Let's Discuss the Impeachment Trial

Todays Writing

Today's piece will contain a lot of my personal opinion. I wanted to warn everyone because I don’t want everything I say to be deemed as factual. I’m writing this piece today to help myself and others get a better understanding of the situation. All of the stuff I will write about will be backed up with evidence, but I will use this evidence to help myself form an opinion.

The situation I want to cover is Trump's impeachment trial, which will start on February 9th. I wanted to talk more about why this trial is important and why I think it needs to happen. I also want to look at many other people's opinions, more on the right, and what they think of the situation.

As we all know I am left-leaning, but I try to keep everything as neutral as possible. I’m very open to hearing other people's opinions along with explanations. Anyways I wanted to talk about that before I continue with what I want to write about.

Trump's First Impeachment

This is not the first time former president Donald Trump was impeached. On December 18th, 2019, Donald Trump was impeached for the first time, making him the third president to be impeached. The reason for his impeachment was due to abuse of power. He made a phone call with the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, calling to request that they investigate a company that Joe Biden’s son worked for.

This phone call caused a lot of controversy and debate between the two parties. Who was in the right? Was this really illegal? And it’s still up for debate! But at the end of the day, Trump was still impeached but not convicted.

Now that you know somewhat of Trump's first impeachment, keep it in the back of your mind. When I talk about the second impeachment I will talk about how the first one influenced it and relates to it.

Leading up to the Second Impeachment

There’s no doubt that Donald Trump got away with a lot of questionable things in his past. He also said a lot of controversial things during his presidency. Oftentimes he’d make seemingly racist remarks like calling covid-19 the Kung-flu virus. He was called out for a lot of the things he said in the media but never suffered any consequences.

Because Trump didn’t suffer any consequences, he’d pretty much say and do whatever he wanted. So after the election was 100% completed, he claimed that it was stolen. He knew if he claimed that the election was stolen that many of his Republican colleagues would follow along. Ted Cruz would often Tweet out about voter fraud, and he even voted against Arizona’s electoral college votes. Since Trump suffered no consequences for irking many republicans to think there was voter fraud, he would cause the insurrection at the Capitol.

This is also a topic up for debate. Did Donald Trump encourage the riot at the Capitol? Obviously, Trump had something to do with it by telling people to go protest at the Capitol. He also allowed many of his supporters to believe in the baseless conspiracy theories surrounding voter fraud.

Why Did People Believe in Voter Fraud?

It’s not hard to get caught up in lies or conspiracy theories. I often find myself doing it all the time. One day in class a student was giving a speech about the butterfly effect. Talking about it and discussing it for a period of time will make me think “hmm this could be true.” But I don’t devote my whole life to believing conspiracy theories.

But that’s just one example of how easy it is to get sucked into these conspiracy theories. I talked about this before in one of my blog posts about how easy it is to believe these theories. When people don’t trust the media, they will turn to things they feel are reliable. And since it’s so easy, they will spend their whole life believing it.

Now, what does this have to do with voter fraud? Conspiracy theories do play a huge role in why people believe the election was stolen. As I said, once they stop trusting the media, they’re not going to believe ANYTHING that comes out of it. So they will turn to the source they trust, and that source is telling them that the election was stolen.

The Second Impeachment

Everyone’s well aware of the second impeachment that happened on January 13th. This one was a very historic impeachment. This is the first time a President will be impeached twice. Now, again, the reason behind the second impeachment can be debated. Did Trump really abuse his power and incite an insurrection on the Capitol? For many people, yes.

This impeachment was also a huge deal because it was one of the biggest bipartisanship for an impeachment trial. 10 Republicans decided to vote to impeach Donald Trump, making it 232 people who voted yes, and 197 who voted no.

How Does the Second Impeachment Relate to the First?

There is actually a huge connection between the two. In the first impeachment, Donald Trump obviously wasn’t worried about being convicted by the senate. Why would he? Republicans had the majority. But the big noticeable thing is how many republicans are willing to say how wrong and dangerous Trump is now vs. his first impeachment trial.

When we take a look back we notice that no republicans wanted to vote to impeach Trump in the house. Looking at the most recent impeachment, 10 republicans wanted to impeach him. Throughout Trump’s presidency, he had many republicans behind him in defense. But when we look at his last moments in office, we see many people aren’t so willing to stand behind Trump anymore.

Some examples are when many republican senators decided to take back their objections to electoral votes in many states. This was a huge deal. Very conservative senators like Loeffler and Graham made up their minds after they realized how dangerous that insurrection was.

Many Republicans did know how dangerous and out of hand Trump could possibly get, but once they experienced it on their own, they finally decided enough was enough. Seeing how many republicans aren’t willing to back Trump now vs. his first impeachment says a lot about the division and damage he’s done to the country.

Is the Second Impeachment Trial Necessary?

Moving on. I want to discuss why I think this trial is actually important and why I think he should be convicted. It is very weird to hold a trial once he’s out of office, and it does seem a little pointless. Like what’s Trump going to do now?

Well, I think one of the most important things is that he doesn’t have the ability to run for any public office again. If the senate does convict him, they will be able to move on to the next vote. This vote would allow senators to decide if he has the ability to run for anything ever again. After seeing the division and damage in our country, I think it’s time America learns a lesson about the people we do elect into office.

America isn’t the only one that needs to suffer from the mistakes, the person who caused a handful needs to learn. Even though this insurrection could be deemed as on purpose, let’s call it a mistake for right now. Everyone deserves punishment if they do something really bad. I believe that Trump has never been told “no” in his life, and right now is when he needs to be told it the most.

Trump has lived a life filled with wealth. He was never told when he did something wrong as a child, and even as an adult. He was never told that he did anything wrong by his colleagues he worked with, especially the republicans. This plays an effect on people and is why he thinks he can get away with things.

Donald Trump Deserves Punishment

My biggest reason for Trump being convicted is because he does deserve some type of punishment. As I said before, he has never been told no. It’s time he hears it from his own colleagues.

If Trump receives punishment, he won’t feel as powerful. Knowing he could possibly never run for any public office again could really change something. It’s also important for him to know this from his fellow republicans he worked hard with. Especially Mitch McConnell.

McConnell did play a huge role in how Trump got away with things, but I think McConnell is finally over Trump. The important thing is, McConnell always fed into Trump's lies and went along with them. The fact that McConnell now realizes that Trump was possibly a huge mistake is a big deal, but a late one.

Now for the Connection

I understand that a lot of this seems repetitive, but it all makes sense. If you haven’t made the connection in your head yet, let me explain.

While Trump grew up his whole life with pretty much everything handed to him, that creates a superiority complex. He gets away with it all.

He goes on to saying controversial things without any backlash. With no backlash this allows Trump to continue on with his life.

Trump runs for president and wins. All through his presidency, he works with republicans who only tell him what he wants to hear.

Since Trump always relies on his Republican colleagues, he knows he won’t be convicted in the first impeachment.

Now comes the second impeachment after the insurrection. Republicans are finally showing their true colors on how they feel about Trump. It’s time to punish.

I would like everyone to keep in mind that this is my opinion. A lot of it is backed up with facts but I was able to form one and come up with a connection on my own.