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Article Artículo

Impeachment Is a Kitchen Table Issue

(This post originally appeared on my Patreon page.)

As the Democrats have pushed ahead with impeachment proceedings, there have been criticisms from both the right and left that impeachment is a needless distraction from the pocketbook issues that people really care about. The argument is that people will see the Democrats as playing political games rather than focusing on health care, jobs, wages, and other issues that directly affect people’s lives.

This sort of argument ignores the world we now live in. First, we have to be clear about the Republican agenda. To put it simply, it is to give all the money to rich people.

This means that not only that they don’t want rich people to pay taxes, the rich also get to cheat workers out of their pay, pollute drinking water, destroy the planet, and do anything else to ordinary people and the environment that might boost their income. Republicans and their allies also design patent and copyright monopolies to give even more money to the rich (both here and overseas) and they structure the digital economy in ways that deny ordinary people any privacy.

It’s true that some Democrats also seem to share much of this agenda, but that’s beside the point. If the Republicans can control the White House and Congress, this is what they will do.

So, is impeachment a distraction from fighting this disastrous agenda? Not at all, impeachment is a necessary step in trying to stop it.

In case people somehow have missed it, Republicans do not care at all about democracy or the rule of law. They will do anything and everything they can get away with to keep power. We see this again and again.

To take one prominent example, Republicans wanted to include a question on citizenship on the Census to discourage immigrants from answering. The explicit purpose was to reduce political representation in areas with large immigrant populations. The Supreme Court ultimately blocked this effort because the Trump administration could not find a plausible reason to include this question, other than to discriminate against immigrants.

Just last week, the Republican leader of Kentucky’s state senate suggested reversing the results of the state’s gubernatorial election (which the Democrat won), based on his assessment that a third party candidate had pulled away enough votes from the Republican to cost him the election. While he seems to have backed away from this position in response to mass public outcry, the fact that he could seriously consider completely ignoring the results of an election shows the lack of respect that Republicans have for democracy and the rule of law.

The Ukraine affair has to be understood in this context. Trump is quite openly using the State Department, the Justice Department, and most likely other branches of government to directly advance his personal and political interests.

CEPR / November 14, 2019

Article Artículo

Government

Impeachment Is a Kitchen Table Issue
The Democrats have been fortunate to have career civil servants who have been willing to risk their careers, if not their lives, by calling attention to Trump’s abuses of power. If the Democrats don’t take advantage of these people’s courage, it is a safe

Dean Baker / November 11, 2019