hey man
so from your perspective, do you see a point in any of this impeachment stuff? do you consider this time well spent by congress?
I fully expect this to fall on deaf ears, but since you asked, here goes. The Democrats had no choice other than to impeach Trump. The Constitution mandates that a President who behaves as if he is above the law must be held accountable. Since the POTUS cannot be charged with a crime while in office, impeachment is the only available check on his power.
Regardless of whether you think the impeachment is a sham, can we not agree that it's unprecedented for any elected official in US history, let alone the President, to completely stonewall a congressional investigation without any perceivable consequences? He ordered all witnesses in the executive branch to not testify (some have defied him) and his administration has provided no documents to a co-equal branch of government with legitimate oversight authority. If Trump has nothing to hide, then why has he gone to such extraordinary lengths to obstruct the scrutiny of his "perfect" phone call? This Ukraine scheme, of course, was not limited to one phone call. It unfolded over the majority of 2019 until it was exposed.
If Trump truly wanted to investigate corruption in Ukraine, why would he back-channel the investigation through Rudy fucking Giuliani rather than have the appropriate intelligence agencies/government officials investigate the corruption he was so allegedly concerned about? Why did it go unchallenged when [$1m Trump donor] Gordon Sondland testified that all Zelensky needed to do was announce an investigation into Biden on TV? Doing an actual investigation was never necessary. Why is it only now that Trump's bleeding heart for Ukrainian corruption suddenly became relevant? I would love it if someone addressed these questions one-by-one.
Let's stop pretending this is all about Ukraine though. Ukraine is simply the continuation of a long pattern which pre-dated Trump as President. Trump's entire adult life has been a perpetual cycle of cheat, lie, steal, deceive, betray, sue, walk away (not necessarily in that order). If the unchallenged timeline of events in the Ukraine story are true, Trump was on the phone with Zelensky asking for his little favor
the next day after Mueller's congressional testimony. Dude, you literally just beat a years-long special council investigation about election meddling and you're on the phone the next fucking day trying to abuse your Presidential authority to cheat in the next election? I don't like the guy, but it's hard to say that he doesn't have balls of steel.
Let's play pretend and imagine if Obama or Hillary were in office doing this. Really try to imagine the people they had or would have had in their cabinet and put the words of Barr/Mulvaney/etc. into the mouths of those people. If you try to say this wouldn't make you seethe with anger, I don't believe you. No matter how you feel about Hillary (I don't like her either), she sat and testified in person for 11 hours during the Benghazi hearings and answered pretty much every question posed to her in detail and strolled out of the place without a mark on her. These days it's almost nostalgic to reminisce about the old days of quasi-accountability in politics.
Another argument you guys like to make is that Pelosi and the Democrats have been champing at the bit to impeach Trump early and often for the tiniest little infraction. In reality, Nancy Pelosi had been extremely reluctant to impeach because she was well aware of how divisive it would likely become. It was obvious to everyone that impeachment would be a foolish and unnecessary political risk, particularly due to the math in the Senate. She didn't impeach over banning Muslims. She didn't impeach over separating families and putting children and babies in jail indefinitely ("Obama did it first!!!" No. Just no.). She didn't impeach over misappropriating Pentagon funds to build a pointless wall. She didn't impeach over the Russia investigation. There was absolutely no shortage of events that would have caused most/all other prior Presidents to be impeached, if they didn't resign first.
Yeah, there were the fringe entities in the Democratic Party who made it no secret that they wanted to impeach well before Ukraine. We all remember Al "Get Off My Lawn" Green, and how could one forget Maxine "I'll Woop My Grandson's Ass For Saying a Curse Word" Waters. They were the exceptions to the rule. Loose screws will always exist in a 230+ member caucus. Democrats as a whole consistently pushed back against the idea of impeachment until Ukraine. After the whistleblower story became public, despite the massive political risk, impeachment became a matter of principle for the Democrats.
Let's not forget that this whole scandal began because Trump was coerced by circumstances--circumstances of his own making--into openly admitting that he had exploited the office of the Presidency to gain an unfair advantage in the 2020 election. This was repeated by himself on the White House lawn, and further corroborated by Mick Mulvaney during a press conference. Trump cheated, and there are absolutely no signs that he intends to stop cheating. This is
precisely why Democrats cannot wait until the 2020 election to let the voters decide. Even if Trump is not removed by the Senate, it would be a dereliction of duty for the House to allow
any President to cheat in an election without attempting to check him. That would be an unacceptable precedent to set.
Change my mind.