The United States’ Senate is on a dramatic, media-sensationalized final countdown to its deciding vote on whether or not President Donald Trump will be removed from office. And the American people could not be more disappointed. 

Not more disappointed in Trump, or his partisan opponents, but rather the rushed process through which he is being tried. 

Common law calls for witnesses to testify in trials. A trial without evidence and witnesses is not a trial — it is an ideological assertion of personal agenda, and nothing more. And while failing to report a crime is not a crime in itself, there is a compromise of one’s moral and ethical duties to society.

If Trump is innocent, let the evidence and testimonies show such. 

If he is guilty, let the trial speak for itself. But neither the House of Representatives nor the Senate seem to want this. The impeachment of Donald Trump is a front in the shadowy battle of red vs. blue, divided by party lines.

All this underlies the staple of both votes that occurred this year: The fact that both the House of Representatives and the Senate had already roughly decided the outcome of the impeachment process along partisan lines. 

By denying the right of witnesses to testify against the president and denying the right of the American public to hear those testimonies, Congress has in fact become more transparent about their partisan intentions. 

This merely confirms the suspicions Americans have had for years that Donald Trump used questionable practices to propel himself to the White House. But in an ironic twist of fate, it appears that the very same “swamp” Trump criticized is that which will keep him in office.

It is in the wake of these events that we must ask ourselves: Under what circumstances would I favor acquittal? Under what circumstances would I favor the removal of Donald Trump from office? 

The solution is far from simple or easy. The American public must join together and put in check the ability of their representatives and senators, Republican or Democrat, to do what is right, and not what is necessarily beneficial for the party or the public official. This can only be done through democratic processes.

The night of this publication, President Trump will deliver his state of the union address, and the following afternoon, the senate will decide his fate as the 45th president of the United States. 

However, The Slate is not arguing for the removal or acquittal of President Donald Trump. Rather, we demand the public exercise their vote to hold accountable all who miscarried the impeachment proceedings of 2020. 

Share