On Wednesday, Donald Trump was impeached due to incitement of insurrection and other misdemeanors. Donald Trump is the first president in American history to be impeached twice. After listening to representatives on both sides, many of them had similar views and key points throughout the debate. Many Democratic representatives stated that impeachment is necessary because safety and holding government officials accountable is most important. Many Republican representatives argued that there is no purpose to impeach Trump because his term will be over in just one week. The reason many Democrats are pushing for impeachment even after Trump leaves office is that he would never be allowed to run for a government position as per section 3 of the 14th amendment.
The Senate vote needed to confirm impeachment could be held after Trump leaves office. There is a debate held over if it is permissible to impeach the President after he leaves office, but the Associated Press shared in an article that William Belknap, the war secretary in 1876, was impeached after he left office. This is important because if it has been done before, it can be argued that it is still permissible now. The same goes for the use of the 14th amendment. It has been used to remove Victor L Berger from office in 1919, so it could be argued that it could be used now.
Another debate in the house was the double standard that republicans feel when speaking about the attack on the capitol building versus the select Black Lives Matter protests that turned violent. Republican representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois told NBC that these two are false comparisons. He feels that the two are not comparable due to the reason for the protest and what was actually done.
Another important part of this vote is that it was a bipartisan decision; 10 republican representatives voted in support of the impeachment. The total vote was 232-197.
I agree with the House’s decision to accept the articles of impeachment. I think that in context, the words said by Donald Trump in his speech on Wednesday morning incited violence and ultimately encouraged the events that occurred at the capitol. Because he did not call for national guard or police nearly to the extent to which he did for Black Lives Matter protests, the attack was not prevented the way that it could have been. Many Republican representatives said that Trump should not be held accountable for other people’s actions. I do not think this is a viable excuse because he could have prevented the incident from happening if he treated this protest in the same way that he treated the Black Lives Matter Protests. The actual protests should not be compared, but Trump’s preparation/response for them can be.
I 100% agree with you that if a president were to incite violence even in the last days of their term, they should be impeached, but the only issue that I take with your blog is the premise that Trump did incite violence. One line that stands out to me from his speech is when he says “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” If he wanted to incite violence then why would he ask people to peacefully and patriotically protest. Additionally, I have been seeing CNN and MSNBC and other Legacy News Outlets say that Trump saying that Republicans need to “fight” is him inciting violence. I don’t think that saying this is truthful when looking at the context of the fact that this is a political rally. People use the term fight all of the time because it is a metaphor to tell people to stand up for what they believe in. Not because it is an incitement to violence. If you want to argue that Trump raised the temperature in DC that is another issue that we can talk about. But there is a difference between inciting violence (explicitly calling for people to act out violently) and raising the temperature. If there is anywhere in the speech where Trump does explicitly call for violence, please show me so I could change my mind, but I’ve listened to the speech and haven’t heard anywhere where Trump incited violence.
ReplyDeleteI posted that comment. I don't know why it says "Unknown". I think it glitched me out of my account when I entered the comment
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment Isaac! I mentioned incitement because that is what he was charged for among other things. I think in a court of law, conviction of incitement would be a very close call because of the fine line between what truly counts as incitement. These two articles, along with the Associated Press link provided in my blog, list some of Trump's quotes that have been used for and against him. The BBC article explains at the end how it is hard to actually prove incitement in court. I do think that he "raised temperature" in DC at the rally which could potentially have resulted in the protesters becoming violent(yet this is once again hard to prove).
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-55640437
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/06/us/politics/trump-speech-capitol.html
Hey Romy!
ReplyDeleteI agree with Isaac’s comment that the president did not actively call for violence, although you can make the argument that he raised the temperature. I think that is a fair argument to make that president Trump played a role in riling up and angering his supporters by telling them that the election was stolen from them (whether it is true or not), although in a court of law I do not think that anything will happen with this impeachment. Do you think the impeachment will go through? Do you think impeachment is a good idea days before Biden becomes president or do you think it will only divide our country even more?
Hi Romy! I'm definitely in favor of impeaching trump because of the effects if he is found guilty, but it just seems like a really lousy start to Biden's presidency. This impeachment could take months like the last one, and I really just want to get over all of this and put Trump out of our minds. I also thought it was interesting to see how many members of Trump's cabinet or members of congress who liked him resigned or were also in favor of the impeachment or inciting the 25th amendment. I think this was the last straw for a lot of them and with Trump's presidency ending soon, I guess they thought they didn't have to defend him anymore.
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