Donald Trump impeachment: Democrats trash constitution

President Trump speaks during a Keep America Great rally in Michigan during the impeachment vote. Picture: AFP

The Democratic congress has trashed the American constitution and covered itself in infamy by this preposterous decision to impeach President Donald Trump.

This impeachment is one of the most contemptible acts in modern American politics and illustrates the growing determination among parties of the left around the western world to try to outflank, frustrate and deny democracy.

I am no fan at all of much of the way Trump conducts himself – his consistent coarseness I find hideous – but this move by the Democrats is more cynical than anything Trump himself has ever tried.

The alleged offence by Trump is that he threatened to withhold military aid to Ukraine unless they instituted an investigation into the activities in Ukraine of Hunter Biden and his dad, Joe Biden, the former Vice President.

The conversation on which this charge is based is unclear and ambiguous at best. The testimony in favour of that interpretation is mostly based on second-hand judgments.

But here’s the thing. Ukraine instituted no investigation and the US aid in question was delivered.

But even if the sinister interpretation is true, it is nowhere near the worst thing a US president has said or done in conversation with a foreign leader and it does not remotely justify Trump becoming the first president in US history to be removed from office by impeachment in the House and trial in the Senate.

The legitimate way for Democrats to make Trump pay for any wrong action in Ukraine is at next November’s election.

A few details show the Democrats’ absolute cynicism.

They impeached Trump for “obstruction of congress” and this obstruction consisted of the White House refusing permission for certain senior officials to testify in these proceedings.

This action hardly makes Trump unique among presidents, but the more important point is that Congress could go to the courts to seek the courts to compel the senior officials to testify.

But that might take time and the passage of that time might dilute the political impact of impeachment so the Democrats decided to just go ahead and impeach straight away.

This demonstrates beyond dispute that this is an entirely political process. The Democrats are saying it is right to nullify a democratic election and fling an elected president from office without even exhausting the legal avenues to gain what they regard as critical testimony.

The failure of the Democrats to go to court to compel the testimony they believe is essential shows the capricious, cynical, disregarding way they are approaching what is an entirely partisan and unjustified process.

Now the Democrats say they won’t for the moment even refer the impeachment to the Senate which is meant to hold a trial of the president. The Democrats now say they won’t do that until the Senate Republicans agree to conduct the trial in a way which the Democrats think would help to further humiliate the president.

But the Republicans in the Senate have said they regard the process as unjustified on the facts, and completely politicised, and plan to vote to acquit the president.

But if the Democrats are constitutionalists they must submit the impeachment to the Senate and let the Senate decide. The Democrats have the numbers in the House and have impeached Trump. The Republicans have the numbers in the Senate and will acquit the president. So the Democrats claim a national emergency forces the constitutional process in the House instantly, yet because the numbers don’t favour them in the Senate the constitutional process there can be delayed indefinitely.

Most of the Democrat speeches in the House were simple political tirades against Trump.

Democrats have every right, and in accordance with their consciences every obligation, to speak against Trump’s policies and behaviour that they disagree with, but that is not remotely a justification for trying to remove an elected president from office.

The Democrats lost five of their number, one way and another, over these impeachment votes. The Republicans lost none.

Public support for impeachment has declined as the hearings have gone on and Trump’s approval ratings have risen slightly.

The Democrats have reduced the American constitution to a balance of polls and nothing else.

They, much more than Trump, have debauched the US constitution.

Their actions could have profound consequences as impeachment moves from being a solemn and necessarily rare constitutional process to being just another move to be played routinely in partisan politics. The growing disdain for elections by centre left parties – because voters cannot be trusted – is one of the least attractive political dynamics of our time.