Tired of politics? Stand by these values.
We must resist any politician, regardless of party, who wants to undermine voters and use our Constitution and justice system for ideological ends.
Leading up to a likely Trump vs. Biden face-off for the presidency, a Pew Research Center report released in the fall found that most Americans — 65% of us — are exhausted by politics.
Some politicians are playing on this weariness to subvert democratic norms, simply to get a “win” for their party. We must resist the urge to bless this behavior, even when it suits our politics.
The U.S. House of Representatives’ use of its impeachment powers in recent years has become so de rigueur, one would think an impeachment vote is part of Congress’ ceremonial duties. Former President Donald Trump’s detractors wielded impeachment against him twice, in 2019 and 2021. He was acquitted both times, including on charges of inciting an insurrection. But that didn’t stop Democratic-controlled Colorado and Maine from throwing the former president off of their states’ ballot for 2024, citing the Constitution’s insurrection clause. You cannot protect democratic norms by subverting them.
And then there’s the barrage of legal attacks on the former president. Last week, a judge in New York ordered Trump to pay almost $355 million in fines and banned him from doing business in New York for three years. The ruling was seen as so outrageous and partisan that even the left-wing MSNBC raised an alarm. Host Katy Tur said during an on-air segment that in the past 70 years, no judge has ever used the law to levy that type of punishment without evidence of harm. “Is this fair to go after Donald Trump like this in this environment?” Tur inquired.
Republicans have also not shied away from invoking constitutional measures. In a party-line vote in December, House Republicans authorized an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. This, despite some Republicans questioning whether the president’s actions really met the constitutional muster for impeachment. “Impeachment should not be political by any stretch,” said Rep. Mike Lawler (R., N.Y.). “We’ve seen what happens when Congress acts in a political matter. It does not serve the interests of the American people in any way.”
That concern was not top of mind when Republicans voted last week to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over the administration’s border policies. Yes, there’s a near-ironclad argument to be made that the border crisis is precipitated by bad policy, woeful neglect, and the general incompetence of Mayorkas and the president. However, one need not be a legal scholar to know such failings do not meet the impeachment threshold. Despite the crisis and harm caused to our country, voters should be the ultimate arbiter.
And it should be the voters who decide whether President Biden is mentally fit to serve, not elected politicians or political appointees. That truth didn’t stop a handful of Republicans calling for an invocation of the 25th Amendment last week to remove Biden from office. This came on the heels of a U.S. Department of Justice report that found the president “could not remember basic facts about his life.” Biden aided his detractors by calling a news conference where he confused the presidents of Egypt and Mexico in a bid to prove he was not, as the DOJ claimed, an “elderly man with a poor memory.”
But even Trump knew enough to reject removing Biden from the presidency by constitutional fiat. “He’ll be tried by the ballot box,” Trump told supporters at a rally in South Carolina last week. Perhaps Trump was recalling when members of his own cabinet considered invoking the 25th Amendment against him after his behavior during and after the riots of Jan. 6, 2021.
Yes, most Americans wish for better choices for president in 2024 than Biden and Trump. In a poll released by Reuters in January, 67% of respondents said they were “tired of seeing the same candidates in presidential elections and want someone new.”
Still, we have something to be optimistic about. Despite the misery over candidates, a record number of us have been turning out to vote. The elections of 2018, 2020, and 2022 had some of the highest voter turnout in decades.
Instead of succumbing to partisan animosity and the erosion of democratic norms, Americans are standing firm in defense of the values that have sustained us through past trials. That’s why every citizen, regardless of ideology, must resist the temptation to defeat the opposition by any means other than the ballot box.