Is the Impeachment Trial Political?

I do not ever recall the blatant partisanship that has taken hold of Washington these days. Nor it being as acrimonious. It has infected just about every American that cares about who – what kind of man - leads this country.

Polls show that the country is divided.  Half the country (mostly liberal Democrats) strongly believe the President should be removed from office by the senate at his impeachment trial. The other half (mostly conservative Republicans) think he should not be. Both sides have righteous indignation about the other side - to the point of incredulity. 

Politicians on both sides reflect their positions with such passion - that it is beyond obvious. One can see it on their faces whenever the subject of the President comes up in interviews or speeches. They are all true believers in the justice of their cause. Yesterday, for example,  Hakeem Jeffries, one of the House managers (who basically serve as prosecutors) actually said that what President Trump did makes Nixon look like a choir boy.

Democrats are characterizing the President’s attempt to extort a foreign leader into investigating a political opponent an unprecedented abuse of power designed to steal the next election. An obvious abuse of power. Republicans say that while the President seeking dirt on a political opponent from a foreign government might be wrong , it does not rise to an impeachable offense. They thereby accuse Democrats of trying to undermine the will of the people who  elected the President to be the leader of this country in a free and fair election.  

Each side is hard-wired to their own particular take.

As an aside, it’s kind of funny seeing liberal Democrats talking like ‘strict constructionist’ political conservatives when it suits their purpose - constantly talking about what the framers of the constitution had in mind with ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’. But I digress.

So who’s right? I have to side with Republicans here for only one reason. Which is that it is almost exclusively one party that seeks to impeach and remove the President from office. Had support for his impeachment been bi-partisan, I might have felt differently.

The vote was completely along party lines. Not a single member of either the House Intelligence Committee or the House Judicial committee that voted for impeachment was a Republican. And all indications are that the senate is divided along similar lines. If that doesn’t say ‘politics’ I don’t know what does.

So if the outcome of this trial is a foregone conclusion why are Democrats forcing the country to go through this?

It does not take rocket science to figure this out. Democrats want to smear the President as much as possible right before an election in the hope that it will sway undecided voters in their favor. They fear that Trump will sway the electorate his way and - along with his political base energized at unprecedented levels - he will get re-elected. 

Removing him from office would leave Republicans with a much weaker candidate in Vice-President Mike Pence. I don’t think all the ‘high minded’ Democratic talking points about this being an egregious violation of the constitution is what really motives them. Deep down, it’s politics.

Thankfully, the senate will surely not remove him from office. I feel the pain of that half of the country that will be disappointed by that. But not to worry. They can at least try and achieve that result at the polls next November. The President’s fate will be where it belongs. In the hands of the electorate. That is who should decide who leads this country. Not a political party. And that is what America is all about. God bless her.