Days before Donald Trump was to be sworn in as the 45th president of the United States, Representative Maxine Waters called for him to be impeached for dubbing his opponent, "Crooked Hillary" during his campaign.  Since name-calling doesn't qualify as high crimes or misdemeanors, the impeachment call fizzled, seen as another crazy Maxine rant.  That was a mistake.

Just 19 minutes after President Trump was sworn in, the Washington Post announced, "The Campaign to Impeach President Trump Has Begun," this time for being rich.  Every day since, networks breathlessly report new impeachment calls for tweeting, for unspoken words, for being an "inciter" of "hatred." There are 98 reasons to date.  In fact, the term "impeach" has been so overused that it's losing its authority. It is seen no longer as a pivotal event in our country's history, but rather just as another political battle.

The Left has effectively recast impeachment as a recall.  In a recall, a public official may be removed from office before his term expires, often for any reason or no reason at all.

Conversely, the Constitution specifies that impeachment is only for treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Now, I know the Constitution wasn't written for uneducated rubes like me.  One needs a law degree, political office, or a spot on cable TV to be qualified to interpret the "real" meaning of the Constitution.  Nevertheless, I'll weigh in.

Note the wording: impeachment for "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."  Thus, evidence of one of the aforementioned conditions (legal jargon inserted for credentialing) must exist to trigger impeachment — in other words, evidence of a crime before, not after the impeachment process.

But lack of cause is not an issue because, as Gerald Ford posited, "an impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history."

No, Gerald, impeachment is a constitutional tool to remove a president who behaves in a manner deleterious to public welfare, not to remove a political enemy.

"The Framers meant for the phrase 'high crimes and misdemeanors' to signify only conduct that seriously harms the public and seriously compromises the officer's ability to continue.  If the phrase is given a less rigorous interpretation, it could allow Congress to influence and control the President and the courts." —Neil J. Kinkopf

Oh, so serious.  Don't these constitutional scholars know that Congress is like a grand jury, can impeach a ham sandwich should it so desire?

But this impeachment sham is serious, deadly serious.  Democrats' creeping tyranny is how elected dictators take control of their country.  They get elected, take control of media, warp, rewrite, then dispense with the country's constitution.  Then they're free to arrest and incarcerate political enemies without cause, without representation, without an actual crime.

We're at least halfway there, probably three quarters.  Our would-be rulers got elected to Congress, appropriated media, and are attempting to rewrite our Constitution.  As for jailing political enemies without cause, representation, or an actual crime, I bring you the "impeachment inquiry."

Is it so easy to undo our Republic, to abrogate the Constitution that's kept us free and prosperous for over 200 years?  Or will we fight back?

"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new guards for their future security " ―James Madison

But how?  To vote them out is a tall order, since Congress has its own auto-renewal policy.  Once elected, they use special interest money, name recognition, and party backing to get re-elected and re-elected, 'til death do us part. 

But maybe we can recall them.  While there's no mechanism in the Constitution to recall congressional members, neither does the Constitution prohibit it.  As Justice Clarence Thomas argued in U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton: "where the Constitution is silent, it raises no bar to action by the States or the people."

And at least one Founding Father says it's possible.

"The power under the Constitution will always be in the people.  It is entrusted for certain defined purposes, and for a certain limited period, to representatives of their own choosing; and whenever it is executed contrary to their interest, or not agreeable to their wishes, their servants can and undoubtedly will be recalled." —George Washington:

Of course, our powerful politicians and their faux legal analysts will say Congress is national, above state recourse, but as James Madison states in Federalist 39:

[T]he popular consent upon which the Constitution's authority rests was "given by the people, not as individuals composing one entire nation, but as composing the distinct and independent States to which they respectively belong.

Congress today is a bait-and-switch operation.  Its members lie to voters, make promises they've no intention of keeping, then abandon those voters as soon as they take office.  The Framers did not "intend" for a rogue government to remain safely ensconced in office while they betray the people who elected them, while they plot to remove a duly elected president.  They did not intend to leave the people helpless in the face of rampant government corruption; that's the oppressive tyranny they fought and died to escape.

But even if Democrats back off impeachment, settle for censure, they will have established an impeachment "right to try," set a precedent to impeach for any reason or no reason.  They've weaponized impeachment to harass, stalk, and obstruct the Executive throughout his term.  They hold congressional hearings not to investigate an impeachable offense, but to find one.  Again, the framers warned against this very scenario.

"If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people, whose creature it is, must appeal to the standard they have formed, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution[.]" —Alexander Hamilton

Redress: to remedy or set right.  Whether or not Democrats actually impeach, they will have left our Constitution frayed, scarred from the attacks.  We must fix the damage they've wrought on our Republic, fight these encroachments on our Constitution all the way to the Supreme Court.  Otherwise, any president not endorsed by Congress will face endless threats of a recall/impeachment under color of the Constitution.

President Trump warns, "We can never allow this [treason] to happen to another president."  I would add that we can never again allow these blatant attacks on our Constitution.

"Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the Republic for which it stands.  Miracles do not cluster, and what has happened once in 6,000 years, may not happen again.  Hold on to the Constitution, because if the American Constitution should fail, there will be anarchy throughout the world." —Daniel Webster

Fight for our Republic, my friends.  Miracles do not cluster.

Image: Donkey Hotey via Flickr.