America will cease to be America if Congress fails to impeach President Trump, according to top Democrats and their allies in the press.
Just ignore all those other “tipping points.” Now it is for real.
“When we have a president who says, ‘Article Two says I can do whatever I want,’ that is in defiance of the separation of powers. That’s not what our Constitution says,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi said this week on the floor of the House.
She added, “What is at stake in all of this is nothing less than our democracy. What are we fighting for? Defending our Democracy for the people.”
There is a broad consensus in the press that Pelosi is right. If Congress does not impeach the president, American democracy itself and the republic will cease to exist.
“We don’t live in the American republic that existed from 1787 until 2017,” MSNBC regular Steve Schmidt declared Thursday. “It’s a different type of country. And that’s why this is such a grave day because the question that’s coming is one of the most important questions that the country has ever faced.”
“This will cause even worse division in the country. And it’s hard to imagine we could be more divided,” he added, apparently forgetting all about 1861-1865.
Writing for the Washington Post, CNN host Fareed Zakaria drew comparisons between Congress’ failure to impeach Trump and the rise of the Third Reich.
“Were Trump’s position to prevail, the U.S. president would become an elected dictator,” he warns. “A democracy can turn into a tyranny not all at once, with a bang, but over time. … Liberty is eroded slowly but steadily. The Weimar Republic was a well-functioning liberal democracy that, within a few short years, using mostly legal processes, became a totalitarian dictatorship.”
New York Times contributing writer Will Wilkinson claimed essentially the same thing in early October.
“Impeachment is … imperative,” he declared, “not only to protect the integrity of next year’s elections but to secure America’s continued democratic existence.”
The always-good-for-a-laugh Independent stated earlier last month, “If Democrats don’t impeach Trump now, there’s no point in having impeachment at all,” adding, “Our democracy depends on it.”
“The cost of allowing such a person to remain in office is far greater than the bitterness his removal is bound to cause,” Princeton University professor Sean Wilentz writes for Rolling Stone magazine. “Trump’s war against the U.S. government, his rage to turn every federal institution into an instrument of his own self-aggrandizement, aims to void government of any other purpose.”
Lastly, there are those Democrats and media pundits who say the quiet part out loud.
“I’m concerned that if we don’t impeach this president, he will get re-elected. If we don’t impeach him, he will say he’s been vindicated,” Rep. Al Green of Texas, said in May of this year.
He added, “We have a constitutional crisis. We must impeach this president. If you don’t, it’s not the soul of the nation that will be at risk only, it is the soul of the Congress that’s at risk.”
Then there is the press’s favorite “ethicist,” Richard Painter.
“It’s critically important that the House not only start impeachment investigations formally,” he said in September, “but that they vote on articles of impeachment. All of the evidence is already there. We don’t need more to impeach this president and if they don’t do it, I think the Democrats are going to lose in 2020, and probably deserve to lose.”
MSNBC’s Ari Melber responded, “Wow.”
Wow indeed.
