'Only impeachment can save us': The case for Trump's immediate removal

What happened

AlterNet reports that The Philadelphia Inquirer published a coordinated editorial package urging Congress to impeach Donald Trump and convict him in the Senate. Attorney and columnist Michael Coard supplied the project’s central argument: waiting for another election is inadequate when the alleged misconduct concerns the integrity of elections and the enforceability of constitutional limits.

According to AlterNet, contributors cited alleged abuses including Trump’s acceptance of a $400 million aircraft from Qatar’s royal family, efforts that legal analyst Barbara McQuade characterized as weakening the Justice Department, and broader violations alleged by Ralph Nader and Bruce Fein. The article reports an argument for immediate removal, not an impeachment proceeding already underway; it supplies neither a publication date nor evidence that Congress has acted on the demand.

Congress holds the power

Editorial boards can document misconduct and demand consequences. They cannot impose them. The relevant institutional power belongs to the House, which can impeach, and the Senate, which can convict and remove.

That distinction exposes the real subject of the story. Trump is accused of exploiting presidential power, but congressional lawmakers decide whether that conduct receives a constitutional remedy or merely another round of condemnatory prose. “Only impeachment can save us” therefore means something narrower and more concrete: only Congress can initiate removal before the next election. The reporting does not establish that Congress has the votes or willingness to do so.

Allegations are not articles of impeachment

AlterNet presents a formidable list, but it compresses legal claims, political judgments and constitutional arguments into a single indictment. The alleged acceptance of the Qatari aircraft raises an emoluments question; McQuade’s description of “strongman” tactics concerns institutional control; Nader and Fein offer a sweeping assessment of constitutional decay. Those claims may support an impeachment case, but they are not interchangeable, and the article provides too little underlying evidence to adjudicate each one.

That weakness matters because impeachment is a constitutional process, not a synonym for justified outrage. A serious case requires specified conduct, evidence, articles approved by the House and a Senate trial. By emphasizing the scale of the editorial campaign more than the evidentiary record behind each allegation, AlterNet sometimes treats accumulated authority as accumulated proof.

The ballot-box misdirection

Coard’s sharper point is about sequencing. Telling voters to settle everything at the next election shifts responsibility from officials who possess power now to citizens who can exercise power only later—and only through institutions the contributors say are being weakened.

That is not democratic patience. It is congressional evasion dressed as respect for voters. If lawmakers believe impeachable abuses occurred, postponing judgment does not preserve neutrality; it permits the alleged conduct to continue. If they do not believe the evidence meets that threshold, they should say so and defend that conclusion. Invoking a future election lets them avoid both decisions.

A remedy deliberately made difficult

The Constitution provides impeachment, but its use depends on political actors policing their own coalition and risking their offices. That design makes removal possible while ensuring that partisan incentives can render it inert.

The Inquirer project, as AlterNet describes it, is ultimately testing whether constitutional prohibitions carry consequences when enforcement is costly. Its most consequential accusation is therefore directed not only at the president but at Congress: lawmakers possess the mechanism, understand the claimed stakes and may still choose institutional cowardice.

Rules without enforcement

The larger pattern is not mysterious. Executive power expands when legislators calculate that tolerating alleged abuses is safer than confronting them. Each refusal lowers the practical cost of the next transgression, regardless of what the constitutional text formally permits.

An editorial campaign cannot substitute for evidence, votes or due process. But Congress cannot substitute rhetoric about elections for its own assigned duty either. A constitutional remedy that officials refuse even to consider under pressure is not a guardrail. It is language on paper, awaiting people with enough power—and insufficient incentive—to enforce it.

Thanks to Alter Net

Source: ‘Only impeachment can save us’: The case for Trump’s immediate removal