation as a whole, faces a binary choice: It’s Trump or the Constitution. We can have one or the other but not both. To save the Constitution, we must be willing to use its “indispensable” remedy.