 Well, it's official. Nancy Pelosi has announced that the House will formally be opening an impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump. Now, I want to talk a little bit about the implications of a potential Donald Trump impeachment because this is a conversation that has been dominating the left sphere of Twitter, and I think it's fascinating and I think it's important. Now, before I get started here, let me just say that there's a lot of moving parts to this story. There's a lot of aspects that I won't be addressing in this particular video. There is the whole issue of Biden and his son. I think that's important. Not going to talk about that here. There is the issue of the scope of this impeachment inquiry. There's inklings that Nancy Pelosi may just limit the scope of this investigation into Ukraine and the phone call between Donald Trump and the Ukrainian Prime Minister. That, I think, would be a disaster and a waste of time. Why not just open up his business interests, you know, all the conflicts of interest? But those are different conversations. What I want to do now is just talk about the potential implications of impeaching Donald Trump. What does this mean politically? So let's start by talking about what impeachment is. Impeachment is a process. As of right now, we are only at the inquiry stage where the House investigates. And if they conclude that he's guilty after conducting an investigation, they then vote on it. Now, a simple majority vote in the House sends it to the Senate, where a public trial is then held. Now, it's obvious Republicans are in control of the Senate, so they will most certainly vote not guilty. So this will ultimately not end in the removal of Donald Trump. That's the most likely outcome. And that's especially true when you consider that it requires a two-thirds majority to convict. So the question is, what's the point? Why even bother? Why would we bother to spend political capital and time on this if it's not going to result in Donald Trump's removal from office? Well, it's because, like I said, impeachment is a process. And it's a certain type of process. It is a legal process. It is not a political process. Now, that doesn't mean that it occurs in a vacuum. Of course, that's not the case. There are political ramifications that are attached to impeachment proceedings. But whether we do or don't open an impeachment inquiry should hinge on one question. Did the president break the law? If the answer is yes, then you should open an impeachment inquiry irrespective of what may or may not be politically expedient. That being said, I do acknowledge that people on the left have a point in saying this is risky. There is a risk. Of course, there's a risk with every action comes a reaction. So whatever we do now could potentially impact our chances of defeating Donald Trump in 2020. Doesn't necessarily mean the effect will be negative only. It could be positive, but it is a risk nonetheless. So I think it's important that we talk about this because there are people who don't want to pursue impeachment because they don't want us to end up in a worse political predicament and I hear you. But ultimately, for me, I don't find these arguments against impeachment persuasive. And I do support impeachment. And the reason why I support impeachment is because I don't necessarily believe that anyone can predict with certainty what is going to happen. The best we can do is look at history and see what happened then. But that still doesn't necessarily mean that that will indicate what is going to happen in the future. But I do think it's important that we have a historical understanding of impeachment and what has happened. The problem is that the sample size for previous impeachments is incredibly small because impeachment proceedings have only been initiated against three presidents, Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. So it's difficult to definitively say that Donald Trump's impeachment will be similar to these presidents, but I think it still is worth looking at what happened when we tried to remove presidents before. And this is all laid out thoroughly in a political article published in January by David Greenberg, who explains when impeachment did and didn't work. And what I want you to take into consideration is the fact that this historical context is incredibly important because throughout the course of American history, there have been certain paradigm shifts with regard to the way that we view impeachment in nonpartisan terms, meaning that both parties viewed impeachment as something that was not politically expedient, overly risky and politically toxic. And then that changed. Sometimes people felt confident that impeachment was a way to remove their political opponents. We're going to get to all of that. But the first thing we should do is talk about the start of it all. We're going back to the 18 hundreds when Andrew Johnson was president. And I get that that seems odd to go that far back when we're in 2019. But I think the context is incredibly important. So Andrew Johnson was Abraham Lincoln's successor. And like Donald Trump, he was a belligerent, petulant in Brazil. He was a buffoon. He was a racist. And he was actively trying to obstruct and undermine the Republican party's reconstruction efforts. Now, this was essentially an incredibly polarizing time. You can imagine it was after the Civil War, there was an endless political battle between Johnson and the Republican Party. But after they widened their lead in Congress, they tried to rein him in, rein in his craziness, if you will. And they passed a law that prohibited a president from firing a member of the cabinet until the Senate voted to confirm his successor. Now, of course, being the petulant child that he was, Andrew Jackson brazenly violated this law and articles of impeachment were subsequently filed. So what ended up happening in that instance? Well, the House ultimately voted to impeach. However, there were some Republicans in the Senate. They were a little bit iffy about impeachment, namely due to the political risks. And also they felt like his VP was worse. Sound familiar? So they were a little bit reluctant to impeach. Now they had the vote and he ended up surviving impeachment by one vote and he survived. He was acquitted. So at that time, impeachment became something that was largely viewed as politically toxic because Andrew Johnson did not get impeached. Now, this was important because it established a political standard. And this standard has essentially carried on until this very day. What's that standard? That impeachment proceedings are not like votes of no confidence in a parliamentary system, right? You can't just vote to remove a president if you disagree with him politically or disagree with his policy positions. You have to have a very high standard. And that high standard has become incredibly relevant today. Constitutional issues have to be at stake. You can't just impeach a president because he is your political opponent. That's what the Jackson impeachment proceedings told us. And everyone in the country after that, they essentially viewed impeachment as something that wasn't worth the risk. So people were so afraid to try impeachment again that it wouldn't happen until a hundred years later with Richard Nixon. During the 1960s, Richard Nixon was also facing his own non-hashtag resistance movement. People were looking for any and all reasons to impeach him and rightfully so. Anti-war activists wanted him impeached over Vietnam and Cambodia. He was also brazenly corrupt and he broke the law by wiretapping journalists and members of government, political opponents. And there were people that felt like they were overreacting like these people who were hell bent on impeaching Richard Nixon. They were just overly alarmist, overly reactionary. And they were seemingly acting as if the sky was falling. Sound familiar? But it wasn't until Watergate that we'd actually start the process of impeachment where Nixon's goons were busted, breaking into the DNC headquarters in an attempt to bug the place. Because remember, he really liked to wiretap and spy on his political opponents. But here's what's remarkable. He was still reelected, reelected. He was busted, breaking into the DNC and trying to literally bug it. And voters said, you know what? You get another term, Nixon. How crazy is that? And at that time, when we were talking about impeachment, can you guess the approval for impeachment even after that scandal? Nineteen percent, I repeat, nineteen percent. So after Richard Nixon did that, he committed a crime and was busted. Americans still didn't want to impeach. Only one in five Americans wanted to impeach. But months later, impeachment proceedings were still initiated, regardless of what public opinion was at that time. And after Americans watched the Watergate hearings play out on national television, well, something began to change. Public support started to shift. Support for Nixon's impeachment started to increase until eventually a solid majority favored impeachment because they were presumably unaware of just how corrupt and lawless Nixon actually was. Now, because Nixon was a belligerent buffoon, much like Donald Trump, he couldn't help himself. So he made matters worse. He tried to obstruct justice in the most brazen way imaginable. He ordered two Justice Department officials to fire the Watergate prosecutor. They did not agree to do that. So they resigned. And this happened, mind you, in October of 1973, and the House Judiciary Committee didn't actually take up impeachment until 1974. And as Greenberg explains, at that point, bipartisan support for Nixon's ouster had grown considerably by the summer when the committee voted on the question several Republicans crossed the aisle to vote A, giving the committee's verdict a moral authority that the campaign against Johnson never possessed. It was congressional Republicans, too, who told Nixon he couldn't survive a Senate trial persuading him to resign. So he ended up resigning in order to save himself the humiliation of being the only president in American history to be convicted and removed from office. But the question is, what was the catalyst? What ultimately were the grounds that they impeached him on? Because remember, there are numerous reasons why people wanted him impeached. Wars, tax dodging, brazen corruption. But the straw that broke the camel's back, ultimately. Well, as Greenberg explains, Congress was in effect building on the Johnson era criteria for presidential impeachment, affirming that constitutional issues had to be at stake. The articles of impeachment that passed centered on Nixon's obstruction of justice, such as using the CIA to try to thwart the Watergate investigation and paying hush money to the Watergate burglar's abuse of power, such as using the IRS and FBI for political vendettas and defiance of congressional subpoenas. So understand what they did here. They built on the precedent that was set, the non-legal precedent that was set, the political precedent that was set after the Johnson impeachment failed miserably. Johnson taught us that we can't just try to remove a president because we disagree with him. So what they tried to do was actually build upon that and impeach him, not for political reasons, but for reasons related to the Constitution obstruction of justice, abuse of power. Now, after the Nixon impeachment, this essentially created a paradigm shift where, remember after Johnson, we were all afraid to talk about impeachment because it was too risky. It was too politically toxic. But after Nixon, we learned that if we do it right and we proceed in a way that is, you know, adhering to a particular set of norms constitutionally speaking, where we're not trying to remove a political opponent because he's passing policies we don't like, but instead for very, very serious crimes such as obstruction and abuse of power, then impeachment can actually work. Maybe it's not so politically toxic. So we went from thinking we should never impeach. It's a waste of time. It's going to backfire to thinking, you know what, maybe impeachment can actually be useful if we use it correctly. But we just have to be careful. So that's a paradigm shift. Impeachment too risky. Impeachment is possible. We just have to use it correctly. Fast forward to the Clinton era when Republicans impeached him essentially because he lied about getting a blow job. Now, of course, that's an oversimplification, but it kind of just goes to show you how confident we were with the notion of impeachment again after Nixon. We were kind of imbued with this new fangled confidence that, you know what, it's not too politically toxic to impeach a president. This is no longer the post Johnson era. This is the post Nixon era. And if we want to impeach a president, we will do that. So Republicans at the time were also accused of being too obstructionist and they tried to bog down Clinton with bogus investigations, witch hunts, if you will, sound familiar. And of course, they were obstructionist. They are still the obstructionist shitheads today that they were back then, except now they're just exponentially worse. But I digress. What was evident is that this was incredibly partisan. They wanted to get him for something. It didn't matter that Clinton was capitulating to Republicans left and right, that he was a new Democrat who was literally implementing their neoliberal policies. They just wanted to get someone who was a political opponent. And the problem with the way they went about this is like the Benghazi hearings and investigations. This was super obvious. It was incredibly transparent. They weren't motivated by a good faith desire to defend the Constitution from a rogue president. They were motivated by a desire to get a political opponent. Now, it wasn't necessarily the affair itself that did it. That wasn't the straw that broke the camel's back. It's the fact that he lied about it under oath and committed perjury that led to his impeachment. But here's what happened. Even after Clinton admitted the affair and apologized, Republicans misread the public mood and forged a head with impeachment proceedings, resulting in a historically rare loss of congressional seats in the November midterm elections for the party not controlling the White House. They held onto enough seats to impeach him on two counts, perjury and obstruction of justice in December. But as they did so, his popularity soared to 73 percent. Surprising to no one, Clinton was acquitted in the Senate with considerable bipartisan support. And let's look at that vote count because you have some Republicans even voting not guilty against Bill Clinton. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what I'd like to call a spectacular failure. I mean, it's easy to see why this backfired tremendously and why people are a little bit hesitant that the same could be true in the case of Donald Trump. But I want you to note how this led to another paradigm shift to where now we're afraid of impeachment again. Maybe it's too politically toxic. Maybe it's not the politically expedient thing to do. So I want you to think about this in a historical context and the way that our views culturally speaking on impeachment have fluctuated in the post Johnson era. We were all terrified of impeachment after Nixon. We got confident, but maybe a little bit too confident, which then led to us seeing the Republicans fail and now thinking, all right, maybe impeachment isn't actually the best course of action after all. So do you understand? This is why people view the issue of impeachment really risky. If Donald Trump were president after Nixon and before Bill Clinton, there wouldn't be as much discussion about impeachment because we all were very confident that it wasn't as politically toxic or wouldn't be as politically toxic as it was during the Jackson era. But now we're in a time where impeachment actually is a little bit more controversial. Now, here's the question that we should be asking ourselves as we open this inquiry into Donald Trump. Will Donald Trump's impeachment end up being like Nixon's or Clinton's? I don't think anybody has a definitive answer to that because, you know, we can't see into the future. But let's examine just some of the details here. There's currently a relatively low level of support for impeaching Donald Trump. It's at 36 percent. Now, is that low? Yes. But it's still not as low as public approval was for impeachment during the Nixon era. So what Nixon taught us is that that can change with time. Now, on top of that, when it comes to whether or not constitutional issues are at stake and if we can actually credibly build on that Johnson era precedent that we set back in the 1800s and the Nixon precedent, well, Trump's own memo demonstrates that he did, in fact, ask the Ukrainian president for dirt on a political opponent, which is illegal. But what I think is more pressing is his obstruction of justice. There were more than 10 instances of obstruction during the Mueller report put aside the Russian investigation. You don't have to agree with that investigation, right? I never thought that collusion would be a possibility. But during that investigation, there were numerous instances of him obstructing justice, even if I were innocent and I were being investigated for selling drugs by the DEA. If I tried to obstruct justice, if I tried to intimidate witnesses during a trial, I would be put away. So the fact that Donald Trump is able to get away with this possibly should be maddening to people who don't believe we should live in a two tiered justice system. Now, on top of that, there's the hush money payments that he paid to Stormy Daniels, which amounts to campaign finance violations. There is his refusal to place his businesses in a blind trust, which puts him in violation of the emoluments clause of the Constitution. There are literally thousands of conflicts of interests that plague Donald Trump's presidency. I mean, the fact that he's still profiting from foreign diplomats and U.S. government officials staying at his properties in and of itself, I think, is impeachable. In my Pence's recent visit to Ireland, he stayed three hours away from Dublin, which is where he knew he needed to be just so he could stay at Donald Trump's hotel. Now, in the event this impeachment inquiry leads to Donald Trump's crimes being televised for months on end, could that potentially have a Nixon type effect and drive down public support for Donald Trump and drive up public approval for impeachment? That is entirely possible. But it's also important to consider the fact that he most likely won't be convicted in a Senate, which means Donald Trump could be another Clinton and his approval could potentially soar if it seems as if he was exonerated. It's also entirely possible, mind you, that something entirely different happens. Donald Trump's corruption could be exposed and that could hurt him in spite of a failure to convict his reputation comes out more tarnished. And we're back to being pro-impeachment again. We don't know how this is going to play out. The one thing that I know for sure is that none of us know for sure. The only certainty is uncertainty. But here's what I do know and the reason why I support impeachment. There's a lot of variables. There's a lot of moving parts. But the reason why we should support impeachment is because of principle. Nobody can say definitively that this will help or hurt the left. But what we do know is that Donald Trump broke the law. And if we choose to not open an impeachment inquiry, if we choose to not pursue impeachment and take it as far as we possibly can, I don't think we're right to keep complaining about the lawlessness and corruption of the ruling class. We should shut up and stop complaining about the two tiered justice system that we have where the poor get locked in cages and elites receive a get out of jail free card when they break the law. Because look, here's the thing. If we're not going to hold elected officials accountable when they are brazenly breaking the law, then we shouldn't be complaining about this corrupt system that we have, because if we're not going to hold elected officials accountable, we are only helping to perpetuate our corrupt system. And these elites will continue to misbehave if they know that we're going to be too afraid to hold them accountable whenever they break the law. So we shouldn't give Donald Trump a pass when he breaks the law just because he's in power and he's an elite. We shouldn't not impeach Donald Trump because we're afraid of what might happen. Nobody knows what will happen. This is a process, so it's important that we don't be fearful and we actually stand our ground and be brave for once. I mean, I've been yelling at Democrats to actually be strong and hold Republicans accountable. So why would I now say, no, no, no, don't actually hold Republicans accountable when it seems like they're inching closer towards holding Republicans accountable for the first time since ever? I mean, why it seems antithetical to our views as progressives? Without being said, that doesn't mean that I believe we should not proceed with caution because this could very well be risky. And the naysayers who were against impeachment on the left, I think that they bring up some valuable things for us to consider. I do. But all of these counter arguments, when you take them into consideration, I don't believe that they are persuasive enough. Now, some are more persuasive than others. Some of them, frankly, are laughable. But with that being said, I do think it's important that we evaluate these counter arguments because you never know what will happen. So I think it's important that we are scrutinizing the situation. I'm in favor of impeachment. But let me tell you my view on some of these counter arguments. I've got a couple here that I've seen. So the first kind of argument is that it will only further divide the country. This one makes no sense to me. It's not even persuasive in the slightest bit. We're already divided. Impeaching Donald Trump isn't going to further the divide. Polarization is a political reality. This is about holding people in power accountable. So I'm not worried about further polarization. We will continue to grow further apart. So long as capitalism takes full control of these parties and Republicans continue to become more and more extreme and fascistic. Second counter argument will get Mike Pence. Now, two years ago, this argument would have resonated with me more. But now when we're approaching 2020, we're what, 13 months away? Let's say, hypothetically speaking, impeachment is successful and Donald Trump is removed from office. Mike Pence is sworn in. Here's the thing about Mike Pence. Is he more politically savvy? Could he potentially do more damage from a policy standpoint? Without question. But here's one advantage that people aren't considering. Mike Pence has one year to do that damage and then we kick him out. Mike Pence is far less electable than Donald Trump. If Mike Pence is the president, I think even Joe Biden could beat Mike Pence. So this argument at this time is no longer persuasive. Second or third, actually, this is going to galvanize Trump's base and help him win in 2020. Donald Trump's base is already fired up. They're already galvanized. Here's the thing, Republicans base of support is very loyal. They're always going to come out and vote. So it's not like they're going to be more mobilized than they already are. What will determine the outcome of this election is how mobilized Democrats will be. So you can make the opposite argument that maybe impeachment will galvanize the Democratic base, because we all know that when turned out as high, Democrats win and Republicans lose. Now, I'm of the belief that you're most likely going to get people excited to vote for you if you present them with policies. But there are some resistance Democrats that might feel more excited. So I don't actually believe that this is a very persuasive counter argument. But there are some that I believe are persuasive. So this could make Trump more popular and a not guilty vote in the Senate might embolden him. This is entirely possible, entirely possible. But it could also make him less popular. The point is we don't know. I think that, you know, it's risky. This is a relatively persuasive argument. But I think it's also equally persuasive to consider whether or not this drives down his support if his corruption is aired. If it's put front and center for all of America to see, we could see another Nixon effect. Now, another issue is, you know, maybe this could be a distraction. The media will get bogged down by this. Democrats will use this as an excuse to not talk about policy. I mean, the media already has a sensationalist bias. They're not talking about the issues that they should be talking about. Could this potentially make that worse? Sure. And I get the desire. I understand I empathize with the desire to want to stay focused on policy. But I also believe that we have to do what's morally right. And I don't believe that turning a blind eye, you know, in spite of these possible negative ramifications is the right course of action here. Now, finally, here's the biggest and the most persuasive counter argument. And this is the hardest for me to argue against. What if Democrats bungle this? Very, very likely. I don't know if today's Democrats will be as competent as the Democrats were in the Nixon era, if you want to argue that they were even competent. But this is a very persuasive counter argument that it's going to be done poorly. Democrats will bungle this. Nancy Pelosi won't know what she's doing. And we're already getting indications that that is in fact the case because there are sources saying that she had a meeting with other Democrats in the house and they want to limit the scope to Ukraine. That would be one of the most idiotic things. The biggest political blunder, perhaps in the history of Democratic Party politics. So if you say this, if you think, you know, maybe impeachment isn't the best course of action because Democrats could bungle this possibly. But here's the thing and the reason why none of those counter arguments dissuade me from supporting impeachment, because we don't know. Again, the only certainty is all of our uncertainty. Nobody can see the future. We don't have a crystal ball. We don't know how this is going to play out. It could backfire. There's a chance this could actually hurt Donald Trump more. We don't know. So what we should do is be strong. Not make decisions based on fear and be moral. Hold Trump accountable. Don't turn a blind eye when we know he's broke the law. So that's why I say those arguments, they are persuasive, but they're not enough to lead me to the conclusion that impeachment isn't the right answer. So I absolutely believe that impeachment is the right course of action. Does it need to be done correctly? Yes, does it need to be effective in the sense that we look at all of Donald Trump's criminality? Of course it does. Could it backfire? Yes, but we don't know. So I say let's impeach the motherfucker, because this is a moral issue. This is a matter of principle when people in power break the law, when the ruling class break the law, if we don't hold them accountable, when we when we have the opportunity to hold them accountable, then we have no right to complain about their lawlessness and corruption because they will keep getting worse if they know that we are too afraid to hold them accountable and act when they commit crimes.