Impeachment Is the Point

Democrats Aren’t Losing to Authoritarianism — they’re Refusing to Fight It.

“If we don’t win the midterms, they’ll find a reason to impeach me.”

Donald Trump meant this as a warning to Republicans. It should be read as an indictment of Democrats.

Trump understands something Democratic leadership seems determined to forget: impeachment is not a symbolic scolding or a partisan tantrum. It is one of the few remaining constitutional mechanisms capable of constraining a president who treats the law as optional. The fact that Trump openly campaigns against the possibility of impeachment tells you exactly how dangerous it still is—to him. The fact that Democrats refuse to use it tells you how far they’ve drifted from their responsibility.

The United States is supposed to function on the consent of the governed. Consent is not permanent. It can be withdrawn when power is abused. That’s the entire point of impeachment. When a president threatens lawmakers, flirts with canceling elections, fantasizes about serving beyond term limits, and treats the military and courts as personal tools, consent is not merely strained—it’s been violated. At that point, refusing to act is not neutrality. It is complicity.

Democrats have chosen caution over accountability. And they are doing it in the most cowardly way possible: by pretending it’s “strategic.”

Today Jeffries and Schumer are ‘threatening’ to not fund ICE in the Senate. But only after a young woman was murdered by an ICE agent causing national outrage. Why wait till now?

The current excuse is familiar. Swing districts. Affordability. Voters are anxious. People care more about groceries than the Constitution. Therefore, Democrats should focus on “kitchen table issues” and avoid messy things like impeachment. This framing is not just dishonest—it’s insulting. As if democracy and material survival are separate concerns. As if authoritarianism has ever improved anyone’s cost of living.

Authoritarian politics always comes with economic pain. Always. Corruption, repression, instability, and fear are not pro-growth strategies. But Democratic strategists, obsessed with polling snapshots, behave as though the Constitution is a niche interest item, rather than the foundation that makes everything else possible.

Meanwhile, Trump says the quiet part out loud. Complaining about bad polls, he snapped, “I wish you could explain to me what the hell is going on with the mind of the public because we have the right policy.” This is not the language of a democratic leader. It’s the language of someone who believes disagreement itself is illegitimate. If the public doesn’t approve, the public must be defective.

That mindset is dangerous. And it’s being normalized. Morality ‘the only thing that can stop me’ Trump said yesterday in a New York Times interview on limits to his authority over his disregard for ‘international law’.

Trump has already floated canceling elections. He has threatened political opponents with punishment and even death. He has suggested soldiers should obey him over the law. He has openly mused about staying in power beyond constitutional limits. None of this is hypothetical. None of it is subtle. And none of it has been met with the one response the Constitution demands: impeachment.

Instead, Democrats offer press releases, cable news hits, and solemn warnings about norms while doing nothing to enforce them. They talk about “the threat to democracy” the way people talk about climate change while approving new oil leases—dramatically, constantly, and without any intention of changing behavior.

Let’s be clear: impeachment is not about whether the Senate would convict. That’s a dodge. Impeachment is about drawing a line and saying this behavior is unacceptable, illegal, and disqualifying. It creates a record. It forces a confrontation. It tells the public that consent still matters.

Refusing to impeach sends the opposite message: that there is no red line. That everything is negotiable. That power, once seized, is rarely challenged. This is how democratic systems rot from the inside—not with tanks in the streets, but with leaders who decide the moment is never quite right to defend the system.

And Trump is not doing this alone. Figures like JD Vance, Pam Bondi, and Pete Hegseth are not side characters. They are active participants in the project of hollowing out democratic norms and replacing them with loyalty, intimidation, and grievance politics. Allowing them to operate without consequence legitimizes their behavior. Silence is endorsement. Delay is permission.

Democrats like to insist they are the “adults in the room.” But adults are supposed to take responsibility, not hide behind focus groups. If Trump truly represents an existential threat—as Democrats endlessly claim—then failing to impeach him and his enablers is political malpractice on a historic scale.

What makes this worse is that the public is not nearly as opposed to impeachment as party insiders pretend. Polling consistently shows broad support, including among independents, for holding Trump accountable. What voters doubt is whether anyone in Washington actually means it. Every time Democrats refuse to act, that doubt hardens into cynicism.

Trump fears impeachment because it challenges his core belief: that power belongs to him, not the people. Democrats fear impeachment because it might complicate their messaging. One of these fears is about democracy. The other is about careers.

History will not be kind to this kind of timidity. It will not remember how tricky the electoral map was or how nervous strategists felt about swing voters. It will ask a much simpler question: when the Constitution was under open attack, did the people entrusted to defend it do their jobs?

Right now, the answer is no.

The collapse of American democracy has not come solely from Trump’s authoritarian impulses. But from the refusal of his opposition to stop him. And that refusal—dressed up as pragmatism, moderation, and political savvy—is the most damning form of complicity there is.