{"id":1750,"date":"2019-11-27T08:51:02","date_gmt":"2019-11-27T07:51:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ericlee.info\/blog\/?p=1750"},"modified":"2019-11-27T08:54:23","modified_gmt":"2019-11-27T07:54:23","slug":"impeachment-what-impeachment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ericlee.info\/blog\/impeachment-what-impeachment\/","title":{"rendered":"Impeachment? What impeachment?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This article appears in this week’s issue of Solidarity<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Something strange is going on with the Democratic presidential candidates and the impeachment of Donald Trump. All the candidates support Trump\u2019s impeachment. But none of them want to talk about it.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At\na recent event in Las Vegas, Bernie Sanders said that\nTrump\n\u201cwill be impeached, and he should be impeached.\u201d But he quickly\nadded that his own campaign is about \u201cmore than just defeating\u201d\nthe Republican president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nWhen\nCalifornia Senator Kamala Harris was asked recently if she was\nfollowing the impeachment hearings, she replied \u201cnot so much\u201d. \n\u201cI\u2019ve been in Iowa,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Politico<\/em> put it, for the Democratic candidates, \u201cit\u2019s as if the unfolding (impeachment) saga hardly exists.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nWhy\nis there this disconnect between the Presidential candidates and the\nimpeachment process?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One\nof the reasons is that impeachment is a matter for Congress to\nresolve. It is not something that is decided by the presidential\ncandidates. Those politicians who are running to become the\nDemocratic nominee are focussed on winning the vote in the early\nprimary states \u2013 Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina \u2013\nand not on what\u2019s happening in Washington, D.C<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And\nwhile polls show that a majority of Americans now support\nimpeachment, it\u2019s not necessarily a vote winner for the Democrats. \nThough popular, the impeachment of Trump, like the earlier attempts\nto impeach Nixon and Clinton, has not brought people out into the\nstreets. Americans have gotten angry and staged massive protests\nover issues like women\u2019s rights, gun control and climate change. \nBut they have left impeachment in the hands of the politicians in\nWashington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For\nSanders in particular, while he understands that Trump is corrupt and\ndeserves to be removed from office, he believes that the real fight\nis against Trumpism<\/em>,\nagainst the reactionary politics of the white supremacist far right\nthat Trump leads. It is not enough to remove Trump from office. His\nmovement must be completely defeated politically as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nWhen\nasked how central impeachment was to his campaign, Sanders answered:\n\u201cSadly, we have a President who is not only a pathological liar, he\nis likely the most corrupt President in the modern history of\nAmerica.\u201d But the Vermont Senator also warned that being\n\u201cconsumed\u201d by Trump meant losing the election. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\na strange twist that few foresaw, many of the Democratic candidates,\nSanders included, will face a real problem when the Senate trial of\nTrump begins in early 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Six\nof the Democratic candidates are Senators, and all of them are\nexpected to attend the trial of Trump, and not only to be there to\nvote on the verdict at the end. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nwill mean staying in Washington rather than being out campaigning in\nthe early primary states. Some leading candidates like Biden and\nButtigieg will be able to continue their campaigns as they\u2019re not\nSenators \u2013 but key players like Sanders, Warren and Harris will\nfind themselves stuck in Washington rather than out in the field,\npossibly for several weeks, during the decisive period in the run-up\nto the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, on the 3rd<\/sup>\nand 11th<\/sup>\nof February.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When\nasked how his campaign would cope with this, Sanders replied: \u201cI\ndon’t know how you prepare for that \u2026 We will do our best to get\nback to Iowa, to get to New Hampshire, to get to all of the states\nthat we have to, but there’s no question it will make our life a\nlittle bit more difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What the candidates have not been saying \u2013 though all are certainly thinking \u2013 is that Trump appears highly likely to be acquitted by the Republican-controlled Senate. So while Sanders and the others will find themselves obligated to take their seats in the Senate chamber during his trial, rather than campaigning to win the party\u2019s nomination, they will be participating in what is almost certainly a futile exercise.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article appears in this week’s issue of Solidarity. Something strange is going on with the Democratic presidential candidates and the impeachment of Donald Trump. All the candidates support Trump\u2019s impeachment. But none of them…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1752,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-solidarity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ericlee.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ericlee.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ericlee.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericlee.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericlee.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1750"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericlee.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1750\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1751,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericlee.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1750\/revisions\/1751"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericlee.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ericlee.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericlee.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericlee.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}