Editorial. While the House of Representatives has launched an impeachment procedure against him, it is becoming increasingly clear that the President of the United States, through his exercise of power, undermines the functioning of democratic life.
Editorial of the "World". Words have a meaning. "We are at war"President Donald Trump warned on Thursday (September 26th), during a private event in New York, that the House of Representatives, dominated by the Democratic opposition, has decided to initiate impeachment proceedings against him. .
" In war ", the chief executive is not only against the party that opposes him in Congress and will dispute the White House in the presidential election of 2020. It is also, and it is more serious against the democratic institutions of the United States.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Decides to Open an Investigation Against Trump, First Step in Impeachment Process, Due to Remarks Disclosed by Publication of Telephone Conversation with President Ukrainian Volodymyr Zelensky is a high-risk initiative. There is no guarantee that it will succeed – none of the three previous triggers of this procedure resulted in the departure of the incumbent president – and there is no guarantee that it will not turn against the Democratic Party, at thirteen months from the date of expiry. presidential.
But did the Democrats have a choice? The framework in which politics in the United States now operates has fundamentally changed in comparison to the previous occupants of the White House. The executive power, the legislature and the judiciary no longer seem to follow the same rules. Since the Democrats won a majority in the Lower House of Congress in the 2018 mid-term elections, President Trump has refused any form of parliamentary scrutiny.
The battle will be tough
His attacks on the courts, the police and intelligence services, multiple agencies of public administration, and his constant hostility to the media, regularly treated as"Enemies of the people", of "Falsifiers" and of "Corrupted" have been growing for three years. It is becoming increasingly clear that Mr. Trump, through his exercise of power, undermines the functioning of democratic life.
What is suggested by Donald Trump's telephone conversation with his young Ukrainian counterpart on July 25 goes even further: if the investigation confirms this, it is an abuse of power by a US president who conditions military aid to a foreign country to a political operation against his likely opponent in the presidential election.
Faced with this extraordinary president, the elected Democrats had to set a limit beyond which they consider the counter-powers, the famous "Checks and balances" of the American system, can no longer play their role: in their eyes, this limit has been crossed.
The battle will be tough. The last president targeted by impeachment, Bill Clinton, accused of lying about his relationship with intern Monica Lewinsky in 1998, fought and was finally acquitted, but accepted the rules and followed the procedure.
Donald Trump, he plays off the nails, surrounds himself with people who have nothing to do standards and denies the obvious. Forced to make public the text of his conversation with the Ukrainian president, he proclaims on social networks that he whitens, while he is overwhelming. He puts his constituents against the institutions. For him, every move is allowed. For American democracy, this perilous test will be vital.
