Democracy or Tyranny?

Tyranny not Democracy

The definition of an impeachable offense was determined a long time ago. We need to listen to what the framers of our Constitution concluded.

As the framers were setting up the guidelines for the impeachment of a President, some suggested that a reason for removing a president could be mal-administration. In other words, you don’t like how the President governs. Alexander Hamilton objected, he stated they were not setting up a Parliamentary form of government like Britain, where you take a vote of confidence and remove a leader. It was to be for high crimes and misdemeanors. That is a high bar, but they intended it to be because of the gravity of the action. I suggest to you that what we are arguing about today is how this President governs. If the Democrats think we have mal-administration today, there is a solution; it’s called an election, not impeachment.

Our founding fathers wanted impeachment to be the last recourse, not the first. The Democrats have been talking about impeachment since the Presidential Inauguration in 2017. Is the reason we have had one investigation after another of our President because the Democrats don’t believe they can beat Trump at the ballot box in 2020? Democrat Representative Al Green of Texas said it out loud, “I concerned that if we don’t impeach this President, he will get re-elected.”

The will of the people is being usurped.  What we see playing out before our very eyes is not democracy, but tyranny.

Image used with permission by Microsoft.

Political Nearsightedness

Myopia or “nearsightedness” or “shortsightedness” is an eye condition where you can view objects up close clearly, but things far away may appear blurry. I want to suggest to you that because of our political bias, we are so focused on to impeach or not to impeach, that we are oblivious to the long-range consequences to our democratic form of government. We have become politically “shortsighted.”

The transcript of President Trump’s call to the Ukrainian leader, the center of the impeachment controversy, has become a Rorschach test. The inkblot test where people see different things of the same image. Democrats read it and see an impeachable offense; Republicans do not. Beauty, or guilt, in this case, seems to be in the eye of the beholder.

So, the battle continues in a partisan manner, but the Democrats rule the House of Representatives and therefore have the bully pulpit. Something as grave as the removal of a duly elected President should be done only on a bipartisan basis. Take the vote and let both sides be represented and let the chips fall as they may. If they do not want to take the vote, then they should settle it the old fashion way, at the ballot box.

Maybe our political leaders need corrective lenses to view the situation as an American first, then as a Republican or Democrat. If we don’t, I fear that no one will ever be able to exercise the Office of the Presidency again.