Trump’s acquittal is a severe wound to America’s democracy. Among the Republican Senators, only Mitt Romney had the courage to stand out—unfortunately.
As an American citizen who migrated from Venezuela, I saw Venezuela’s democracy agonize over the years through a populist script that abused the democratic process. Therefore, I know leaders with Trump’s profile permanently test the checks and balances. They gain territory against controls (socially by attacking the free press; or institutionally, with outcomes like that of this impeachment process), and then they move on. Step by step, they try to determine how far they can go without a push back from institutions. This type of leader also makes tactical moves until they concentrate more power, undermining the rule of law and democracy itself.
America’s institutions are being tested daily by a leader who clearly doesn’t respect democracy. Tax cuts, broad concessions to the gun and corporate lobby, and packing the judiciary with extremely conservative dogmatic and politicized judges, inspired the GOP to grant Trump an acquittal. But, in the process, the Republican Party fails to recognize that Trump is morphing the GOP to his desires, as well as abusing power. Because of this acquittal, he will push further and further each time, unless Americans can stop him in November (either by voting him out or by electing a Democratic-majority to both House and Senate, where Democrats can establish a strong contention along party lines until common ground can be found with new leaders).
After the State of the Union (SOTU), much attention was placed on the images of the President not shaking hands with Pelosi, or Madame Speaker tearing apart Trump’s horrendous speech, packed with misrepresentations. However, I like to focus on the substance and turn our attention to the Democratic Party’s responses to the SOTU speech.
The first Democrat responding to the SOTU speech was the Governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer. She focused on healthcare, based on her struggles as a mother with a new baby and a mother with brain cancer:
“I was up all night with a baby, and, during the day, I had to fight my mom’s insurance company when they wrongly denied her coverage for chemotherapy,” she said in her remarks. “It was hard. It exposed the harsh realities of our workplaces, our health care system, and our child care system. And it changed me. I lost my patience for people who play games instead of solving problems.
“So, as a state senator, I worked with a Republican governor and legislature to expand health care coverage to more than 680,000 Michiganders under the Affordable Care Act.”
Her line of response was sharp and to the core of one of the people’s central problems: “It’s pretty simple. Democrats are trying to make your health care better. Republicans in Washington are trying to take it away […] It doesn’t matter what the President says about the stock market. What matters is that millions of people struggle to get by or don’t have enough money at the end of the month after paying for transportation, student loans, or prescription drugs.”
And it is the truth. Trump has broken the promise to repeal the ACA (known as Obamacare) because the GOP doesn’t control the House, and it might not be possible even to pass such repeal in the Republican-controlled Senate either (as the ACA has become more popular). Still, without offering any alternatives, the Trump administration is dismantling this key legislation (to the benefit of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries) by regulating the ACA and fighting its fundamentals in the courts. They want to actively but secretively make the ACA collapse or sink by shooting holes at the system with reckless administrative implementation.
Michigan (as well as the rest of the Midwest) is a must-win for Trump to retain the Whitehouse. And the healthcare issue can bring him down with that electorate. It is essential to remember that Trump won states in the Midwest by margins of less than 0.5%. Hillary Clinton lost because of abstention or, worse, votes to third-party candidates Jill Stein or Gary Johnson, and whose combined tally added up to 3.5–5% in these states. A unified Democratic Party focused on crucial issues for Americans, such as healthcare (a very high priority for Midwesterners), is a potent reminder of how possible it is to defeat Trump if Democrats focus on a message that resonates with the daily lives and needs of the people.
The other prominent Democrat responding (“en perfecto español”) was Congresswoman Veronica Escobar, one of the first two Latinas elected to Congress from the state of Texas in 2018. In her speech, she insisted on access to affordable healthcare. Furthermore, she recalled the tragic shooting in El Paso, Texas, last year that combined a hate crime towards Hispanics, fueled by Trump’s racist and xenophobic rhetoric, leveraged with the lack of common-sense gun safety regulations.
Escobar framed the issues like this:
“Here in Texas, Republican leaders have refused to move a finger to improve access to affordable and quality healthcare. In my state, Medicaid expansion could provide services to hundreds of thousands of Texans.
“At the same time, Republicans around the country actively fight to dismantle life-saving benefits. They are working in the courts to eliminate the latest Affordable Care Act protections, including some for 130 million people with preexisting conditions […]
“As members of Congress, our first responsibility is to keep our communities safe. And that means taking steps to end the epidemic of gun violence in the United States.
“On August 3 of last year, El Paso suffered the deadliest attack against Latinos in the history of the United States. A domestic terrorist confessed to having traveled more than 10 hours to attack Mexicans and immigrants. Just before starting his wave of murders, he posted his opinions on the internet and used the same words of hate used by President Trump to describe immigrants and Latinos.”
The economy and climate change were also central parts of both responses. They highlighted that the economy continues the wave of expansion President Obama set in motion (although debilitating, with an expanding fiscal deficit). However, they stated that Trump and the Republicans are unwilling to continue facilitating sharing those economic gains with working-class Americans by expanding access to healthcare, education, and better wages. Making clear that while the stock markets soar, middle-class Americans’ income remains mostly stagnant.
Finally, both Democratic responses presented the vision that a transition to an environmentally sustainable economy is needed to reverse the existential threat of climate change while creating thousands of new and well-paid jobs for Americans, as well as opportunities for new and small business owners.
We now must move on from the impeachment; thus, the case must be taken to the court of public opinion in the election. However, winning presidential elections in the U.S. requires more than the direct popular vote. It requires messaging and turn-out in a handful of states that make up the math for the electoral college.