Thread by @PaulDMiller2

Not that anybody cares about my opinion, but yes, I think Trump should be impeached and removed from office. Here's why, and why it's important:

I'm of the school that thinks impeachment is a political, not legal, judgment. So I don't feel the need to get super technical about whether this or that could get Trump convicted in a court of law. The only court that matters is the House and the Senate.

To get the obvious stuff out of the way: Trump should be impeached on obstruction of justice (see Mueller report), contempt of Congress (for refusing subpoenas), campaign finance violations (Ukraine phone call and Stormy Daniels payoff).

The House should also continue investigations into Trump's finances and add an additional article on whatever else might turn up. They should throw the kitchen sink at him, force the Senate to vote up or down on all possible counts.

But there are two more charges, and this is where it gets interesting.

Trump should be impeached for *wanting* to collude with Russia in the 2016 campaign. Yes, I get it that he never successfully colluded. But he openly admitted that he wanted to, and his campaign took meetings with the Russians with the explicit intention of colluding.

That is so far beyond the pale, so wildly unpatriotic, so blatantly disloyal to the United States, that it *by itself* disqualifies anyone from a position of public trust. I simply do not understand why Americans have not demanded Trump's immediate removal on this alone.

Finally, Trump should be impeached, like Andrew Johnson was, for "bringing disgrace and ridicule to the presidency." This was one of the articles on which the House *successfully* impeached Johnson in 1868, and a *majority* of Senators votes to convict on it.

Trump's lasting legacy is having brought disgrace and ridicule to the Presidency, the U.S. government, and the United States of America.

I want the House to impeach on this count because I want all future presidents to *fear* the possibility of following in Trump's footsteps.

This is important because it matters *how* Trump leaves office and how his presidency is remembered in history by his erstwhile supporters. This is related to another thing that deserves its own Twitter essay.

Impeaching and convicting Trump gets the man out of the way, but it is also an important blow against Trumpism, the bizarre media-fueled cult of personality that worships the ground he walks on.

(I want to be clear to distinguish between Trumpism and nationalism. I dislike nationalism too, but it is at least a set of ideas that can be argued with. Also, nationalism isn't going anywhere. The solution to nationalism isn't to crush it, but tame it.)

Unlike nationalism, Trumpism cannot be argued with, cannot be critiqued. It must be destroyed. It must be utterly, completely wiped out as a political and cultural force in American life. "Carthago Delenda Est," was Cato's cry. Let "Trumpia Delenda Est," be ours.

How do you wipe out a cult of personality from political life? You expose the criminality, corruption, self-dealing, disloyalty, and incompetence. You prosecute to the full extent of the law. You make them *losers*.

In other words, you investigate and you impeach.

Victory has a thousand fathers; defeat is an orphan. Want to make Trump unpopular? Defeat him, not just at the polls. Prosecute him and, if the evidence leads there, his family. Take down the Trump Organization.

Will it make him a martyr? Maybe to a core of die-hard bitter-enders. But I think MAGA-land shrinks pretty fast when Trump no longer looks like a winner who fights. Look at how the polls shifted since the House started the impeachment inquiry.

What if the House decided in 1974 that Nixon hardly had two years left in office and was already a lame duck and it wasn't worth impeaching him? He goes down in history as a normal two-term president with nothing more than unproved rumors and allegations.

And if Nixon doesn't resign, his behavior goes unaccounted for. And future presidents take the lesson about what they can get away with. Pursuing Nixon and chasing him from office ensured that his criminality would be remembered, and we are a better country for it.

Trumpia Delenda Est. Trumpism must be destroyed. Impeach Trump. Convict Trump. Then continue investigating Trump, Guiliani, the Trump Org. and Trump family. Prosecute. Do not pardon. Destroy this movement root and branch. Do not stop until we have a full accounting.

Not out of vengeance (though plenty will want it). Attack this like a surgeon who knows that if one cell remains, the cancer will return. Deliberate and systematic and thorough, but not sadistic. Think of it like a truth and reconciliation commission.

We need truth and accounting, but we also need to recognize that there are plenty of civil servants and non-criminal political appointees who served this administration in good faith and out of love for their countries. We can't treat them all like pariahs.

TL;DR? The way things are today do not have to become a new normal. We can recover the better angels of our nature. But not without exorcising our demons.
#trumpiadeledaest