When the word may is used, you know nothing is going to happen. It is a word to allow for an out—permission to do nothing. No offense to the word may, but it is such a passive word. A strong bold word is will or shall. When those two words are used, you know something is about to happen.
Speaker Pelosi, in speaking about the removal of the lame duck, didn’t say the House will or shall impeach the lame duck if the 25th Amendment is not invoked, she used the word may. She and the House Democrats have no intention of drawing up Articles of Impeachment again.
She, Biden, and I’m pretty certain, Schumer, all want to come out with their “strong” words and garner their sound bites. Once again it will be all talk and no action. No action is what got us here in the first place. The Democrats are as weak and feckless as the trumplicans are liars and bullies.
The larger problem is none of our elected leaders want to take responsibility in holding the lame duck accountable. None of the Cabinet want to take responsibility in holding the lame duck accountable.
Our Constitution lays out several ways to remove an elected president. Vote him or her out of office. Impeachment, conviction, and removal. Invoking the 25th Amendment. However, if everyone is afraid to use any of these methods laid out by our Founders and additions to the Constitution, a president really is above the law.
The current lame duck counts on this inaction. He has been taught, and he has confirmed through trial and error, he truly can do anything without any consequences. Even though the people have spoken, he still believes he will not have to leave office. So far, those who follow him due to being completely out-of-touch with reality, or are out to raise money while attracting the lame duck’s followers, have fed his, and his follower’s, alternative reality.
Sadly, and perhaps appropriately, if the Democrats do nothing, they will have two short years of holding Congress and the Presidency.
We did not elect them solely because of their supposed care of the American people in pain. We elected them mainly because we wanted to save the country from the trumplicans. We elected them to truly and fully hold the lame duck, the trumplicans, and the sycophants accountable. We elected them to help heal the country, to move us forward, but not before justice has been served.
It is my hope I am proven wrong and Articles of Impeachment are voted on as early as this evening. The realist in me knows this will not happen.
Unfortunately, the realist in me also knows this group of anti-democratic elected and appointed officials will not be held accountable in the long run. Because of that, their will be, sooner than we would like to accept, a smarter, more charismatic, richer autocrat who will win. In that win, this man or woman will bring the country to its knees and over the abyss into autocracy or worse.
When that happens, historians will look back and be able to point to 2020 as the tipping point. Because the elected Democrats did nothing in 1980 to stop the policies of Ronald Reagan, did nothing when George W. Bush’s people successfully propagandized and stole his election, did nothing to combat the Republicans holding legislating hostage during Obama, and did nothing to hold the lame duck fully accountable by all legal means possible, our country will be lost to an autocrat or worse.
What I mean by did nothing is, they didn’t ever learn how to play hard ball, ethically, morally, and legally. They did not learn how to beat trumplicans at messaging. They did not learn to exercise the fullness of their power in holding people ignoring subpoenas in contempt and have them arrested. They did not learn how to appeal to the masses. That is what I mean by nothing. It is very hard to win when the playbook doesn’t change.
It is by the grace of black women the Democrats won the White House, and now the Senate. Speaker Pelosi and President-elect Biden, do not waste the sacrifices and determination of blacks and people of color, nor of whites, gays, progressives, liberals, and the many others in the Democrat’s coalition.
Hold the trumplican’s accountable by starting this very minute to remove the lame duck. Do not pass the buck because you do not want to take the heat. You were elected to take the heat.
Many of us are counting on you. Call the House to order, introduce, then vote on Articles of Impeachment.
Do it now, post haste!
Personal Reflections of a Middle-Aged Man 