[REVISED] Misdirected Outrage: There is only one overriding issue--The Impeachment of Trump
BACKGROUND
See,
1)James Rowles, “Sleepwalking in the garden of fascism: ‘Merrily we roll along!'” The Trenchant Observer, June 2, 2021.
The link is to the Wayback Machine. The Trenchant Observer site has been hacked, and is no longer directly accessible. Articles may be found, however, on The Wayback Machine (Internet Archive). The article cited is also republished in the following books:
James P. Rowles, The Rape of American Democracy: Republican Actions and Democratic Failures, 2016-2021, Chapter 95,, at pp. 270-72 (2024).
James P. Rowles, Don’t Be Stupid. Pay Attention, Damn It! Advice for Undecided Voters and Voters Leaning Toward Trump, Chapter 5, at pp. 221-23 (2024).
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We are long past the time to be describing the outrages of Trump and persuading others to share our outrage. Criticizing particular actions, while still important, is largely beside the point when the one critical issue is the impeachment and removal of Trump from the presidency.
J.D. Vance is evil like Trump, but he lacks his charisma and will not be a strong candidate in 2028. Nor does he have the cult following that Trump has.
Republicans are not afraid of him like they are afraid of Trump, and he will not be able to enforce Republican unity the way Trump has been able to do.
So there is really no reason not to be concentrating all of our efforts on the impeachment and removal of Trump.
Why is this goal so hard for Democrats to see, and so hard for them to act to achieve?
First, Trump is entertaining in his madness, in his mad efforts to dismantle the government and its programs as he seeks to amass unlimited power and uses it as a tyrant directing the arbitrary abuse if state power.
Second, Democrats are accustomed to thinking only about the next election for their seat.
Third, and related to the second factor above, Democrats cannot wean themselves from their fundamental belief that voters cast their ballots on the basis of rational calculations of what policies and decisions are in their interests. This, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Fourth, Democrats don’t understand or accept how brilliantly successful Republicans have been in using lies and propaganda to deceive voters about the real content of their laws and policies. A prime example has been the success of their propaganda about what’s in Trump’s “big beautiful law”. Facing voters who believe the propaganda dished out to them or who are simply clueless members of the cult of Trump, legislators do not fear these voters’ reactions at the polls, which are more distant and more uncertain than the immediate wrath of Trump directed against anyone who crosses him.
Fifth, legislators today have cushy jobs. All or nearly all of them are millionaires. With few exceptions, they have no fire in the belly. Many have no careers to step back into if they leave office. Many fear becoming pariahs in the Republican circles they have moved and thrived in. Post-Congressional jobs may depend on their good standing in the Republican community from where they come.
We know Trump.
We know he is lawless, has no repect for the Constitution, and is in the process of building a fascist regime which can never be reversed. We know he doesn’t care about ordinary people, and is determined to give huge tax breaks to the rich while taking health care and food benefits from the poor and the middle class (as previously defined).
On foreign policy, we know that Trump supports and has been complicit in the Israeli commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. We know that he is complicit in Israel’s war of aggression against Iran beginning on June 13, 2025. We know that in addition to his complicity in Israeli aggression against Iran he has himself directly committed the international crime of aggression by bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities on June 22, 2025.
We know Trump doesn’t give a damn about the United Nation’s Charter and international law. We know he seeks to pressure Russia into a peace deal that would recognize as Russian the Ukrainian territories acquired by the illegal use of force in violation of the U.N. Charter and peremptory norms of international law. We know that such recognition would violate the Stimson Doctrine, which has been a key component of U.S. foreign policy for over 90 years (since 1932).
If you disagree with these assertions, your disagreement is not with this author but rather with the United Nations Charter and international law itself.
We know that Trump has dismantled USAID which distributed humanitarian aid throughout the world, and that without that aid tens of millions of people including women and children will die.
We know that Trump gave unlimited access to Elon Musk and others (anyone he chose, whose identities are unknown) to the nation’s most highly classified intelligence, and that the nation’s intelligence information and operations have been irredeemably compromised.
We know that over his career Trump’s actions, if not always his words,have unwaveringly served the interests of Vladimir Putin and Russia.
His latest threat to impose 100% tariffs on Russian goods is meaningless because the U.S. has virtually no trade with Russia under the current sanctions regime.
The threatened imposition of 100% tariffs on countries who do business with Russia (secondary sanctions) is potentially of great importance, though it remains to be seen if such tariffs will ever be imposed.
Trump has given Putin 50 days to reach a ceasefire in Ukraine. That deadline is likely to come and go. Judging from past experience, the secondary sanctions are not likely to be imposed.
We know Trump, and the kind of fascist government he is building.
It is time for Americans to wake up and stop expressing astonishment at Trump’s actions and policies.
Rather, it is time to impeach him and remove him from office.
To do that Democrats need to focus on the 20 or 30 swing elections they have a chance of winning in 2026 and, as we have suggested before, to launch an all-out campaign against the Republican incumbents in these positions, who are currently empowering Trump to impose his arbitrary will on the country.
It is possible that as Republicans see more clearly the campaign they will be running against in 2026, they could become less fearful of and pliant to the will of Trump. In any event, such campaigns will help shape opinion in those districts and states now, when it might make a difference.
Once they secure majorities in the Senate and the House, the Democrats can turn their attention to expanding the membership of the Supreme Court, and reversing its decisions that have upheld Trump’s unconstitutional actions and policies and granted him immunity that places him above the law
Then the Democrats can turn their attention to rebuilding the government institutions and programs Trump has so wantonly and lawlessly destroyed.
America is both an ideal and a democracy the American people have built over the last 249 years.
We must pledge ourselves to never give up on that ideal of American democracy, no matter how much damage is done to it by a tyrant elected by a misled and uninformed electorate.
FURTHER READING
1)James Rowles, “REPRISE: A Parable of our time: “Our democratic house is on fire!; With Questions for classroom discussion and other conversations, Trenchant Observations, December 28, 2024.
First published in The Trenchant Observer, September 23, 2021, reprinted in James P. Rowles, The Rape of American Democracy: Republican Actions and Democratic Failures, 2016-2021 (2024).
2)James Rowles, “What can we do?How can we stop the fascist coup that is underway? Trenchant Observations, February 2, 2025.
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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.
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