2018

          Since Donald Trump was elected President of the United States nothing he has said or done has surprised me. I have been angered, I have been disgusted, I have been embarrassed, but I have not been surprised. I am reminded of the late football coach Dennis Green, who was so disgusted after his NFL Arizona Cardinals team lost a game they had no business losing that he screamed something during the post-game interview that he will forever be remembered for; “THEY ARE WHO WE THOUGHT THEY WERE!!!!”

Donald Trump is who I thought he was. Bigoted, narcissistic, ignorant, xenophobic, dishonest, petty, criminal, misogynistic, racist…

          For the past ten months, I did not want to think about it, read about it, write about it or talk about it. I have been struggling with the “why” question? I wanted to understand why good, caring people would vote for such a monumentally flawed human to be President of the United States. My conclusion? It’s complicated. Possibly, the answer is as simple as “Americans just screwed up”. Sometimes that happens. People make mistakes. Nations make mistakes. There is no question that buyer’s remorse is rampant in the body politic. Donald Trump’s approval rating is at a historic low, during a time that would normally be considered a honeymoon period for an incoming President.

          So, what do you do when you screw something up? First, you admit it. Only when you can accept that a problem exists can you develop a solution for it.

          The American constitution provides three remedies for a Presidency that presents a clear and present danger to the nation itself. The 25^th Amendment to the constitution states that the Vice President and a majority of the cabinet secretaries may notify the Speaker of the House and the President pro tempore of the Senate that the President of the United States is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. In other words, Mike Pence and more than half of Trump’s hand-picked cabinet would have to declare that Trump is so mentally ill that he can’t do the job. However, if Trump says, “there is nothing wrong with me!”, (he’d probably do it with a tweet) the dispute would be decided by congress, a congress that currently is controlled by republicans in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. It would take a two-thirds vote in BOTH houses to send Trump back to Trump Tower in New York.

          Don’t hold your breath on the 25^th Amendment.

          The second remedy provided by the constitution is impeachment. There are currently FIVE official government investigations into Donald Trump, his presidential campaign, and his business transactions. All of them have the potential for discovering activities that could be impeachable offenses. They are being conducted by the Senate Intelligence Committee, the House Intelligence Committee, the Special Counsel via the Justice Department, the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. According to the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post, the issues being investigated include;

·         Russian meddling in the 2016 election

·         Michael Flynn’s connections to Russian officials

·         Trump disclosing classified information to Russian officials

·         The firing of FBI Director James Comey

·         Collusion between Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Russian Officials

·         Ties between Trump associates and Russian officials

·         Possible obstruction of justice by Trump and financial crimes among Trump Associates

·         How to prevent and deter foreign interference in U.S. elections

·         Russian media’s attempts to spread fake news during the 2016 election

All of these investigations might conclude that all of the allegations are true, that Trump is guilty as sin, but Article II of the constitution grants the power to impeach the President only to the House of Representatives. If the House of Representatives approves articles of impeachment, it is the same as an indictment. A trial for the President would occur in the Senate. Two-thirds of the Senators must vote for conviction in order to remove the President. It has never happened in the history of our country. Chances are, it won’t happen with Trump either.

          The third option available to the American people for a Presidency gone off the rails is a simple one, an election. Every two years America elects the entire House of Representatives, all 435 of them. We also elect one-third of the Senate, 33 or 34 seats, depending on the year. The reason why the first two options are unlikely to happen is because republicans control both houses of congress. They currently have 247 of the 435 seats in the House, a majority of 29 seats. The republicans also hold 52 of the 100 seats in the Senate. The vice-president has the tie-breaking vote in the Senate, which gives them a majority of three in the Senate.

          American politics are currently poisoned by blatant tribalism. We focus on those things that make us different, instead of what makes us whole. This sickness is fed by the influx of unlimited money into our political system, allowing local and state elections to be unduly influenced by corporate interests with no interest in what is truly beneficial for the people that actually live in the place where that election is held. The election of Barack Obama ignited an unprecedented obstructionism in the nation’s governing bodies, a vicious backlash in conservative media outlets, and a racial polarization unseen in this country since the dawn of the modern civil rights movement. Then came Donald Trump, who capitalized on all of this madness and rode the wave all the way to the White House.

 

          There will be an American election in 14 months. It will be the most important election in our lifetimes, and one of the most important elections in the history of our country. In November of 2018, America will get a do-over, a mulligan. America screwed up in 2016. We will get a chance to fix it in 2018. If the democrats can pick up 15 seats in the House of Representatives, Donald Trump will be impeached. Even if the republicans in the Senate refuse to convict him, his legislative agenda will have no chance of passage.

          2018 will be a referendum on Trump. If the American people leave the republicans in charge of the House and the Senate, then we deserve whatever fate has in store for us.

          As for me, I choose to believe that the American people have seen enough, and will do the right thing in 2018. If I’m wrong, may God help us… and the rest of the world.