Brodow: Impeach Congress Instead of the President

By Ed Brodow:

Let me say it clearly—I am all for impeachment. For two years, Democrats in Congress and the Deep State were confident that the Mueller Report would provide solid evidence for impeaching President Trump. The failure of the special counsel to find proof of criminal activity in the White House has shattered dreams of impeachment and let the air out of the avalanche of baseless invective that has been aimed at Mr. Trump. The ironic result of this pathetic attempt to sabotage the executive is the undoing of the legislative branch of the federal government. So yes, I am all for impeachment—of our ineffectual and unproductive members of Congress!

An article in the March 2019 issue of The Atlantic summarizes the insupportable reasons typically offered by the Left in support of its argument for impeaching Trump. The author, Yoni Applebaum, argues that Trump has not kept his promise to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution.”

“Instead, he has mounted a concerted challenge to the separation of powers, to the rule of law, and to the civil liberties enshrined in our founding documents. He has purposefully inflamed America’s divisions. He has set himself against the American idea, the principle that all of us—of every race, gender, and creed—are created equal.”

Are you as sick and tired as I am of hearing this false narrative? None of it can be supported with proof. In fact, the evidence for all of these accusations clearly points in one direction—at Barack Hussein Obama. It was Obama who ignored the separation of powers by doing an end run around Congress with his numerous executive orders. By refusing to enforce a variety of laws, Obama encouraged contempt for the rule of law. We are dealing with his failure right now as we debate the legality of sanctuary cities and Trump’s attempt to enforce existing immigration law.

Obama did everything he could to expand the power of government at the expense of individual liberty. During Obama’s presidency, the government tried to insinuate itself into every facet of our lives. “Every single one of [Obama’s] initiatives,” says American Thinker, was “directed at increasing government control in every area, with a corresponding decrease in individual liberty.” His positions in case after case stoked the fires of racial discord and moved the country away from meritocracy to an arbitrary system of race-based tests for “social justice.”

What infuriates me more than anything is when the Left accuses Trump of subverting American values. Trump cherishes the values that Obama held in contempt: respect for the rights of the individual; free speech; meritocracy; due process and the rule of law; equality of opportunity via free market competition; and the acceptance of personal responsibility.

In spite of the facts, we never heard demands for impeaching Obama. The only reason Democrats want to impeach Trump is—they are upset that Hillary lost. Donald Trump is not the problem. The problem—the one few people want to acknowledge—is on Capitol Hill, not the White House. When you listen to Nancy Pelosi, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, and their over-the-top colleagues, it is clear that they have an obsession for taking the president down even if it means hiding behind a series of obvious falsehoods. Trump is a racist, he is sexist, he is bigoted, he is anti-Semitic and Islamophobic. Trump attempted to obstruct the Mueller investigation. He is a fascist. He is Hitler! All without proof, without a scintilla of evidence. This obsession has taken precedence over the job for which they were elected. If they put that energy to good use on the floor of Congress, no one would be talking impeachment.

“Congress is a national embarrassment,” says the New York Post. “Beset by gridlock and petty partisanship, it struggles to do even the simplest tasks.” Just look at Congress’ inability to resolve two of our most urgent problems. Efforts to reach bipartisan agreement on healthcare have been derailed. The broken immigration system is being ignored—a statute ending catch and release is not even on the table. Sen. Amy Klobuchar says she wants to be president so she can fix immigration. That is the job of Congress—her job. Why don’t Klobuchar and her colleagues do their job?

This is the most “do-nothing” Congress in my lifetime. The number of committee meetings to consider legislation is fewer than one-quarter of what it was 30 years ago. According to Sen. Ben Sasse, executive branch agencies (the Deep State) now make our laws, not Congress. The inference is that real political power resides with unelected officials rather than with our elected representatives. “That’s why I left,” said Tom Coburn, the Oklahoma Republican senator who resigned in 2014. “You couldn’t do anything anymore.”

Instead of getting their real work done, Congress has become “a weakened legislative branch in which debate is strictly curtailed, party leaders dictate the agenda, most elected representatives rarely get a say and government shutdowns are a regular threat because of chronic failures to agree on budgets,” according to The Washington Post. Congress “functions more as a junior partner to the executive, or doesn’t function at all when it comes to the country’s pressing priorities.” If this continues, said former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle, “they’re going to evolve, or devolve, into irrelevancy very quickly.”

According to The American Conservative, the federal government has less support than King George III at the time of the American Revolution. “Perhaps the greatest mystery of American politics in the 21st century is how Congress can have an approval rating that dips into the single digits while, on average, more than 90 percent of incumbents win re-election.” If our representatives won’t do their job, let’s impeach them. If we can’t impeach them, let’s vote them out and bring in people who aren’t afraid to solve problems.