The ‘impeachment’ of US President Donald Trump by the Democrat controlled House of Representatives took place along party lines. Trump had refused to cooperate and did not present any witnesses or evidence on his behalf. The Republican controlled Senate is very likely to scuttle the impeachment, as the party is more or less in agreement with the President that it is a ‘witch-hunt’. Analysts also believe that this action by the Democrats will probably give a boost to Trump in the coming presidential election. It would be better if the Democrats pay greater attention on selecting the right candidate to stand against the incumbent.
It is true that what is today called the ‘left- liberal’ establishment has moved to the extreme fringe. It believes it has the right to declare what is ‘kosher’ in the political sphere regardless of what the people in a democracy think. (This section suffers from a similar malaise in India and the UK, also.) Instead of trying to understand why people have voted for ‘populist’ candidates of the right, the self-declared intellectuals spend their time telling voters how ‘deplorable’ they are. This is serving to push the mainstream towards the right, as was seen in the decimation of Labour in the recent UK electons.
Going by the basic standard of political morality, Trump should have been rejected outright by the American voters, particularly the women, after his ‘grab them by the …..’ remark was captured on tape. That they didn’t should have been carefully examined by the Democrats instead of going into denial. Such a phenomenon occurs when the alternative is considered even worse. (A clear example of this is the election of Godse admirer Sadhvi Pragya from Bhopal, and the secret lay in what the personality and past of main adversary Digvijay Singh represented.) Hillary Clinton was seen as the living embodiment of the embedded Washington elite, responsible for the ‘suffering’ of the American people. Trump was basically her antithesis.
Unfortunately, instead of addressing this perception, the Democrats began planning impeachment from the day Trump took over. The incident with the Ukrainian President came much later to fit the bill. At best it is a symbolic act, but Americans, taken up more with an identity crisis, are in no mood to take note. The Democrats need to defeat Trump at the hustings and, presently, there seems little possibility of that happening. The US is in the throes of a Trump led makeover and the people very likely feel the project cannot be abandoned midway. The impeachment Brahmastra is, therefore, set to fail.
