Disclaimer: This column contains explicit language. Reader discretion advised.
Logan Ramsey
Editor-in-Chief
With news unfolding every day on the impeachment inquiry into Trump’s presidency, it’s dangerous to write about; with the threat of breaking news making my point irrelevant.
I’m writing this at the same time as House Republicans are moving to censure Adam Schiff for conducting closed-door testimonies, a move that I have no idea how will play out.
No matter what happens after this impeachment inquiry, whether the house intelligence committee finds nothing and doesn’t move with impeachment, or the president is removed from office, the country isn’t going to recover any time soon.
This is because a swirl of events has led us here at the most dangerous time, a year before an election.
Think back to Robert Mueller’s investigation, it lasted a month shy of two years. Now the house is starting from scratch right before what was already sure to be a tumultuous election cycle.
This is why Schiff is keeping testimony under lock and key, much to the chagrin of the nation. They’re barely in the fact-finding phase and they can’t have witnesses that have yet to be interviewed coordinating their stories. All of the witnesses interviewed have provided new leads for the investigators, so this train has barely started rolling.
Two Giuliani associates have already been arrested, and the best part is that they were caught at the airport with two passports out of the country. This arrest doesn’t indict Trump, but it revealed new information about violation of campaign finance laws in the effort to pressure Ukraine.
We have no idea how the rest of the investigation will play out, but the majority of Americans have already made up their minds about it.
The number of Republicans who oppose impeachment and removal is a staggering 94% according to a survey from the Public Religion Research Institute. An even higher percentage was 99% of white evangelicals who oppose it.
I have a problem with how this question was framed. They asked them about impeachment and removal, but removal of office shouldn’t be something we survey people on, considering that we’re at the very beginning of the inquiry.
Nevertheless, it gives us a strong indicator of where Trump’s base voter bloc stands, heads firmly planted in the sand. We might as well pour concrete because I’m cynical that they’ll ever move from that position.
Another part of the survey that’s troubling is what Republicans and Democrats think about each other. 82% of Republicans surveyed thought that the democratic party has been taken over by socialists, and 80% of Democrats believed that the republican party has been taken over by racists.
It shouldn’t come as news that our country is incredibly polarized, but this doesn’t bode well for the future of the impeachment inquiry and the nation after the 2020 election.
From here on out, I’ll be speaking in hypotheticals because it’s anyone’s guess where this shitstorm is going.
The country will be voting on Nov. 2, so that means that the inquiry will have to be finished much before then. They originally hoped to be finished with the inquiry by Thanksgiving, but it’s expected to take longer than that now that more leads are being uncovered.
The way I figure, the inquiry has to be completed with enough time for the entire process, including the senate trial that decides whether to remove the president from office, to be concluded before the summer.
Bill Clinton’s impeachment proceedings began in October 1998 and he was acquitted by February 1999, which bodes well for our timeline.
The problem is Clinton’s proceedings were over lying under oath over an affair and this is a far more complex issue with much greater impacts if proven true.
For the sake of argument, let’s say the house brings articles of impeachment forward and the trial takes the same amount of time.
If the Senate acquits the president, then he’ll be able to use this as ammo for his campaign. His team, including Fox News, will paint a picture of a tried and tested president who’s overcome the socialist’s best efforts to undo him and come out wholly innocent.
The problem is that it could and most likely would be a misrepresentation of what actually happened. The house may find that there was wrongdoing on the president’s part, but the senate rules it’s not enough to constitute “high crimes,” or they may ignore the findings and vote with their party and not the truth.
This misrepresentation of reality will undoubtedly be bought by the evangelical right, but it could pull swing voters as well and be just the ammo he needs to beat his opponent.
Now let’s say that for the first time in history a sitting president is removed from office. Remember, Nixon resigned before the senate could give him a trial so we have no precedent for what happens when an impeachment trial of a sitting president goes all the way.
As far as I can tell, this would mean the democratic candidate would be running against Mike Pence, after the Secret Service drags Trump out of the White House by his feet.
Mike Pence would be up for re-election almost immediately, and I don’t see a scenario where he would win. However, the evangelical voting bloc would never forget what happened to Trump.
From their perspective, the best president this country has ever seen was wrongfully removed from office, and I don’t think you could say anything to change their mind. While they wouldn’t be enough to carry Pence to the presidency, they’re also not going anywhere anytime soon.
Who would be the next candidate that they support? Would it be a return to a regular conservative politician, or are there more Trumps out there, waiting for their opportunity to inspire people through their fear?
I can’t tell you what will happen, but I can tell you the future frightens me no matter what happens with the impeachment inquiry. Our country has been divided before, and survived, but with the demographic changes we’ll see in the 21st Century, I don’t believe the world we knew before Trump is ever coming back.
