This is a moment for healing and unity. The nation has been through a lot over the past few weeks and days, and it can scarcely afford more fractiousness. This is not a moment for partisan posturing, trying to gain a political advantage, or exploiting divisions.
Just ask most GOP members of the House of Representatives. “America is intensely divided at this moment, and people across the nation are frustrated and angered,” seven of them wrote in a letter to President-elect Joe Biden this week. “Our country is not just divided,” said Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. “We are deeply hurt.” Even the close Trump ally Jim Jordan says the nation needs unity.
They’re right. That’s why the Republican Party must pressure President Donald Trump to resign, and if he will not, vote en masse to impeach him. The GOP caucus should also punish, and perhaps expel, the members of both the House and the Senate who pushed to overturn the election. The nation depends on it.
Yet for some reason, most Republicans (including the ones quoted here) are opposing an impeachment that could bring the country together. (The New York Times reports that Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell looks favorably on impeachment, though he has not publicly endorsed it; at least two House Republicans now support the measure.) In some cases, they continue to lie to their constituents about what happened in the election. Why can’t the GOP put country ahead of party, defend Congress, and bring Americans together by evicting a president who most Americans agree is unfit and should be removed?