Impeachment is a term that has been thrown around a lot more as of late, and it's not hard to see why.
Between the resistance that was strong before President Trump was even in office to the rising tension both in and out of our country now that he's in command, people are calling for a different type of action than what we're receiving. With the most recent and tumultuous events in Charlottesville, the voters want more.
They want a president who's capable and strong. They want someone who's a beacon of hope in dark times, not someone who is going to tell them that, "Suuuuuuuure, maybe they're Nazis, but Hitler had a soul deep down, too."
Despite all of the want for something different, there is not much we can do. Calling state representatives and pushing to impeach, starting and spreading petitions to gather traction to impeach. . . All of it is good in theory, it really is. The simple fact of the matter, though, is that impeachment isn't foolproof. The united States has had 45 presidents. Of those 45, two have been impeached. Of those two, none have lost office due to impeachment. That's right, you heard me.
The term "impeachment" doesn't meant exactly what you might think. Impeaching a president just means calling into question their integrity and their capability to serve the nation well. Impeaching a president doesn't just mean kicking them out of the cushy Oval Office.
Impeaching a president means taking them to trial, present their case, lawyers and juries and finally Congress voting. It takes a 2/3s guilty vote to convict, and a conviction is what it takes to get a president out of office. As with anything in the upper levels of government, it is a process and it is a tricky one. That being said, the only president who the nation was certain would be impeached and convicted resigned before Congress had a chance. C'est la vie.
Impeaching President Trump will not be as easy or as likely as a lot of people seem to expect. It's not impossible, of course. Trump is in office, nothing is impossible. The fact of the matter is just that it is not going to happen overnight.
If it does happen, what comes next?
Hypothetically, say he is convicted of gross negligence and incompetence to lead and removed from office. Then, Mike Pence steps in, and that's a whole other can of worms. Mike Pence is just Donald Trump junior. The man was handpicked to run alongside him. They share views and beliefs.
The main difference between the two is that Mike Pence has political experience and, though they may not be the same as everyone's, he has stuck by his beliefs over the years. As someone from Indiana, my dream is not to see President Mike Pence.
The impeachment process is long and often times more trouble than it's worth. That being said, Trump has not done anything that is undeniably impeachment worthy - yet. Being unfit to leave and possibly a white supremacist sympathizer just makes him scummy, it doesn't make him a criminal.
So, until he does something that is completely illegal and so illegal it makes all of (or at least enough of) the Republicans in Congress turn against him, there's not much we can do besides hope (and wish that e-mails were as big of a deal when they involved Trump and Russia as they were when they involved Hillary and private servers.)
