Trump’s 2nd Impeachment – Bipartisan or Bipitiful?
Once again, as a Republican who has voted twice for Donald Trump, I’m sickened by an impeachment process; but not for the reasons you might think.
In December of 2019, Spokane FāVS posted my article, Is It Time for Another Constitutional Amendment, which looked at the votes, for and against impeachment of President’s Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, which were almost completely along party lines, and wondered how the American public could feel justice was being served.
Now we have House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and CNN calling the vote ‘bipartisan’ but 93% of the Republicans in the House either voted against it or didn’t vote at all. Per Merriam-Webster, cooperation, agreement, and compromise are three hallmarks of bipartisan actions. Their definition doesn’t say how much of any of those components are necessary to reach bipartisanship, but 7% doesn’t sound like a very big leap into the bipartisan pool to me. And that’s not even the main reason I’m appalled by the results.
I don’t know the motive behind any congressional official’s vote to impeach President Trump a second time, but I think (and hope) that Americans want justice in matters like this. So why is the decision split so evenly along party lines? I’ve thought of several possible explanations, and I don’t see any that portray our elected officials, on either side of the aisle, in a positive light.
- They’re Not Very Smart – Our men and women in the House were all given the same information about an alleged impeachable offense and when asked to vote on it, did so pretty much based on their party affiliation in relation to the accused. If these are intelligent people, and the Democrats were right that the president should be impeached, why couldn’t more Republicans see the same truths? And if the Republicans were correct that Trump was innocent, how could not a single Democrat come to the same conclusion.
- They’re Protecting Their Political Future – Over 74 million Americans voted for Donald Trump in the last election, while more than 81 million backed Joe Biden. It’s possible that House members, knowing these voting numbers and to increase the likelihood of gaining the support of their constituents in future elections, went with their side, even if it wasn’t the choice decreed by justice.
- They Don’t Communicate – Perhaps the circumstances were difficult to reach a decision about. But if Republicans wanted to vote for justice and sensed Democrats were going to be for impeachment, did they meet with their Democratic counterparts, fully open to learn why they were leaning the other way, and allow the facts to dictate the outcome? And did Democrats do the same thing? I don’t know the answer to that with certainty, but I never heard or read anything in the news that mentioned it. And I’m sure we would have heard of such a thing because it could have qualified as the 8th Wonder of the World.
- They’re Weak Willed – Although every member of the House of Representatives was selected by the American public, they’re not all equal. Members in authority and those with more tenure could have exerted pressure on their ‘lesser’ counterparts and pushed them toward making the decision their party desired.
Are there other circumstances that could have played a role in the decision-making process for our elected officials? Of course there could be and perhaps I’ll think of another two or three and write a follow-up article or hear an idea from one of our readers that I hadn’t thought of.
I hope something turns up which shows this important decision, which I think should have justice as its goal, was all about carefully evaluating facts and voting with integrity, instead of what I fear it may have been.
