Impeachment Blog--Charlie

Charlie McGill
Mr. Roddy
GPHC
2/3/2020

The Impeachment of Donald Trump

The impeachment of Donald Trump has been the daily headline in all U.S news sources for the past few months, to the dismay of some and joy of others. With impeachment garnering a monopoly of news coverage, it's important we research and understand the issues to come to our own conclusions about the news story of the year. 

Back in July, President Trump called the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, to ask him to conduct a public investigation into Joe Biden’s son on his employment by a foreign natural gas company. To not conduct this investigation, Trump stated, would mean the withholding of funds dedicated to help Ukraine. Simply put, Trump asked a foreign government to dig up dirt about the son of a political opponent, and refused to hand over national aid unless this investigation was conducted. This is the centerpoint of the argument for Trump’s impeachment, and the House of Representatives found Trump guilty of abuse of power and obstructing congress, two impeachable offenses.

Since President Trump is likely to be acquitted on Wednesday, many are worrying about the long-term repercussions of this trial. In the CNN article I read, titled “Here’s What We’ve Learned from Trump’s Impeachment Trial,” they outline many of these repercussions. The first thing they state is that “Trump has changed the balance of power in the United States.” The branches of government, CNN states, and what they stand for--not allowing any one man too much power--has effectively been tarnished. Much of what they said was true: that the senate declining to see witnesses sets a terrible precedent for what a president can get away with, and that the checks and balances designed to contain a president's power aren’t working. However, I didn’t agree with what they said about executive orders. CNN claims that future presidents will be able to use executive authority seized by Trump, but presidents have always been able to issue executive orders legally and every president, including democratic ones, has passed massive amounts of executive orders. In my opinion, if a president is elected they mustn’t be attacked for using executive power to implement the policy they were elected upon.

CNN says that the second repercussion caused by President Trump’s impeachment are new rules for U.S politics. As they briefly touched on early when talking about the Senate's decision to not see witnesses in the trial, the entire impeachment process sets a new precedent going forward for what is allowed by U.S presidents and other elected officials. Along with this, CNN fears a pattern could emerge of asking foreign governments for electoral help. I don’t think the latter will be the case, but I do worry about what Trump will try and get away with if he is re-elected.

Finally, CNN outlines the potential harm to Joe Biden’s campaign, and the loyalty shown by the GOP to Trump. I don’t think that the impeachment trial harmed the Biden campaign to a measurable extent; when Ukraine first announced the investigation into the employment of Biden’s son, his poll numbers didn’t take a big hit. Moreover, he is in first or second place in the majority of national democratic primary polls. CNN does hit on an important subject when talking about Trump's influence within the GOP. While in the democratic party there is much disagreement concerning candidates and policies, the GOP is centered around one figure: Donald Trump. Republican officials critical of the president are hammered by members of their own party and often voted out of office. This is a relationship between party and official that I haven’t seen in my lifetime, and I find it very interesting to observe.

For my final thoughts, I think that impeachment has been getting slightly too much media attention over the past few months. Although it’s incredibly important and an issue that should not be ignored, there are other incredibly important things going on in our country that haven’t been getting the attention they should because of impeachment. I hope that we can find a better balance between impeachment and other political issues in the media.

Wolf, Zachary B. “Here's What We've Learned from Trump's Impeachment Trial.” CNN, Cable News Network, 1 Feb. 2020, www.cnn.com/2020/02/01/politics/impeachment-watch-january-31/index.html.

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