Donald Trump Should Be Impeached, But That Doesn’t Mean He Will Be

Donald Trump should be impeached. For me it’s for one main reason, and I’ll admit that the reasoning will never be enough to actually allow for an impeachment to happen, nor should it. I also understand the difficult and complicated process through which an impeachment must work, and I support this. Removing the person elected to run our country should and must be a difficult task.

It’s not enough to simply be undereducated, misinformed and stupid, as George W. Bush proved.

It’s not enough to be a lying adulterer with questionable standards of morals, as Bill Clinton proved.

It’s not enough to be African-American and disliked by a bunch of racists, as Barack Obama proved.

Rather, it takes something quite a bit more than that for a President to seriously face impeachment. Proven treason, to roughly sum it up, is about what it takes for this to happen. And while Trump continues to do something nearly every single day that adds to the list of reasons why he is a terrible choice for President, as of yet he hasn’t done anything (or it hasn’t been proven) that can be considered treasonous.

Sure, if he colluded with the Russians prior to the election — that might be enough to fall into the classification of treason, seeing how it undermined our process of democracy.

Sure, if he actually did give Russia confidential intelligence, a move that could well leave our own citizens at great risk both here and abroad — that might fall into the treason category.

But all of these things are still being investigated and looked into, and as such still fall short as reasons for impeachment. I do feel that the talks of impeachment are well-warranted, however, since all of these things that Trump has done, as well as the allegations that keep coming against him, all suggest should he be given enough time, he will inevitably commit some treasonous act against our country. And with him proving himself to be as stupid as suspected, the act will probably come without him having any awareness to whether or not he should have done it in the first place.

As it stands now, unfortunately, we are stuck with this imbecile as our President. And every day longer that he remains in office is another slap in the face in the progress of humanity, and it’s here that I find my own personal reasoning for wanting to see this man gone. I’ve disagreed with very nearly all of his choices thus far, and I’ve taken great pleasure in watching the failure of the spectacularly bad ones, but even still I’ve never thought nor argued that any of these things should or could be enough to warrant his removal from office.

No, the reasons I want to see him removed is solely because of his blatant disregard to facts and the truth. Facts obviously have no effect on Trump. He lies so quickly and often that by the time the rest of us have fact-checked and disproven whatever it is that he’s said, he’s already on to the next lie. We can fact-check him all we want; he will never care, and he will never stop bullshitting us. It’s what he does, and it’s who he is.

Granted, I know that all politicians lie to some extent. I’m not so naive to think that Hillary or Bernie or any other candidate in this past Presidential race would be some perfect exemplification of truth and honesty in politics. But I realize that a majority of the average politician’s lies have little to do with that person’s lack of moral standard, nor their disregard for the facts of a matter. Oftentimes they make promises because it’s what the people want to hear, or because it’s what they actually intend to do, and because politics are politics, these things don’t happen for any myriad of reasons. Rarely do we get politicians so boldly lying to our face with such a repetition as what we are seeing from Trump.

To ignore this would be to willfully cooperate with what should be seen as a detriment to the progress of humanity. We live in an age where information has never been so readily attainable and easily accessible, and it’s because of this that the importance of distinguishing between what is truth and what is not should be held at the highest level. You should note that I said that we live in an age where information is attainable and accessible, saying nothing of whether that information was true or false. As we all saw in this past election cycle, fake news is just as easily obtained and spread and believed (it sadly seems that it is more easily believed) as the truth is.

And this is somewhat understandable. As I said earlier, we all know that all politicians lie to some extent. In the same sense, we also know that many news organizations operate from a position of bias. It’s no secret that Fox News leans in support of Republicans and conservatives, while something like CNN leans Democratic and liberal. We’ve learned to accept this, and it’s sad because we shouldn’t have. The standard for what we accept in certain people has fallen to such new lows that it was truly inevitable that we would end up with an election sullied by fake or questionable news, coming down to two candidates with so much dirt on them that we wouldn’t ever allow the same characteristics of either to be characteristics we would find in our own close friends, or, hell, even our close acquaintances.

We’ve learned to accept the liars, and if not liars then the ones who bend the truth to fit their predisposed bias, and because of this we are now all forced to feed on the bullshit. It’s hard to say that we don’t deserve this.

It’s not philosophically revolutionary to seek truth above all else. This is the standard we should all seek and hold to. But it seems that the standard carries less importance with it today than it honestly should. That’s why I think it’s imperative that Trump be removed from office. Not for the fact that he lies, but as an example to all of humanity that one cannot and should not be able to ignore the truth and face no repercussions for doing so. No one, most especially the leader of our country, should be above the truth. No one should be able to flat-out lie to our faces and then go on as though nothing has happened.

Lies have consequences, but only as long as the truth still matters. Right now Trump is facing very few consequences for his lying, and it’s because he’s made it so clear that the truth doesn’t matter at all to him. What certainly doesn’t help the situation is that he now also holds the highest position of political power in the world, but in another way, maybe it does help.

He’s now facing scrutiny that he’s never faced before in his life. All eyes are on him, and outside of the millions of eyes who also choose not to care about the legitimacy of his claims are the millions of eyes who are seeking the truth, and subsequently, the punishments due to someone of such great power who also cares so little about what impact or damage his words could have.

Today everyone feels as though their opinion matters, and while this is not even remotely true, it’s still something I’ll let people live with. You’re entitled to your own opinions, but you are never entitled to your own facts. That’s the magnificence of fact; it transcends whatever personal feelings any of us may have on the matter.

A president entitled to his own facts also deserves little more than the ignominious title an impeachment would bring with it. But that’s just my opinion.