At a closed-door retreat last week for House Republicans, President Trump stated the obvious.
“You got to win the midterms, because if we don’t win the midterms, it’s just going to be — I mean, they’ll find a reason to impeach me,” Trump reportedly said. “I’ll get impeached.”
Here are just a few of the myriad reasons Trump should be impeached:
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents terrorizing American communities with impunity. The malicious and haphazard gutting of the federal government. The Defense Department blowing up dozens of boats and killing more than 100 people in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean on unproven claims of drug trafficking. The Justice Department ignoring a December deadline to release, as required by law, all of its files on Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender and former Trump buddy who died in jail in 2019.
That barely scratches the surface as to why Trump should be tossed from office. So when the president tells his fellow Republicans that they have to hang onto the House in November, what he means is: “Save me.”
As part of their own midterm election strategy, Democrats need to promote a different version of the same message to their voters — to save democracy, they will hold hearings to impeach Trump if they flip Congress.
Right now, Democrats are digging in on the issue that weighs heaviest on their constituents’ minds — affordability. As a presidential nominee, Trump bragged that he would revive this nation’s economy and “immediately bring prices down, starting on Day One.”
But from groceries to cars, we’re paying more for many items while waiting for Trump to make good on his promises. His poll numbers on the economy are now the worst they’ve been during his two terms as president. In a PBS News/NPR/Marist poll released last month, 57 percent of respondents said that they disapproved of Trump’s handling of the economy.
Speaking to reporters last week about spiraling prices, Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate minority leader, said, “Democrats in the House and Senate are focusing on lowering your costs and dealing with affordability. Republicans, led by Donald Trump … are focused on spending our treasure and, God forbid, lives in military adventurism overseas.”
Given their political timidity, neither Schumer nor Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic House minority leader, are likely to mention a hot-button issue like impeachment. That’s a mistake.
Yes, voters are deeply concerned about their wallets. But they’re also alarmed by how the Trump administration is goose-stepping all over the Constitution and the rule of law and trampling democracy with blatantly fascistic tactics.
Those concerns have only increased with his ongoing violent campaign in Minneapolis, punctuated by the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good, a mother of three, by an ICE agent last Wednesday. (A Wall Street Journal investigation recently revealed that Good’s death is one of 13 incidents since July in which ICE has used deadly force against civilians in vehicles.)
Last year, millions expressed their disapproval of Trump in “No Kings” marches nationwide. And there were many rallies last weekend, including in Boston, sparked by Good’s killing, which was captured on numerous cellphone cameras and posted worldwide.
The cost of an administration hellbent on vengeance against all of Trump’s perceived enemies — including blue states — has become impossibly high.
During a recent appearance on CNN’s “The Arena with Kasie Hunt,” Kate Bedingfield, a former Biden administration communications director, said, “I think politically it would be a foolish thing for Democrats certainly to campaign on the idea that they’re going to impeach Donald Trump if they take the House.”
But Bedingfield also acknowledged that what she called “a loud sector of the base” doesn’t want Democrats to “put any hand behind their back” when it comes to ways to energize voters and challenge the Republicans.
No one has said that preaching impeachment should be the Democrats’ only or even primary strategy for November. But it would be foolish if the party’s leaders ignored the anger fueling those massive “No Kings” marches and all those good people in the streets everyday with their whistles to warn their neighbors about ICE or voicing their opposition to Trump’s dangerous imperialistic ambitions.
A willingness to impeach the twice-impeached Trump again — as well as others in his Cabinet like Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth — must be part of the Democrats’ plan for the midterms.
Through redistricting and other highly contentious measures, Trump is already trying to disrupt the midterms. And between now and Election Day, the president will continue to talk about his potential impeachment to rally his followers; Democrats should do the same to fire up their voters.
Under Trump, millions can’t afford basic necessities. But this nation can also no longer afford an unchecked president who is waging a war on multiple fronts against his own people.
Renée Graham is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at renee.graham@globe.com.