Donald Trump is an evil president who must be impeached and removed from office as soon as possible
To see the latest revisions and corrections,please refresh your screen.
BACKGROUND
1) James Rowles,"IMPEACHMENT" -- the word nobody can say, Trenchant Observations, April 4, 2025.
2)James Rowles, REVISED: Will Americans Wake Up Before It's Too Late?” Trenchant Observations, February 16, 2025.
3) James Rowles, “What can we do? How can we stop the fascist coup that is underway?” Trenchant Observations, February 2, 2025.
Having followed Donald Trump closely for nearly 10 years and published two books based on my columns during those years, I have concluded the following:
Trump is a malevolent political actor who is carrying out a coup d’ état, at the moment by issuing and seeking to enforce so-called “executive decrees” that are blatantly unconstitutional.
Trump will use all of the powers of the presidency, including the president’s emergency powers (as he interprets them) to carry out his coup and to remain in power after 2028. He already attempted to seize power once, in January 2021.
Trump will not change or abandon his goals, or his evil efforts to dismantle federal agencies and programs, and to destroy the system of international agreements and alliances based on the United Nations Charter which has limited major wars and avoided a nuclear war for some 80 years.
We must all stand up for America in rejecting Trump’s ongoing seizure of power, his evil destruction of U.S. government agencies and programs, and his efforts to undermine the United Nations Charter, the world trading system based on international law including the rules of GATT and the World Trade Organization (WTO), and numerous other international conventions and treaties such as the Paris Climate Treaty, and the World Health Organization (WHO) Treaty and agreements.
Each of us must contribute what we can to stopping Trump and revmoving hin,from office. We are not mere spectators, but rathe warriors actively engaged in a struggle to save our democracy and the domestic and international rule of law.
Sadly, President Trump is a malevolent president, an evil president who takes delight in destroying what others have constructed and value, while constructing nothing of value himself.
The Constitution is not a suicide pact.
The drafters anticipated the possibility of the voters choosing a bad president, They provided a powerful remedy: Impeachment by the House of Representatives, and Conviction and Removal by the Senate.
We urge you to contribute to the “Restore American Democracy Fund—Support Engaged Writers” as sescribed in the folowing section.
***
[draft text]]
I guess this is how fascism triumphs.
People are overwhelmed. They don’t know what to do. They don’t know what they can do. They feel impotent. They become resigned. They acquiesce.
Once the fascists seize control over all the levers of power, and people begin to feel the effects of living under a fascist regime where there is no rule of law and the arbitrary exercise of state power becomes the norm, they may begin to wake up.
By then it may be too late to reverse the situation.
Judging from the experience of Germany in the 1930;s, many among them may “flip” and embrace the fascist movement, which gives them the feeling of belonging to a movement, and a movement that gives them permission to express their feelings of resentment, and to themselves commit abuses against others following impulses from the darkest regions of their hearts.
People who have lived a life in freedom may experiences the lack of freedom and dictatorial repression for the first time. This will come as a rude awakening.
See James Rowles, “Lessons from the Ukraine War--On Freedom,” Trenchant Observations, September 20, 2023.
For now, voters and leaders may look the other way when they see Russian barbarism replace the freedom those living under Russian occupation once knew, in Crimea and in Donetsk, Luhansk ,Zaprorhrhizia, and Kherson provinces in Ukraine.
Outside observers may be all too ready to sell outUkrainians in Donald Trump’s effort to achieve peace in Ukraine—in a new iteration of Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement when he ceded the Sudetenland n Czechoslovakia to Adolf Hitler and Germany in th infamous Munich Pact of September 30, 1938.
They may not realize until too late that the new “peace for our time” is illusory and that the freedom of Ukrainians under Russian occupation is being traded for an empty promise whose consequences may affect them personally for the rest of their lives.
Will they wake up in time to stop the seizure of power by Trump and his fascist Republican co-conspirators?
Will they wake up before pro-Russian President Donald Trump and pro-Russian American fascists complete their betrayal of Ukraine, international law, and the U.N. Charter-based international legal order?
Who knows? As of today, the signs are not encouraging.
Sadly, America is no longer the“ shining city on a hill” people around the world have looked to for inspiration, a shining model of democracy, a country which fought two world wars in the 20th century to resist aggression, and World War II to defeat fascism in Nazi Germany.
People acquiesce.
***
Yet there is anther way.
We must not lose our faith in Democracy and the Rule of Law.
What can we do?
What can you do?
You can contribute to the Restore American Democracy Fund, to sustain the efforts of those wholike this writer are fighting, every day, to keep the flame of freedom and democracy burning in the minds of readers, and through them others.
Contribute now. Here. And to others who are already fighting fascism in the United States and to defeat Russia in Ukraine, thereby upholding international law and the U.N. Charter-based international legal order (sometimes referred to as “the rules-based international order”).
Join the movement.
Contribute to the “Restore American Democracy Fund-- Support Engaged Writers” on
GoFundMe, here.
***
About the Author
James Rowles is a former Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School and professor of international law at other universities.
He studied the history of Nazi Germany at Stanford, and has studied and worked on human rights, judicial reform, and access to justice projects in many countries in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and in Afghanistan and Russia. At Harvard Law School, he taught a course on “Law, Human Rights, and the Struggle for Democracy in Latin America”.
At the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) of the OAS, he worked on human rights cases involving forced disappearances, executions, and torture in a number of authoritarian countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Recent Books by the Author
James P. Rowles, The Rape of American Democracy: Republican Actions and Democratic Failures, 2016-2021 (2024). Available on Amazon, and from IngramSpark by clicking on a link here.
James P. Rowles, Don’t Be Stupid. Pay Attention, Damn It! Advice for Undecided Voters and Voters Leaning Toward Trump (2024). Available on Amazon,and from IngramSpark by clicking on a link here.
Support the newsletter and the Author
We encourage you to join the community that supports the Trenchant Observations newsletter and the author’s books.
You may sign up for a free subscription to the newsletter. But to receive all of the content as soon as it is published and to support the newsletter, please upgrade to a Paid or Founding Member subscription. To do so, click on the “Subscribe now” button below.
You may also make a contribution to help support the author and his books directly by sending a Zelle or a wire transfer. For further details, please contact the author at jrowles93@gmail.com.
Alternatively, you may respond to the author’s Go Fund Me appeal by clicking on the last button below. The funds take one-two weeks to get to his bank account, and are subject to a fee (2.9% plus $0.30).
There is a new title for the GoFundMe appeal —”Restore American Democracy Fund - Support Engaged Writers”.
I am uploading a revised description of this appeal, GoFundMe will pause this appeal while the compliance team reviews its content, It may take a couple days for the compliance team (humans) to “unpause” the appeal so that it can again accept donations. In the meantime, you may make a contribution by Zelle as explained below.
We greatly appreciate the donations of those who halve already contributed.
Finally, in addition to subscriptions and contributions, you can buy the books listed above, read them, and send me your comments and reactions.
Yes. We need to rally around the flag, take our power back to the people and hold all those working to dismantle democracy accountable.