Impeachment doesn’t matter right now
It’s 2019, we’re coming up on an election, and the president may or may not be impeached. In most cases, this would signal dire straits for the president, but this time I’m not so sure.
In the interest of full disclosure, for two years I was a member of MC Democrats (a group recently resurrected, by the way), but I haven’t been for the last two years. That may be due in part because the club stopped existing, but it’s mainly due to the fact that I stopped caring.
I stopped caring because of the effort that it took to care about all politics—not just because the Trump presidency or the impending impeachment was too much. I’m a college student; I have more important things to do with my time than worry about what the leadership of our country will do.
I think somewhere along the way I became a neo-Diogenist. Diogenes was a Greek cynic philosopher that lived in a barrel. When Alexander the Great offered him literally anything he wanted, all Diogenes was reported to have said was, “Yes, stand out of my sunlight.”
If Donald Trump, Barack Obama, or even John F. Kennedy were to offer me the same thing, I would reply that I simply wanted to be left alone. The reasons for this are because my political opinions no longer matter in this country.
Democracy died in 2010 when the supreme court ruled on Citizens United. In essence, the ruling allowed for big money (corporations, super-PACs, unions, etc.) to donate as much as they wanted to any given political campaign.
Politics in America became dominated by money rather than message, which then led to candidates caring more about those who could donate the most or more than the average voter. I’m partly explaining this to defend my political agnosticism and partly to explain why impeachment doesn’t matter.
Donald Trump has been nothing if not divisive for the country, which is of course quite bad. At least now, the lines are clearly drawn, and everyone knows where they stand if they stand at all. Due to Trump’s myriad of missteps when it comes to policy both foreign and domestic, he finds himself at the center of impeachment proceedings that would make any other president extremely nervous—but Donald Trump is no ordinary president.
Since his inauguration, he’s subverted nearly every expectation the public has had of the way a president should act in any given situation. The Democrats have fought him tooth and nail every step of the way, often to no avail given his propensity for executive orders. His actions regarding Russia, Ukraine, the Bidens, and his own interference with investigations have finally kickstarted the impeachment effort in earnest with enough reason for the Democrats to launch a legitimate investigation.
Trump simply called the impeachment inquiry unconstitutional and ordered his staff not to cooperate with the ongoing proceedings. Many members of his staff have ignored congressional subpoenas. So remember kids: if you ever receive a subpoena from Congress, ignore it and you’ll face no consequences.
Meanwhile, we’re in an election year with a crowd of forgettable Democrats running to unseat Trump with no clear nominee so far. If the Democrats really want to succeed when it comes to impeaching Trump, they shouldn’t impeach him at all. Democrats need to win the election and then retroactively investigate the Trump administration to ensure that—if the crimes Donald Trump committed do exist—they will never be perpetrated by a government official again.
If the Democrats can manage to unseat Trump and bring in an administration that’s willing to fully investigate the Trump presidency, they will be far likelier to achieve their goals. In the meantime, they need to focus their energy on finding a nominee strong enough to tackle the president and win in 2020. As of right now Trump doesn’t care about impeachment, not really, and neither should you as a voter.