Impeach Trump Rally in Naperville, IL December 17, 2019

Donald J. Trump has committed obstruction of justice, obstruction of Congress, bribery, abuse of power, a betrayal of public trust, and corruption not only of the office of presidency but of our electoral system. The evidence is overwhelming and substantiated.

It is by virtue of our moral and constitutional obligations, "and not upon the niceties of a narrow [criminal] jurisprudence but upon the enlarged and solid principles of morality," that Donald Trump must be removed from the highest and most respected office in America.

However, after today’s impeachment, the Republican Senate will continue the efforts of the Republican House by sabotaging the impeachment trial. The Republican Senate will continue their efforts to polarize politics through hyper-partisanship, unprincipled partiality, and political stagnation; they will refuse to legitimize the preponderance of evidence before them because of their confirmation bias, their unwavering allegiance to their extensive tribalism, their powerful interests, their dark money, their party caucus, and their Republican base so they are guaranteed campaign funds, special committee assignments, and reelection.

Trump will continue to be "a serial abuser of discretionary powers"; a bully who, with Mitch McConnell and his admission that "there's no chance the president will be removed from office" in the Senate impeachment trial, will create an irreparable travesty of justice and defilement of the U.S. Constitution. 

It will be up to the majority of American people to defend and preserve our slowly-dying democracy because we understand why moral and legal precepts are beneficial for all of us. It is because most Americans understand the Rule of Law, established in the U.S. Constitution; it is because most Americans share a set of moral and legal expectations for our conduct that makes it imperative to continue our appeal to a public sense of justice regardless of political party affiliation and the impeachment outcome. 

According to Prof. Laurence Tribe: "When our democracy is threatened from within, we must save it ourselves... Transcending forces of decay, disinformation, and disunion will not be easy. This is the great national calling of our time: the North Star that must guide decisions about ending or enduring disastrous presidencies. There is no quick fix for the challenges we face. They are surmountable only if each of us resolves anew that America and democracy are well worth fighting for.” 

-Glen Brown

P.S.

We already have witnessed what the current Republican Party has done: the weakening of our labor unions, right-to-work laws to keep workers powerless, the shutting down of the federal government, the denial of climate change from the executive and legislative branches of government, ALEC-backed legislators who created bills to restrict minority voting, the scapegoating of teachers, the attacks on retirees’ and public employees’ pensions, the deprivation of university and college adjunct faculty, the systematic dismantling of public ownership and services, the privatized exorbitantly priced healthcare system, the rewriting of the tax code to benefit the wealthiest Americans, the victimization of immigrant children and their parents, and other forms of oligarchic oppression. 

Are we also going to allow the continuing deregulation of our environmental protections; the continuing privatization of our public schools; the eradication of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid; the transformation of the U.S. courts and the privatization of the justice system; and a reinterpretation of the U.S. Constitution to successfully oppress the majority of Americans?