America’s Famed Constitution – Rendered Toothless (#308)

The Impeachment of President Donald Trump fast approaches, perhaps as quickly as this week. And, it is the general consensus that the Democrat controlled House of Representatives will most likely vote to Impeach Trump, making him the third President in United States history to be Impeached.

But that is where the certainty of Impeachment stops. Because after that will come the trial in the Senate, and it is almost assured that there, Trump will be acquitted by the Republican-controlled Senate. So, once again an Impeached American President will be acquitted, and therefore not removed from Office, like his Impeached predecessors, Andrew Jackson and Bill Clinton.

So, what’s the point?

Well, its America’s famed Constitution working (or not). In the Constitution there is a provision, and obligation for Congress to act to stop and remove a President from Office, who has committed ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’.

The process, if undertaken by Congress, is through an impeachment inquiry, the drawing up of the articles of impeachment, the decision to impeach, and then the Trial of Impeachment to be held in the U.S. Senate - where Senators, under Oath, are supposed to look at the ‘evidence’ presented, impartially, and then are to vote to either remove the President, if the evidence shows he is guilty of what he has been accused of, or if not, then he is to be acquitted.

So far, the process is all ‘by the book’.

But the Founding Fathers did not take into account the corrupting-of-the-process by hyper-partisanship, which would ignore the facts of ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’ committed, or not, by the President and would instead solely focus on political partisanship, at the cost of the Constitution, and the Rule of Law.

The Democrats have followed the process, as they are obligated to do by the Constitution, by gathering the evidence, and by calling for testimonies from relevant officials and witnesses.

The evidence they compiled through the impeachment process is compelling by any American or international standards of law.

But for the Republicans opposing the Impeachment of ‘their President’ (not America’s), the process, the evidence and facts compiled, are meaningless, as they have decided that ‘their President’ is not going to be impeached, no matter what, and they have openly stated it to be so, regardless of the Constitution, the process, and the law. The Leader of the Senate Majority, Senator Mitch McConnell, has openly declared that despite the ‘Trial’ that is supposed to take place in the Senate, impartially, he is working closely with the President’s White House, to make sure the President is acquitted. A case of a verdict of ‘not guilty’, before the trial, before the tabling of evidence, and the ‘impartial’ consideration of the evidence.

Obviously, this was not something the American Founding Fathers had anticipated, regardless of being visionaries, and by not factoring in political corruption, at the highest levels, they have been consistently undermined by those who have taken the Oath of Office (the Lawmakers), to uphold the Constitution of the United States.

In the realities of American partisan politics, the corruption of the mandate, to uphold the law, has been overridden, and the embedded ‘checks and balances’ built into the framework of the Constitution by America’s Founding Fathers, to try and prevent the Republic from turning into some version of a Monarchy, Dictatorship, or some other form of Autocracy, has been repeatedly undermined.

One could argue that in a large part, historically, the checks and balances succeeded in its overall purpose, as America has remained a Democracy more or less.

More or less, because of the strange quirk in its make-up, the infamous ‘Electoral College’, which has sabotaged and subverted the will of the people by electing as leader who actually got the lesser number of the people’s votes, which is not ‘Democracy’ as it is known, and defined the World-over.

As it has now become amply clear, in spite of all the fervent lip service paid to its revolutionary Constitution, by all Americans (in particular the politicians), the hyper-partisanship that has been the hallmark of the American politics over the decades, has rendered the Constitution’s ‘checks and balances’ practically toothless.

America’s Constitution, a miracle of democratic foresight and vision, in a World ruled by Monarchies /Autocracies /Dictatorships /Authoritarian regimes, and corrupt Democracies, supposedly assured that the will of the people would hold supreme, and its ‘government of the people, by the people, for the people’ would prevent any reversion to an autocracy in any form.

But it didn’t factor in acute partisanship of the politicians, and the public, which would make a mockery of such Constitutional safe-guards - as the Congress’s obligation to impeach a lawless President, who has committed ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’ - as Trump has done.

And so once again, America’s political divide will subvert its own Constitution.

The Democrats have been repeatedly criticized (at times by their own) on taking up the impeachment of Donald Trump.

But in light of his consistent wrongdoings, be it him working to subvert the election process through the open invitations to foreign governments to interfere in American elections, or violations of Campaign finance laws, or self-confessed obstructions of justice, the House of Representatives really had no choice but to act, as the Constitution mandated, to impeach him and remove him from Office, to fulfil their own duty and Oath of Office.

The fact that partisanship, in the form of Republicans ignoring their Oaths of Office, will prevent the Democrats in Congress from removing a rogue President, is not so much the weakness of the Constitution, as it is the weakness of the people (be they the lawmakers or the public), to let their personal ideologies and preferences corrupt the processes of the Constitution, and the remedies against criminal Presidents provided by law, and to punish those that are acting as the Constitution demands that they do when faced with a rogue President.

As is now being noted frequently, the Democrats are ‘damned if they do, and damned if they don’t’. But, since Trump’s crimes and misdemeanors are so open and so well verified, blatant denying of them does not make them disappear, all it does do is to further corrupt the American democratic system and the Constitution, until its remedies are rendered harmless and toothless.

Then the question arises, why have it there anymore, as it will surely be undermined further, in a political system that is getting dangerously partisan and corrupted. This action of impeachment may damage the Democrats further with an election coming up, but they at least are doing their duty under the law, unlike Trump and his sycophantic Republican Party, who are openly flaunting it, and by doing so, are tearing up the very Constitutional underpinnings of America. Their moto should be #DestroyAmericaMercilesslyNow #DAMN!

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