It’s Impeachment Day! and People Are Celebrating

Last night, New York City looked like New Year’s Eve. Thousands of people were in Times Square and throughout Manhattan, cheering and chanting. It was the same in parts of Florida, Seattle, San Antonio, Atlanta, Utah, Philly, Minnesota, Alaska, we can go on and on. People hit the streets to commemorate that today the House of Representatives will vote to impeach President Donald Trump. 

While some may say that people celebrating Impeachment Day is too soon, especially when you consider that the Republican-majority Senate still has to vote, people made their voices heard: they want Trump out now. The gathering is also justified as today’s impeachment vote is the only third time a president has been impeached ever. President Andrew Johnson was impeached in 1868, though he was never removed from office by one Senate vote in his favor. President Bill Clinton was impeached in 1999, and he too remained in office because of the Senate ruling. The same is likely to happen to Trump. Unless he chooses to resign as President Richard Nixon did in 1974. 

https://twitter.com/justinhendrix/status/1207129032296452096

Yesterday, in what looked to be a final plea from Trump, the president issued a bizarre six-page letter to House Majority leader Nancy Pelosi. 

“You are violating your oaths of office, you are breaking your allegiance to the Constitution, and you are declaring open war on American Democracy,” Trump wrote. He also stated, “You have cheapened the importance of the very ugly word, impeachment!” 

In response to the letter, Rep. Pelosi said “I don’t have a reaction. It’s ridiculous. I mean, I haven’t full read it. We’ve been working. I’ve seen the essence of it. It’s really sick.”

It’s this back and forth between the GOP and the Dems that we’ve seen from the beginning of Trump’s presidency. Supporters of Trump will say just that, that the Democrats have wanted Trump out from the getgo, which is true in a lot of ways and not simply because they didn’t like him, but because of mistreatment of his position in the White House. One of the appalling conducts by the president and his administration was the separation of thousands of children at the border. And that was just one of his policies that deemed illegal by federal courts. Then there are multiple accounts of corruption and secret meetings with foreign leaders. 

It doesn’t matter if Trump refuses to resign or the Senate votes in his favor, what matters is that our elected officials have proven his conduct was illegal under the constitution.