Biden and the Left-wing Standard of Attacking Presidents - Victor Davis Hanson

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American Greatness

As Joe Biden entered office in January 2021, there still roared a left-wing revolution, a woke madness spreading through popular culture and Congress, much of which he indirectly has aided and abetted. It has redefined not just politics but the rules of the presidency. And the eventual casualty of these radical shifts in protocols and customs will be—Joe Biden.

Take impeachment, which heretofore had been rare and has still never led to a Senate conviction. Prior to Trump, Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton were the only presidents to have been impeached (Richard Nixon resigned to avoid it), and both were acquitted in the Senate. 

Yet leftist congressional representatives introduced articles of impeachment the very first week Trump was in office, on the absurd allegation of profiting from his office (the presidency cost the Trump corporations hundreds of millions). The House later went on to impeach him twice, without writs of “treason” and “bribery” or even “high crimes and misdemeanors” as set out by the Constitution. Instead, Trump was, first, successfully impeached for supposedly abusing his power and obstructing Congress. I don’t think the average American has ever been pulled over by the police for the high crime “of obstructing Congress” (historically a presidential pastime) or has been charged with “abuse of power” (said of every president from Thomas Jefferson to Barack Obama). 

 

Trump’s second impeachment was even flimsier. He was accused of “incitement of insurrection” concerning disturbances on January 6 that supposedly led to the violent death of Officer Brian Sicknick, the fatal shooting of an unarmed Ashli Babbitt, and the entire fable of an “armed insurrection.” Post-impeachment, we would learn that Sicknick died of natural causes. Strangely, for months no information about the shooter of Ashli Babbitt or the inquiry into that fatal act was ever fully released to the public. No one was charged with armed insurrection, largely because none of the buffoonish rioters were found either to have carried or used a firearm that day or were exposed as master plotters with plans to destroy the U.S. government. They may well have been guilty of felonies, but armed insurrectionary conspiracy was not one of them.

No matter, the precedent had been set that serial impeachments now will be normative when a president in his first term loses party control of the House. Charges may not follow constitutional definitions. There will be no need to appoint a special counsel, to build a case on evidence, or to hold a formal hearing where witnesses present testimonies and are subject to cross-examination. There will be no expectation that the Senate will even come close to convicting an impeached president. Impeachment is simply now a political gambit to embarrass a party or a president before a reelection. Biden and future presidents as private citizens could be hounded after exiting office with a Senate impeachment trial.