There Are 5 Ways to Unseat Donald Trump. Only 1 Will Work.
No one is above the law in the United States — in theory. In practice, though, there are a limited number of ways in which legal and political measures can be taken to unseat the President of the United States. The most widely discussed today are: impeachment, invocation of the 25th Amendment, nullification of the 2016 election, regaining control of Congress in 2018 and voting Trump out of office in 2020.
Of these 5 methods, only one will be able to stop the Trump administration, the GOP and the advancement of their collective agenda. All of them, though, are worth discussing.
1. Impeachment
Let’s start with impeachment.
Democrats Brad Sherman of California and Steve Cohen of Tennessee have already filed articles of impeachment against Donald Trump. Al Green of Texas also recently announced plans to do the same. Unfortunately, these gestures are little more than a show of frustration.
To impeach a sitting President, half of the House of Representatives would have to vote in the affirmative and two thirds of the Senate would have to do the same. There is no indication that the GOP Congress would vote for impeachment. None. So as satisfying as it is to imagine Donald Trump being impeached from office — there is no practical way to accomplish this with the current Congressional context.
2. The 25th Amendment
The next most widely discussed option to remove Trump is invoking the 25th Amendment.
Removing a President through enforcement of the 25th Amendment is more difficult than actualizing an impeachment. The decision to invoke the 25th Amendment must be made by the Vice President and the Cabinet. These individuals are staunch loyalists and have given no indication of being open to committing a mutiny against the President or the Republican Party.
If, however, by some miracle Trump’s most trusted advisors turn against him and seek to unseat him from office, he would have the right to object. In this case, the ultimate decision would go to Congress. Whereas impeachment requires 1\2 of the House and 2\3 of the Senate, the 25th Amendment requires 2\3 of each to vote to remove a President from office.
Ultimately, this process is more difficult than impeachment, and still leaves us with the GOP in control of the White House and Congress.
3. Nullify the Election
Another idea that is frequently discussed is nullification of the 2016 Election. This is another satisfying thought. There are no shortages of logical arguments that would be feasible when it comes to taking a mulligan on that one. Unfortunately, we are not dealing with the rules of logic — we are dealing with the law. And there is no legal precedent from which a case can be made to nullify a Presidential Election.
Some scholars have rested their hopes on a 1976 District Court case in which the federal court asserted that the Court does play a role in ensuring fair elections; however, no legal precedent or procedure has been established. Reinforcing the assumption that the Court would not move to nullify the election, SCOTUS has since rejected a petition asking for them to intervene in the 2016 Presidential Election.
Even Hillary Clinton herself has argued that while she is open to contesting the outcome of the election, she does not believe that there is a legal process by which to do it.
4. Regain Control of Congress in 2018
Democrats often point to the wrath that they believe the Republican Party will suffer at the hands of their own actions during the 2018 midterm elections. Unfortunately, there are no mathematical or political indications that Republican voters will unseat their Congressional Representatives next November.
According to Politico:
“The 2018 map…heavily favors Republicans, who are defending just eight seats next fall compared to 25 for Senate Democrats. For Democrats to take the majority, they would have to successfully defend all their incumbents in conservative territory while picking up Nevada, Arizona and then a deep-red state such as Alabama, Tennessee or Texas.”
Politically, there are a number of obstacles working against Democrats in the upcoming elections. Voter suppression left an upwards of 50–60 million minority voters unable to cast a ballot in the 2016 election. The mechanisms by which they were disenfranchised, though, have not been addressed. The Democrats have no leadership, no message and no strategy to produce wins now against the GOP or in the 2018 midterm elections. They have abandoned their most loyal constituents — namely voters of color, underclass voters and voters with disabilities — to appease middle class white families and potential swing voters. And they have failed to prevent Trump from undoing decades of civil rights and protections — leaving incumbents with the difficult task of getting voters to the polls.
There may be hope for the Democratic Party if these issues are addressed immediately, but there is no indication that such a dramatic turn-around is taking place. There is also no indication that Democratic voters are putting pressure on their party leaders to make these changes.
5. Vote Trump Out in 2020
This leaves us with one final option — voting Trump out in 2020. While this option suffers from the same strategic barriers that overthrowing Congress suffers from, there is more time to organize constituents to demand significant changes from the Democrats in the areas listed above. There is also more time to identify candidates that will more effectively defend our civil rights, social safety nets, public institutions and the targets of the Trump Administration and the Republican Party. As such, this may be the only feasible method of removing Trump from office.
That is not to say that there isn’t more that Democrats can do at the state and local levels to counter the efforts of the GOP. There is a lot more that they could do. And that isn’t to say that there isn’t more that #TheResistance can do to pressure the Democrats into action against the GOP. There is.
It is to say that unless we dig in and do the work necessary to restore the damage done to the Democratic Party and the electoral process during and since the 2016 Election — we will not be able to remove Trump from office ourselves.
We must stop wasting time and energy on strategies that have no possibility of achieving the desired outcome. If we want to stop Trump and the GOP, we have to restore the Democratic Party and the electoral process. And we need to act fast.
