Article by Scott S. Powell in "The American Thinker":
Who
would have ever thought the United States could lose its way and find
itself on a slippery slope to becoming a banana republic in which
political power is typically determined by coups rather than elections?
But it appears that many in the Democrat Party are willing to go down
this road and risk the nation’s continuity and stability in a desperate
effort to regain power and control.
Since
there is simply no greater crime against the United States, its
Constitution and its people than subverting the government that is duly
elected by the people, Americans need to clearly remind Washington that
the legitimacy of our government comes exclusively from the people.
Think
about it… why should Democrats in Congress be ignoring their
legislative responsibilities, and wasting their time and the nation’s
scarce resources with impeachment proceedings less than a year away from
the next presidential election on November 3, 2020? And why would
Democrats think impeachment a wise course to follow, particularly after
putting the country through nearly two years of the Mueller
investigation -- which proved to be a hoax?
What
many are now realizing is that Democrat Party leadership has lost its
bearings by surrendering control to the extreme left -- an amalgam of
pro-Islamic and Marxist views as represented by the so-called “squad.”
The impeachment effort is not just an attack against Donald Trump; it’s
also meant to dishearten and disenfranchise nearly half the country who
voted for him.
The
American Republic established by the Constitution provided for a more
stable system of government based on honoring the results of scheduled
elections than the parliamentary form of democracy, where politics and a
no-confidence vote could bring a government down and require a new one
to be formed on an unscheduled basis. Relative political stability and
continuity of the American Republic has been the chief contributing
factor to the nation’s civility, as well as its meteoric economic rise
over the last 240 years.
Alexander Hamilton, in The Federalist No. 65,
warns that impeachment hearings are highly divisive and bring a
quandary to Congress of whether it helps the nation to remove the
people’s choice in a president. Thus, the cause for impeachment must be a
clearly recognizable high crime that mobilizes action across party
lines starting in the House of Representatives, with the trial and
outcome determined by a supermajority of 66 in the Senate.
Initial
testimony from Chairman Adam Schiff’s lead witnesses suggest that the
charges against President Trump’s actions and involvement with Ukraine
matters are more based on hearsay and political differences than any
high crime. Moreover, referral of a Trump impeachment to the
Republican-controlled Senate will simply be dead on arrival. So why
proceed?
Impeachment
hearings are a show driven by desperation -- a “hail Mary” pass to
smear Trump and generate smoke such that people won’t be able to see and
understand what’s going on. And by creating continuous smoke around
Donald Trump, they hope that the average voter will conclude that there
must be fire that needs to be doused by voting him out of office in
November 2020.
The
Democrats’ trivialization of impeachment runs totally contrary to what
the framers of the Constitution intended. They specifically required a
Senate supermajority because it made impeachment rare and strengthened
the central role of elections in which the government’s sole legitimacy
came from the people. It was elections that were to be the sole
mechanism for the peaceful transition of power, and not coups and
impeachments from party passion and partisanship.
What
will happen to the United States if there is no corrective to the
hyperpartisan coup-impeachment path that has been unfolding from day 1
after President Trump’s election in November 2016? The fact is that we
have seen an unprecedented abuse of power by Democrats even while they
have been in the minority, such as what was exhibited in the Senate’s
Supreme Court justice confirmation hearings of candidate Judge Brett
Kavanaugh.
The
Democrat Party has become more intolerant as it has become more
radical, even embracing and encouraging mob action against political
opponents. Much of the Constitution’s Bill of Rights has become
irrelevant. In many instances, due process and the presumption of
innocence has been turned on its head. Gone is free speech on most
university campuses. And the bulk of the legacy press in America has
become an arm of the Democratic Party and has ceased reporting news.
Social media, where the majority of Americans under 50 now get their
news, has also followed suit -- censoring individuals and views that
challenge the politically correct narrative.
Much
of this has happened when the Democrats have been the minority party.
Why would Americans want to give more power to a party that embraces
this kind of abuse, including the ways of banana republics?
