We all learn it well from early youth on up – there are three branches of government, and through a system of checks and balances none of them are able to dominate the others.  The idea of dividing up the power in a political system and then establishing ways for the constituent parts to restrain one another has a long history.  Thus, in the Roman Republic there were the people, the senate, and the magistrates, each of which was situated in such a way as to help place a curb on the others.  The Roman Republic’s system of checks and balances failed in great part because it didn’t account for factions and party strife cutting across the separation of power.  The Roman Republic lasted for a good long while.  But it tells the cautionary tale that well planned systems of checks and balances often have weaknesses in them.

For all the mock solemnity of an impeachment trial, the weakness of the United States’ systems of checks and balances became glaringly obvious over the last couple of weeks.  The judicial and legislative branches had an ideal opportunity to check the power of the president through the impeachment process – what more could one ask for: the House of Representatives accusing the president of abuse of power, the Senate sitting as jury, and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court presiding.  Yet the branches of government involved had almost nothing to do with it.  Everything came down to political party.  The Republicans, whether in the Senate or on the Supreme Court, do not care about the president’s abuse of power.  The U.S. Constitution takes for granted that each of the three branches of government share a rivalry with the other two.  Yet that assumption fails to account for political parties whose allegiances cross the three branches of government.  American citizens and their politicians think of themselves not as promoting a branch of government but rather as backing a political party that seeks to control as many branches of government as possible.  Our Constitution is silent on the question of factions breaking down the separation of powers.

I signed the Historians’ Statement on the Impeachment of Donald Trump not because Trump’s supporters are all deplorable racists, they’re not, nor because all Republican lawmakers only care about getting reelected, they don’t, but because I believe Donald Trump has repeatedly abused his power, whether declaring a national emergency without due cause, abusing his authority by pardoning his political allies who have been criminally convicted, or coercing foreign nations to interfere with national elections, and to do nothing in the face of such abuses is a disregard for the citizen’s duty.  Donald Trump’s transgressions of accepted political norms and legal customs is quite lengthy and make him unfit to be our president. 

Yet impeachment is always a risky proposition.  First of all, historically it is an ineffective way to remove a president 0-3.  Secondly, if it fails, as it always has, it removes the last tool available to rein in the president.  That is, the threat of impeachment may be more powerful than the passing of articles of impeachment.  For the danger now becomes apparent. 

Congressional Republicans will undoubtedly stand by Donald Trump no matter what he does; despite the possibility of credible testimony, the majority of Republican senators refused even to call witnesses, a first for an impeachment trial.  The traditional checks of the legislative branch against the executive branch, namely the power of the subpoena, have thereby been gravely weakened.  The U.S. Senate, rather than comporting itself as the “world’s greatest deliberative body”, has behaved like a bunch of sycophants worthy of the imperial Roman senate, which groveled before the Roman emperors.  Senators Collins and Alexander are engaging in wishful thinking when they blithely assert that Trump has been humbled by the impeachment trial.  In his first tweet and his first public speech after acquittal, Donald Trump and his enablers have already declared they have been vindicated and did nothing illegal; they will certainly see no reason to discontinue their corrupt practices and to comply with congressional oversight.  What is to compel them?  Rather than being chastened, they are emboldened.   

There are several things to realize at this point, none of them encouraging.  First, the Republican party is operating solely for the sake of its own power; that is a dangerous reality for a democracy.  Second, the excesses of the Trump presidency are now precedent; they are not anomalies.  The flaunting of civic customs cannot be undone.  If a Democrat is elected to the presidency again, it is highly likely they will commit the same excesses; it is also likely that a Republican congress would try to impeach them for those excesses and fail. 

We should all take warning.  The revolution that destroyed the Roman Republic began with conservative forces violently crushing legitimate political reform; it ended with populist forces violently doing away with traditional political norms.  We need to do what the Constitution assumes we will do.  We need to put country over party for the common good.

Credit goes to Senator Mitt Romney, the first senator ever to vote for the impeachment of a president from their own party.  Credit also to Representative Justin Amash and George T. Conway for standing for the Constitution rather than bowing to authority.