The Question Isn’t Whether Democrats Will Impeach Trump. The Question Is Why Won’t Republicans?
Since Trump came down that infamous escalator, Republicans have missed every off ramp on the highway to fascism. They will protect Trump to hold on to power no matter the cost to Americans.
Federal forces, under-trained, over armed, and determined to coerce Americans to accept Donald Trump’s White Christian Nationalist agenda of racial cleansing in our cities, are surging to Minneapolis.
That’s where one of them murdered Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother. Three children, aged 6, 12, and 15, lost their mom. Now those children also have to cope with a government lying and slandering their dead mother.
Without an ounce of evidence — or humanity — Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, Kristi Noem, and the entire right-wing propaganda operation called Renee Good a domestic terrorist. They slandered her before they bothered even to look at the videos of her killing.
Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who shot Renee Good, is being protected by Trump’s corrupt Justice Department.
The President has vowed to have his back. And the FBI has broken all precedent and refused to cooperate with local authorities in the investigation of the shooting. Renee Good was murdered in front of dozens of witnesses. The shooting was captured in multiple videos. Folks in Minnesota will have plenty of evidence no matter what the feds do. But that might not be enough, because, according to the administration, their agents have absolute immunity.
And now Trump is surging more of them to Minneapolis. They aren’t going for the purpose of comforting a grieving city. They aren’t going in order to calm angry residents. They are going because they want forcibly to deny that they could ever be wrong.
This is who they are.
A day after murdering Renee Good, they shot two people in Portland, bringing to 50 the number of people they have shot during their raids. And, on cue, the administration, without any evidence, called the shooting victims Tren de Aragua gang members.
Before the courts freed Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Donald Trump sat in the Oval Office and showed pictures of Abrego Garcia’s hands. He pointed out tattoos on the man’s knuckles and said they proved he was a Tren de Aragua gang member. We now know those so-called tattoos were digital adds to the photo, that they did not exist — just like Abrego Garcia’s gang affiliation did not exist.
Donald Trump says if the Democrats win back the House he will be impeached. Amen.
He is guilty of higher crimes and more misdemeanors than anyone who has ever sat in the Oval Office. He knows it. The whole country knows it.
Even a partial list of his crimes is long:
He took foreign emoluments (the modern word is “bribes”)
He abused the pardon power
He corrupted regulatory authority to bring to heal law firms, universities, and major American corporations
He tore down a portion of the White House
He carved his name onto the Kennedy Center
He ordered the murder of fisherman in the Caribbean
He launched an unauthorized war against Venezuela
He sent his over-armed and under-trained ICE thugs into American cities
He used tariffs to cut deals that benefit his cronies
He made his son a major defense contractor
He ignored court orders
He disobeyed laws — even ones, like the Epstein Transparency Act, that he signed.
So, yes, he should be impeached, convicted and removed from office.
The question isn’t whether Democrats should or will do this. The question is why won’t Republicans?
It’s not like they don’t see the same things we see. They do. In fact, you can hear them plead with Trump, please, sir, could you be a little more discrete with your imperial overreach so we can at least pretend this is legit? Please sir, can you at least not publicize your crimes on social media?
Republicans see what is happening. That’s partly why the accidental speaker of the House, that mouse, Mike Johnson, sent the legislative body away for most of the end of last year. Never mind that they have budgets to pass, Johnson needs his Republicans in the witness protection program lest an actual voter see one and subject the member to a moment of reckoning with the truth.
Why won’t today’s Republicans do what Republicans did when Nixon broke the law? Why won’t they do what Democrats in Illinois did when we learned that Rod Blagojevich was a corrupt governor? Why won’t they remove him from office?
It’s a fair question.
Could they like what his governing has delivered to Americans? No, they cannot. They don’t even pretend to like it. After all, the economy Trump inherited, the one the Economist called the envy of the world, has stalled on his watch. Job growth is gone. Inflation, which was coming down, has gone back up. Troops are shooting Americans in our cities. Measles outbreaks, once a thing of the past, are back. Our strongest allies are threatened daily by a president who thinks he’s an emperor.
No, Republicans don’t like this, but they still stand by its author. Why?
Here’s why:
Today’s Republican party is determined to put party over country, to hold power no matter the cost to their constituents, to our country, and to our ideals.
They have elevated the symbols of their party as if they were symbols of our nation. Proudly bringing MAGA hats into the oval office and hanging giant portraits of Donald Trump from government buildings.
This is the stuff you see in Riyadh, where the image of the King Salman and Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman are everywhere.
Today’s Republicans celebrate as a heroic martyr, Ashli Babbit, who was shot trying to break into the House Chamber to disrupt the certification of the vote on January 6th and they slander Renee Good, who was shot sitting in her car bearing witness to an ICE raid.
Republican demands to engage in mid-decade redistricting, their efforts to change election rules, and their attempts to have the federal government seize state voter files represent a clear threat to the integrity of our democracy. Republicans are complicit because the only thing that matters to them is GOP rule.
They are, in this, no different than the Chinese Communist party. No different than Putin’s United Russia Party, no different than Mussolini’s fascists or Hitler’s Nazis. The party comes first. Not the people, not the nation, not democracy, not allies, not honor, not the rule of law, not anything.
This week Donald Trump said there are no guardrails, there are no checks on his power. He said it out loud. He told reporters that the only check on his power is his own moral compass. It is an absolute monarch’s claim.
And the Republicans are all in.
The highest crimes. The steady stream of misdemeanors. Should this monster be impeached and removed from power? The founders would have done it. Republicans even a decade ago would have done it. Democrats will still do it. But today’s GOP?
Since Trump came down that infamous escalator, Republicans have missed every off ramp on the highway to fascism. They are now a fascist party. They will protect Trump to hold on to power no matter the cost to the American people.
No matter how many mothers, like Renee Good, they have to slander after they kill.
Republicans will have to learn the hard way (at the ballot box) that fealty to Trump is a career ender. The only way they avoid a wipeout next November (which they will blame on widespread voter fraud) is to dump Trump and his worst enablers like MIller, Noem, Kennedy and Hegseth. But you are right, they have been party over country since the days of St. Ronnie Raygun and Newt's Contract on America. That behavior is hard to unlearn.
While some are happy to ride in Trump’s shadow, some Republicans are afraid of MAGA wrath and are afraid of losing their position snd privilege. What happens to America is less important.