Impeachment drama and the 2020 presidential race

On a cold January day in Washington DC, January 15 2020 to be precise, two signing ceremonies took place not too far from each other. One was where the US President Donald Trump signed the first phase of the US-China trade deal in the East Room of the White House. The deal promises to ease the tension, tariffs, and counter tariffs that has been lurking over the two trading partners ever since Trump took office. In the other signing ceremony a few blocks away, the US House Speaker Nancy Peolsi signed the two articles of impeachment against President Trump to be sent over to the US Senate for trial.

These two signing ceremonies have come to symbolize what has become the reality of the American political landscape in the past four years or so. Ever since Donald Trump was elected as the 45th president of the United State of America in 2016, a section of the establishment both in the US media as well as in political circles, has remained somewhat gobsmacked with the outcome of the elections. There are still some, one could argue, who never came to terms with the outcome of the presidential race as has been evident by the recurring social media hashtag ‘#NotMyPresident’. The ceremonial signing and the subsequent ceremonial delivery of the two articles of impeachment to the Senate marked the culmination of a month-long stalemate after the House passed the resolution on December 18, 2019. 

The US Constitution has provisions for the removal of a sitting president from office through the process of impeachment and it lays out two specific reasons for it – treason and bribery. A sitting president can also be charged with ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’. A resolution to impeach a sitting president is introduced in the House of Representatives (House). A committee then holds the hearing on the resolution. If the committee approves (by simple majority) the resolution, it moves to a full vote on the House floor where once again a simple majority is required to approve the article(s) of impeachment. If passed by the House, the president is considered impeached.

The theatre then shifts to the Senate where a trial is conducted to determine whether the President has indeed committed the ‘crime’ he is impeached for. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the US presides over the trial. If the Senate with 2/3rd majority finds the president guilty, a president is then removed. President trump became just the third president in the history of the US to be impeached. While President Johson got the ‘not guilty’ verdict in 1868 by one vote, the Senate was 22 votes shy of convicting President Clinton in 1999. President Trump’s Senate trial is expected to start next week after it reconvenes following Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. 

From femiststs to environmentalists, and from human rights activists to socialists, Trump presidency has been a sore point for most liberals, not only in the US but across the world. After all, Trump won beating the now famous 90-something percent odds of Hilary Clinton, the former Secretary of State, a senator, and a former First Lady, winning the election in 2016. One would remember how one prominent Indian journalist who had come to the US to cover the breaking of the ‘glass ceiling’ live was visibly disappointed. What started in India with the BJP victory in 2014 under Narendra Modi continued to disappoint and unsettle the left-liberal elites in Poland, Great Britain, the US, and other parts of the world. So when US House speaker Nancy Pelosi gleefully sat down with dozens of custom engraved ceremonial signing pens in front of the glitter of press cameras, many were disgusted but not surprised.

The US Senate will decide the merits of the case which many believe is a weak one on legal grounds. According to a prominent newspaper, President Trump despite exhibiting a ‘poor judgement’ in dealing with the Ukraine matter did not commit an ‘impeachable’ crime. The newspaper in its editorial opined:

“… having failed to make an adequate case to remove Mr. Trump, Democrats are trying to drag out impeachment to further tarnish his reputation and mousetrap Senate Republicans running for re-election. She [Speaker Pelosi] demands what she calls a ‘fair trial’ after preventing a fair impeachment probe in the House. This is an abuse of impeachment power.” 

The ball is in Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s court now. There are some wrangling between Republicans and Democrats on calling witnesses and other procedural issues. Writing for Politico, political analyst Rich Lowry however, argues that Senator McConnell is “on a solid ground in replicating the process from the Bill Clinton impeachment, which began with opening arguments before a vote on witness. In the end, Senate heard from only three.”

As the impeachment drama now plays out on the Senate floor where President Trump is expected to be ‘acquitted’, the real fight will continue on campaign trails. While the Democrats are locked in an ugly fight to claim the left-liberal mantle with even radical left ideological posturing, Trump on the other hand is chugging along merrily without any opposition on his side of the political spectrum. With the US economy firing on all cylinders, unemployment at its lowest in history, and dreaded Iranian general Soleimani eliminated, it will be interesting to see how US voters will judge not the Trump presidency but more importantly the Democratic alternative to Trumpianism.