The following column is the opinion and analysis of the writer.
The commentary surrounding all things impeachment has been awful. The “adults in the room” do not appear interested in acting appropriately to address the massive increase of dishonest and toxic sentiment convulsing though our politics today.
Two notions have sprung up to attack the impeachment inquiry, both from TV pundits and Republican congressmen. First, that conducting an impeachment investigation will cause our country to become irreparably divided, and that if the Democrats were to succeed in removing the president, it would reverse the “will of the people” and be like a coup d’état. Both notions are lazy and don’t make any sense, but the first offers a hint into why none of the “adults in the room” will act.
To start, our country is already divided. Our political discourse has descended over time and the letters to this papers’ editors only confirm this. Smart people can disagree about the beginnings of this sad phenomenon, but a credible person cannot suggest that the current president does not contribute to the growing divide every single day.
People are also reading…
First, the dissemination of falsehoods from the president’s twitter divides our country into two different realities. Whenever he tweets, he purports a false alternative world for his fans to live in. From the early birther tweets to denial of what everybody can read in the Ukraine phone call “transcript,” this blatant dishonesty deepens our distrust for each other beyond basic policy differences that had already been dividing the parties. The pundit notion that an impeachment process would “further divide” is mainly a projection that allows its believers to ignore the present reality in which we all live.
Second, what exactly does anyone mean by “the will of the people?” Trump lost the popular vote because more voters decided they preferred someone else for the job. According to the poll-tracking site FiveThirtyEight, his approval numbers have hovered slightly above 40% during his presidency, and 40% is by no means a majority that can constitute the “will of the people.” Even simply stating his removal would “overturn the election” is wrong. If Mr. Trump were removed from office, we would have a President Pence and that would still mean a Republican controlling the executive branch. Calling that a coup would be as disingenuous as suggesting Tucson had a wet climate because of a few monsoons throughout the year.
Which brings us back to the dishonesty in our discourse.
President Trump, GOP congressmen, and conservative TV pundits are able to get away with these arguments because of the divisiveness itself. The few conservatives to abandon ship at any point during this episode, such as George Will and Rep. Justin Amash, have been completely removed from conservative America’s dialogue. Amash, once the co-leader of the House Freedom Caucus, was booted from the Republican Party after supporting an impeachment investigation after the Mueller Report . Raising concerns about the president’s conduct just guarantees your one-way ticket out of the in-group, so the “adults” shut up.
Their lack of action is what contributes to our horrific discourse. Every time an aide to the president lets him tweet out a conspiracy theory, our political system gets worse for everyone. Every time Congressman Steve Scalise is allowed to suggest on Fox News that Democrats are “literally trying to overturn the results of the 2016 election,” our electorate becomes more divided.
The “adults” must begin to act like adults again, before the division and distrust become too overwhelming for the next generation to repair.
The author is a graduating senior at the University of Arizona’s School of Government and Public Policy. He has also worked on local campaigns for Mayor-elect Regina Romero and Congressman Raúl Grijalva.
