An open letter to the GOP congressional folks, or Do the right thing already

Dear Republican Members of the House and Senate:

I want you to know that I trust you.

Granted, what I trust you to do is to continue to try to control the sexual and reproductive practices of women, continue to turn a mostly blind eye to racial inequities, to refuse to crack down on discrimination of people based on religion or sexual preferences, continue to do wrong to the average American while enriching the rich, and so on.

Now, with that out of the way, let me say something positive.

You can redeem yourselves a bit. You can reclaim some moral high ground.

How?

Begin (and fervently pursue and bring to completion) impeachment hearings against Donald Trump as soon as possible. Get him out of office.

Even if you don’t believe that he’s racist and misogynist, let’s face it: He praises the dictatorial leader of Russia, a nation with which we are adversarial most of the time. He has dismissed our own intelligence agencies in favor of Julian Assange and Wikileaks and in favor of what Russian officials say. Basically, he’s taking the side of the folks who helped bring us the Cold War.

And that was even before he was sworn into office. Now he claims to be happy with our intelligence agencies, even as he followed his inauguration with a visit to CIA headquarters to speak to the professionals there. A speech in which he did more to praise himself and try to get them to praise him because he’s insecure and craves validation above all else (except perhaps money). And he brought a cheering section with him to make it look like the CIA was cheering him on.

Not to mention the fact he promised to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico and make Mexico pay for it, and now he’s asking taxpayers here to foot the bill. And to impose a tax on Mexico to pay for the wall that will really drive up costs for your constituents, many of whom buy Mexican imports whether they know it or not, meaning Americans will be paying double-time for that wall.

And, oh, he promised “to drain the swamp” in D.C. and then on his victory tour actually said openly in a speech to supporters that he never liked that phrase or believed the words, but said them like he believed them and then kept saying them because people flocked to him more when he did. So, he’s openly admitting in words and actions that he duped U.S. voters. While also making cabinet appointments of mostly unqualified people and/or people who have vested interests against the agencies they will lead. And so many of them are billionaires who don’t seem willing to sign ethics papers to at least give the illusion they won’t have conflicts of interest.

And then there’s the pesky stuff about violating the U.S. constitution by barring people from the country based on religious beliefs. And about those limits on Muslim immigrants as they stand now: They are aimed only at nations that he doesn’t do business with. Oh, and now he openly refuses to release his tax records and is almost certainly in violation of the emoluments clause in the Constitution.

Since his inauguration, he’s shown so much ego and vanity and lack of confidence that he keeps trying to say he had more people at his inauguration than any president before him, despite ample photo, video, transit and bus parking permit data to refute that. And so insecure is he that he not only keeps harping on that issue, despite the fact he should simply be happy he won the Electoral College votes, that now he’s making wildly unlikely claims about 3 million to 5 million illegal votes, despite no evidence, and claiming that being on voter rolls in multiple states is fraud (it isn’t, generally speaking, unless you vote in multiple states in the same election) and leaving out the fact some of his appointees and families are on multiple voter rolls themselves.

And so much more.

Trump is inept, volatile, unstable, dishonest and totally unqualified to lead this country.

You know it and most of the country knows it.

So get rid of him, and fast.

What do you have to lose? You’ll still have Pence as president. He’s still GOP. You’d still hold all the power in the Oval Office and Congress. I fear what a Pence presidency would mean for women and LGBTQ people, among others, but at least he doesn’t seem to be a loose cannon we have to fret about causing an international incident (or several, as Trump’s already begun to set the stage for, including threatening to start another nuclear arms race) or otherwise bringing ruin to this nation. And with a fast-growing number of Americans fearful and distrustful of Trump (a strong majority of them, in fact), not getting rid of Trump could cost you your jobs. And have you thought about how much power you might lose in the system of check and balances if you don’t check him and he consolidates more levels of power executively?

Frankly, y’all (well, some of you and/or your GOP predecessors) tried to run Bill Clinton out of office for having an affair with an intern, which is much less serious to the country’s safety and well-being than what Trump was doing even before taking office, much less what he’s done in his first week to send us off the rails, set us back and damage our reputation. There are dozens more reasons to impeach Trump than there were to impeach Clinton, and yet the GOP jumped at that chance years ago. Why not jump on your chance now? And you’d have the support of Democrats on that. Bipartisan action, but with the GOP being able to take the lead and most of the credit for reigning in one of their own who’s gone rogue.

Do the right thing. Stand up for having a president (Pence) who is at least nominally qualified to lead and is psychologically and emotionally sound. It might even give me some hope that you care about the country.

Sincerely,
Black Girl in Maine
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