After the news broke that Trump attempted to potentially interfere with the upcoming 2020 election, the House began immediately prepare for an impeachment inquiry. Yes, the House. Not just the democrats but finally some bipartisan support behind an impeachment inquiry. With the President himself offering up the evidence to his own demise while still claiming his innocence, it has become impossible for Republicans to continue to ignore this issue.
With the chaos of the Mueller report, it was difficult to form a solid consensus on the issue. There were so many players involved, so many different personalities shifting the narrative. In this case, there is a clear transcript, which again, the President himself revealed, showing clear evidence for an impeachment trial. The biggest question I’ve heard raise, however, is so what? So, the President gets impeached? He will survive the Senate vote and stay in office, so who cares if he’s impeached?
The President’s informality and constitutional degradation has been a key to his success and has been vital to his avoidance of actual issues that President is supposed to take care of. He skates over scandals by creating larger scandals to distract from his previous failures as President. Sure, the economy has been doing well, but there is no evidence that Trump’s administration had any hand in this success. His plans to fix immigration have raised more issues surrounding the topic. His asinine unfunded border wall has done far more harm than good in exacerbating the immigration crisis. And now he is allowing ISIS to revitalize in Turkey and turn the US once again against key allies in Europe.
All of these moves have been dangerously skating around the bounds of what a President is legally able to do. His expansion of the executive power is cause for concern, however, Trump is no innovator. He is only able to further expand what has already been growing over the past few decades. With the rise of FDR, the role of the President has grown astronomically compared to what the Founders envisioned for the country. The President now is heavily involved in the creation of legislation, they have an enormous platform with the press and their power in foreign policy is sweeping. The public has welcomed and encouraged this expansion. Now, this power is in the hands of a hot-headed demagogue who is unyielding in his control. Although, I am not arguing that Trump has a unique amount of executive power, but that this amount of power should have been checked by the other branches long before he came into office.
Now, Congress has an opportunity to take back control some of this executive power. They have the chance to make a statement that the President does not have the power to do whatever they want. They have a chance to fight the notion that “when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal” that has dominated this nation long since Nixon resigned. I fear for the tyranny the President and his predecessors have encouraged with their unilateral administrations and I hope this impeachment trial begins to curb this expansion of power