By: Oliver Angert (Reporter ‘24)
It’s that time again: impeachment season. This time, Donald J. Trump is being impeached for inciting a terrorist attack in the US Capitol. The last time he was impeached, I wrote about it for the Phoenix Inquirer, and I can’t say I’m that surprised to be writing about it again. In fact, I’m more surprised that it took this long for him to be impeached again. Given the number of impeachable offenses that have occurred over his term as president, I would have expected this to have happened years ago, but I digress. This impeachment is different from the last trial in two very important ways. One, Donald Trump is no longer the president of the United States of America. Two, there is a chance, however small, that he could be kept from holding any office permanently.
The reason why I can make the second claim is the fact that Mitch McConnell is an unknown quantity. If he so chooses, he can remove the president from office. His influence is that great in the republican party. But why, you may ask, would McConnell, a Republican, impeach Donald Trump? The answer is this: Donald Trump is not going to be able to help the Republican party in the midterms as he could before. Cutting him off now might help Republicans’ chances in the election in two years. Even, considering that it makes a lot of sense to impeach Trump and remove him from office permanently, is it going to happen? Probably not.
The fact of the matter is that there are too many Republican senators who don’t feel that the domestic terror attack in the Capitol was that big of a deal. To remove a president from office, you need a two-thirds majority, and there just aren’t the required votes. Unless Mitch McConnell throws his weight around or something else improbable occurs, nothing is going to happen.
All in all, the chances of Donald Trump being removed from office are negligible in the current political climate. All we can do is vote in four years if he becomes the republican nominee for president. I for one, am looking forward to voting in the next presidential election. But for now, what we should do is just hope that the Biden administration gets a lot done.
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