People keep asking me why I don’t jump on the Trump impeachment bandwagon, why instead I’m so fixated on regime change in Congress 2018.
It’s very simple . . . ASYMMETRY.
What do I mean by asymmetry? In a nutshell . . .
Congress can impeach a president but a president can’t impeach Congress.
Less snappy but more incisive and revealing . . .
Congress can contravene a president’s actions but a president cannot contravene what Congress does.
Yes, a president can veto bills. But if there are 67 senators and 290 members of the House who want to pass a law, there is nothing a president can do but honor the will of Congress.
When I talk about regime change in Congress, I’m certainly talking about such numbers. My recent articles call for replacing all 33 senators and at least 400 of the 435 running for the House of Representatives in the 2018 election. No . . . I’m not joking.
And you should be taking this very seriously too.
Whether you call the resulting legislature a progressive Congress, a people’s Congress, a populist Congress — the label really isn’t important — it would decisively include elected representatives who will actually represent the voters who elected them to office.
This means we can be assured it will do many of the critical things the current batch of self-serving, elitist, corrupt, morally bankrupt, duplicitous, lying thieves won’t ever do. Things that in poll after poll, the American people say they want done.
This current Congress — Republicans and Democrats alike — simply refuses to:
- Protect Social Security and Medicare, making them effective and fiscally sound.
- Make the minimum wage commensurate with a living wage, at least $12.50 per hour.
- Provide affordable universal health care, probably built around a single-payer system.
- Make the rich pay their fair share, returning to the tax rates of the 60s and 70s.
- Make corporations also pay their fair share, plus eliminate corporate welfare.
- End the senseless, self-sabotaging wars and advance a sensible DOD budget.
- Actually rebuild our nation’s crumbling infrastructure, not just talk about it.
- End the democracy-destroying impact of the Citizens United decision, and get serious about getting money out of politics.
Asymmetry. If a veto-proof Congress passed any of the above, it wouldn’t matter if Darth Vader was president, there’s nothing he could do. And if he dragged his feet implementing and enforcing such laws, then if worse comes to worse, we’re back to impeachment.
At the same time, if a president like Trump tried to pull any of the stuff he’s pulling right now with a truly representative Congress in place, there would be a serious shit storm of blow back.
Build a wall? Pass a law forbidding use of any government funds or resources for it.
Start a war with Iran? Repeal the Defense Authorization Acts and any related laws which allow discretionary use of military power by the president, then pass legislation forbidding any hostile military, economic, or cyber acts without explicit permission of Congress.
Abolish the Department of Education or EPA? Pass a law reinstating them and take away all discretion over the budgets for those departments from the executive branch.
You get the idea. Let me offer my opening shot again for it to sink in.
Congress can impeach the president but the president can’t impeach Congress.
Let’s backtrack here a bit, as I inject some harsh reality into this discussion.
As long as the orange autocrat stays on his present course, this Congress isn’t going to impeach him. Trump is an ADHD imbecile but in terms of pushing the domestic agenda of the far right — the sinister core principles of the current mutant Republican Party — he is Paul Ryan’s wet dream. As far as foreign policy goes, maybe John McCain and Bonnie Watson Coleman need to bitch slap Trump a bit to get him on board with the annihilate Russia program, but the Trumpster has been a godsend for the war hawks. The sabers are rattling across the Middle East, intimidation of Iran and the Chinese is being cranked up to fever pitch, the administration is threatening North Korea with pre-emptive military strikes, and Trump has proposed an unprecedented 10% increase in the defense budget.
What else could the Rethugs possibly want of their ornery Tweeter of a leader?
But if they did impeach him, in Mike Pence we are looking at more of the same at double the speed with twice the intelligence. The Republican establishment loves him. It’ll be a group hug that’ll make Ann Coulter tear up like a Betsy Wetsy doll.
So let’s stop wasting time and energy on something that in all probability won’t happen and even if it did won’t eliminate the nightmare that Donald Trump represents. As I indicated in my previous article, their bench is deep. Until we remove all these monsters from the power centers of our government — starting with Congress — they’ll continue to be a plague on our nation.
Trump will do a lot of damage but this Congress will do more. The president is powerful but Congress can isolate and immobilize even the most belligerent president.
Asymmetry. The president is not a king. Asymmetry is fundamental to the relationship between the executive and legislative branches of government.
Let’s use it to our advantage. Let’s focus on where the real power is. Time to target the corrupt, pay-for-play puppet show at the east end of the National Mall.
Let’s put our energies into making a difference that will make a difference.
Regime change in Congress 2018!
