Thoughts on Impeachment Eve

Posted by Etta Worthington from a speech at an Impeachment Eve Rally in Western Springs, IL

Like many of you, I woke up on November 9, 2016 and I was sick. I didn’t want to get out of bed. I wanted to stick my head in the sand or hibernate for 4 years.

 Like many of you I got my pussy hat and hiked on downtown and joined the women’s march in early 2017 and became part of a national, even international demonstration against Trump.

And like many of you, I got emails about how we were going to resist Trump, even before he took office. And I said yes, I wanted to resist Trump and so I invited 30 strangers into my living room to talk about this. And three and a half  years later we are still meeting.

Like many of you I have made phone calls to legislators, I have visited legislators’ offices, I have gone to town halls. I have gone to who knows how many demonstrations.

In short, resisting Trump has taken over my life.

Did he turn out to be as bad as I had feared? No. He’s been worse. Much worse.

These are dark days for our republic. These are scary days. Just like the solstice which is coming this week. These are the darkest days. The longest dark days.

Ah, but there is a break.  I want to say that tonight represents that turning point or tipping point. Tonight, with the demonstrations happening all over the country. And with the vote that will happen tomorrow.

But maybe I shouldn’t say that tonight is the turning point because I think in truth we are only here because of what happened in November of 2018.  If the Democrats had not gotten control of the house, we would not be here celebrating and demanding Impeachment. If the Democrats had not taken control of the House we would not have a strong voice to proclaim to our legislators, to our fellow countrymen and women, and to the world, that in this United States of America, no one is above the law. Not even the President.

And so, tonight I am celebrating. I am celebrating all the people across this nation that spent hours in 2018 canvassing for candidates, phone banking for candidates, text banking for candidates, donating money to campaigns. I am celebrating that and all those people, including you, who have made this night and the vote tomorrow, possible.

But these are still long dark days. I’m not seeing much sun.  But I want to say there will be a little more sun tomorrow because tomorrow our Representatives are going to stand up to be counted and will vote to indict the President of Abuse of Power and Obstruction of Congress.

But the Senate, you say. The Senate won’t remove him from office. So what good is this?  Won’t it make him stronger?

I can’t predict the future, but I can and do have hope. This action that will take place tomorrow is a major wound.  We should be renewed, energized.  Look what we the people have done.

And there’s so much more to do.  Even tonight, call your Representative and underscore that yes, you support their voting yes on impeachment. Or use ResistBot and send a message that way. Let’s make sure Lipinski, And Davis, and Garcia—any of the districts that are represented here tonight—let’s make sure their voice mail boxes, emails, and faxes are overwhelmed with messages favoring impeachment.

And then let’s think about next steps. What do we need to do about the Senate trial? Our Senators in Illinois will be impartial jurors. Will look at the evidence and make decisions on whether Trump should be removed from office or not.

What can we do? Well, we can call Democratic voters in 13 key Red states and ask them to call their Senators and demand a fair and transparent trial.  Indivisible National has made it easy. There’s a phone banking system you can access through your phone and computer. You can sign up for shifts to phone bank.

We can plan to do more demonstrating. Maybe some of us need to go to Washington in January when the trial is on. Maybe we should call for a national strike.

Whether or not Trump is removed from office, we can and must commit ourselves to doing 3 things:

• make sure the Democrats especially progressive Democrats keep power in the House of Representatives

• make sure that the Democrats take control of the Senate, and that includes ditching Moscow Mitch. And hey, let’s throw in Lindsay Graham there as well/

• and then we must do everything we can to make sure Trump, if he is not removed from office, or Pence, if he is, will NOT be returning to Washington. We must make sure we have a Democrat for president.

There’s so much each of us can do between now and next November.

We can make sure people are registered to vote.

We can canvass for candidates. An example we’ve heard from tonight. Marie Newman needs our help to make it to Washington this time.

We can canvass in other states as well. My group has plans to both register people in Wisconsin and canvass for Democrats in Wisconsin.

We can phone bank. We can text bank.

And write postcards.  Even if you are unable to do some of the other things, you can write postcards to voters.  My group currently meets twice a month to do that and will be ramping to have three postcarding events a month.

From the policy people from Indivisible, I’ve heard the strategy is this: we aren’t going to try and change the minds of Trump voters. Instead we need to focus on three groups of Democrat-leaning people, specifically people of color, young people, and college-educated white woman. We need to focus on getting these folks out to vote.

So tonight, we celebrate what is, not the first, but the second big step to reclaiming our democracy.  And tonight you have the chance to commit yourself to working from now to next November to make sure we have a new face in the White House, and new faces in the Senate.  Will you do that?

I can’t hear very well so I am going to ask again, will you commit to work hard to make sure we have a positive result in November?

I don’t want to wake up the morning after the election and be unhappy with the results and think, I could have done more. How about you?