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Impeachment Can’t Save Us
No matter when and how Trump leaves office, we need a bigger reckoning
This week’s impeachment hearings have plenty of bluster and tap-dancing by Republicans desperate to shift focus away from Donald Trump’s wrongdoings.
It’s a clown show, to be sure, but no matter what the outcome from the hearings, Americans deserve this process. Every single Republican who supports Trump should be forced to say as much, on the record, for the history books. That shame should follow them.
But we can’t expect impeachment to save us. It won’t: The damage to our democracy has been done, and no matter how or when Trump leaves office, we’ll need to have a major reckoning that goes beyond the Hill.
Because the racism, misogyny, and corruption that has defined this presidency is not just about the president; it’s about every Republican that let it happen, every American who cast a vote for a bigot, every Fox News host that lied to their audience. Really, it’s about all of us.
An impeachment won’t grant us absolution from operating concentration camps.
This week, the Southern Poverty Law Center reported on White House senior policy advisor Stephen Miller, whose leaked emails show disturbing ties to white nationalist propaganda and thinking. Miller’s racism has been well-known, but the emails make his bigotry inarguable. SPLC looked at over 900 emails sent between 2015 and 2016 to the white nationalist website Breitbart, most of which were about race and immigration. An impeachment won’t change the fact that a white supremacist has been shaping American immigration policy for years.
We also learned this week that the U.S. has detained and held 70,000 migrant children over the last year — an atrocity that will, and should, define America for generations. Babies and toddlers have been separated from their parents, causing irreparable harm and trauma. Children have been denied soap and diapers, with seven-year-olds trying to care for infants who have been torn from their mothers’ arms. An impeachment won’t grant us absolution from operating concentration camps.
