By Andrew Joseph Moore
If one could only use a few words to explain the four-year presidency of Donald Trump, historical should be one of those words, and while President Trump made multiple historical moments, being the first president to be impeached and acquitted twice is something that the history books will highlight years down the road.
So how did we as a nation get here, to the second impeachment of President Donald Trump? The answer is quite simple all because the articles of impeachment the House of Representatives passed all fell on one charge, “incitement of insurrection,” which is unlike the previous impeachment that happened in 2019 that brought upon two charges: “abuse of power” and “obstruction of Congress.”
For those in favor of conviction, not only was this impeachment much simpler, but also much more important because “it’s about Trump’s attempt to stop American democracy from functioning. But the first one set the precedent of Trump being held to account for trying to pull the levers of his authority to preserve his own power,” as Zachary B. Wolf from CNN explained. Those against conviction argue that his speech to the crowd that eventually stormed the Capitol was merely everyday political rhetoric that all politicians from both sides of the aisle use every day.
So, why is it historical? Other than the fact this is the first time a president has been impeached twice, what makes this impeachment historical is the fact those who are voting in it are all victims and witnesses of the insurrection, and where the trial is taking place is the same place in which rioters were trashing the Senate chamber on January 6. When it came to deciding if President Trump should be impeached, even prominent Republicans like the house minority leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) opposed to impeaching the president still tried to distance themselves from him by condemning President Trump’s actions.
The senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who voted to acquit, stated Donald Trump was practically and morally responsible for what happened on January 6; however, he saw the trial as unconstitutional as President Trump was out of office before the trial started. It merely shows that there seemed to be a consensus that what President Donald Trump did on that day was wrong, but through a matter of technicalities, a conviction was not possible in their eyes.
When looking at the results, they are not surprising as it has been apparent since the beginning that the Democrats would not get the 17 Republicans needed to vote for a conviction to get a two-thirds majority, which equals up to 67 votes. However, that does not mean Republicans were all in favor of acquitting the president, as a total of seven Republicans ended up voting guilty. The final count came out to 57 guilty votes and 43 not guilty votes, which is ten short needed for a conviction; however, this was the most bipartisan vote for a conviction in American history.
What comes next is not too sure. For former President Trump, all that is known is that he has stated he will be working on trying to get Republicans to win the house in 2022, but much more is not known beyond that. Many fear that he will try for and win the Republican nomination for president in 2024, which many think will be a disaster if the Republican Party ends up taking this route.
As for the Democratic Party, the best course of action for them would be to ignore President Donald Trump for now and to work on their agenda, because the way things look now, it seems that they do not have much time as the Republican Party is on track on taking back the House of Representatives in the midterm election in 2022.
