A Few Thoughts on Impeachment – And Process

It’s hard to come up with things to write about with impeachment sucking all of the oxygen out of the news.  So, let me make a few comments on impeachment and the impeachment process.  Before I start, though, let me note, as readers of this blog know, I did not vote for Donald Trump in 2016 (I actually decided that in 2015), and I will not vote for him in 2020.  To my comments:

1. So far, President Trump has not done anything that has surprised me all that much.  Appalled me, yes.  Surprised me, no.

2. Re the allegations about President Trump and Ukraine, I take them with a grain (or more) of salt for a couple of reasons.  First, there have been so many times that Democrats have said President Trump should be impeached, that it is a little hard to know if this time is really all that different.  It’s part of the “Cry Wolf” problem.

     Second, I would be more impressed with Democrats being upset that President Trump was denying vital military aid to Ukraine, if they had complained about the Obama administration not providing the military aid, i.e., anti-tank weapons, to Ukraine.

3. People who cheer the so-called “deep state” for trying to stop President Trump (and, possibly, get him impeached and convicted), should be careful what they applaud.  The next time it could be going the other way.

    Also, how would they have felt if some deep state people had tried to stop Democrats from withholding the aid we had promised South Vietnam when the North violated the Paris peace accords and invaded South Vietnam in 1975?  Or when President Obama announced we were leaving Afghanistan in 2014, when it was clear that Afghanistan was not ready for us to leave.¹

4. If the Democrats really want to convince those in the middle, i.e., undecided independents, that President Trump needs to be impeached, they shouldn’t be rushing through the process like somebody who has already made up their mind and didn’t care about the evidence.  All witnesses need to be called.²  The Republicans should be able to call the witnesses they want.  Yes, it will take longer, but if it’s important, the process needs to be something more than a car-race movie.  You’re not going to convince the undecided, or those who are somewhat against impeachment but are persuadable, by a truncated process run by those who are already true believers.

5. Some Democrats will say they have to move quickly because the impeachment process needs to be completed before the primaries, etc., next year.  Well, that cuts both ways.  If impeachment needs to be done quickly because we have an election coming up, maybe we ought to just wait for the election.  Unless, of course, you think that what President Trump did was so bad that he needs to be held to account through an impeachment process.  But then, as I said in #4, the process needs to be done right, regardless of whether there is an election coming up.  Because not only does President Trump need to be held to account; the people running impeachment need to be held to account, too.  Process and procedure matter.  They are what protect us.
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¹ We didn’t leave Afghanistan when President Obama wanted to.  Because facts on the ground didn’t allow us to do so, and President Obama changed his mind.  But President Trump has changed his mind, too.
² Why was it, at one point, according to Democrats, critical that the whistleblower testify and now it’s critical that he or she doesn’t?  There needs to be a better explanation than “it’s not necessary now, the facts are out there” because that was pretty much true before, too.