Why impeachment matters

The evidence is both clear and overwhelming that the President of the United States attempted to extort a foreign country for his own political gain. It was a flagrant abuse of the power of his office, and it is precisely the kind of behavior the Founders had in mind when they included the mechanism of impeachment in the Constitution. The U.S. House should vote to impeach Donald Trump, and the Senate should hold a fair and thorough trial to determine if the president should be removed from office.

There’s some question about what form that trial will take, but there is little doubt the Senate won’t muster enough Republican votes to remove the president. So why bother with impeachment? Is it worth this exercise to further inflame a country that already is so profoundly divided?

We believe it is. We believe impeachment matters, in Washington and here.

Impeachment matters not only because Congress has a duty to impede a president who has become a threat to our Constitution, but because all Americans need to stand up and declare when behavior veers past disagreeable and into dangerous. If we don’t — if we shrug and say that protesting Donald Trump’s actions won’t matter — then we declare instead that such behavior is normal, so long as your party holds more seats than the other party. It’s another boundary that’s erased, another normalization that becomes a part of our political landscape, both nationally and locally.

Impeachment matters not just in Washington but wherever leaders have misguided notions about the trappings of power. We know a little bit about what that’s like in North Carolina. Here, corruption long ago stained Democratic leadership in the General Assembly and the governor’s office. Here, Republican leaders have more recently skirted rules and cast away norms, insisting along the way that this is what you get to do when you’re in the majority.

North Carolina’s voters thankfully have disagreed with that notion. They punished Democratic lawmakers nearly a decade ago and sent a similar warning to Republicans in 2018. Each was a healthy reminder that there are boundaries to behavior, and that each election presents an opportunity to demonstrate what we believe those limitations are.

The same is true nationally, but our U.S. Constitution makes clear that Congress should not simply cede that power to voters. The House and the Senate have a duty to protect us from a president who threatens our country’s core values. North Carolina’s representatives should thoughtfully consider the charges against Trump, and if the articles of impeachment are sent to the Senate, Richard Burr and Thom Tillis should pursue a rigorous examination of the president. We’re dismayed that Tillis, at least, already appears to have made up his mind before his chamber conducts one interview. Impeachment is less meaningful if the outcome is predetermined by the party line.

Still, impeachment matters. The House should say, and America should hear, that Donald Trump violated our trust. It should declare that the president has threatened our global policy agenda by putting his interests over our country’s. It should, most of all, send a clear and forceful message that the office you hold does not grant you the power to do what you want, whether that office is in a municipal building or state capital or the White House. It is a message that matters — or at least should matter — to everyone.

This story was originally published December 18, 2019 at 5:00 AM.