Them Damned Poster Boys

Most Americans of voting age know that false and misleading statements are a part in politics.

But Donald Trump’s lies are different in their number and purpose.

Like the Putins, Kims and Bolsonaros he admires, Donald Trump uses lies to disorient, discredit and dominate. They keep the electorate angry and uncertain.

His ‘alternative facts’ double back on themselves, becoming more and more incredible in an effort to give cover to his earlier lies.

Impeachment can be triggered by a wide range of abuses under Article II, Section IV of our Constitution. Fact-checking organizations confirm that Donald Trump has given us thousands of reasons to start the process.

Within just days of taking office, Donald Trump told his most dangerous lie.

It was all the more dangerous because the Republican-controlled 115th Congress let him get away with it.

The newly inaugurated president went before the nation and lied that three or four million illegal votes had been cast in the presidential election. Never happened.

Donald Trump was willing to poison our trust in our electoral process because he was in a snit after losing the popular vote by an embarrassing margin. He went as far as creating a bogus commission to investigate voter fraud state-election authorities officially certified did not exist.

The danger is that Donald Trump’s lie was a practice run and that he’ll use it again in 2020. Unbelievable.

If you think impeachment is about removing a president from office, you’re only partly right.

It doesn’t matter whether a president is actually dismissed, the very process of impeachment is a vital exercise in checks and balances, one that helps keep our democratic system healthy and in working order.

Article II, Section 4 specifically empowers Congress to step up and protect the nation from grifters and liars.

Even if a president is ultimately acquitted, impeachment shines daylight on questionable behavior and spawns a national debate that clarifies the lines a president can’t cross. Citizens are enabled through their elected representatives.

If the One Hundred Sixteenth Congress were to find reason to impeach Donald Trump (a possibility with any president), it would set a valuable marker for future generations of Americans.

Our Founding Fathers gave us the power to impeach. They bequeathed it to us not just as a right, but as an obligation.

Our Founding Fathers were well aware that a dishonest and disturbed man or woman would occupy the White House from time to time.

They gave us a constitutional auto-immune system to help us survive our mistakes, with the ballot box being our first and most powerful line of defense.

This year’s mid-term elections are only months away — thirty-seven states and D.C. offer early voting.

It’s important to verify your voter registration now. A remarkable number of properly registered citizens have been wrongly purged from voter rolls. Deliberate voter suppression is a fact of life. almost exclusively in Republican-controlled jurisdictions.

Simply search online for your state’s election board to find a website or a number to call. I was able to verify my status in less than 4 minutes.

To be fair to Donald Trump, he is not Adolf Hitler.

But they both promised to make their countries “great” again. Both are selling an ugly, false greatness. Theirs is a vision of greatness that can absolutely destroy a nation like ours.

The Fuhrer convinced his followers they were morally and racial superior by preaching that certain groups were sub-humans who preyed on society. Genocide followed.

Donald Trump has his own vocabulary drenched in hatred and fear. He is given to Nuremburg-style rallies that had served the Nazi so well.

Trump followers argue that he’s simply ‘trolling’ his political adversaries — just being Trump — and that we should laugh off his jokes about violence. Yuck it up, America.

Eighty years ago, on the other side of the Atlantic, decent citizens who saw themselves a pillars of society surrendered their souls. By remaining silent they were complicit.

The U.S. Constitution equips us with the power to impeach a president who threatens our country. The Founders didn’t assign that awesome power as a gift. They gave it to us as a responsibility to be used soberly. We will have to see.