What must Donald Trump make of his opponents' feeble, weak, and cowardly responses to his daily torrent of serious, impeachable offenses? Even his egomaniacal narcissism cannot fully explain his extraordinary run of good luck.

Begin with the House's two impeachments of Trump while Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was Speaker, in 2019 and 2021—the only president in American history to be impeached twice. The first stemmed from Trump's attempt to bribe or extort Ukraine into going after Hunter Biden, an investor and board member of a Ukrainian business. Pelosi knew there was no chance of securing the two-thirds Senate vote required for conviction, but proceeded with the House vote anyway. At the same time, she declined to pursue numerous other "slam dunk," kitchen-table impeachable offenses that the author and others presented to her (see Congressional Record, December 18, 2019).

In 2021, after the January 6 Trump-incited violent insurrection involving an attack on the Capitol and Trump's effort to overturn the 2020 election, Pelosi did the same thing: the House impeached Trump. The Senate, however, fell short of the two-thirds vote required to convict and remove him from office, because most Senate Republicans failed to hold Trump accountable for these actions. In fact, no president has ever been removed through the impeachment process laid out in Article I of the Constitution: Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton, the two presidents convicted-impeached before Trump, were both acquitted by the Senate, and Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 before the full House could vote on his impeachment.

Come the second Trump term—after criminal indictments, a felony conviction, and civil litigation brought by women accusing him of sexual misconduct—on Day One, January 20, 2025, Trump began issuing executive orders the author characterizes as illegal. Many of them constituted impeachable offenses as he boastfully implemented them, with the aid of Elon Musk's operation, DOGE.

Trump continues to commit "high crimes and misdemeanors" brazenly, taunting the so-called leaders of the Democrats by saying, "This is just the beginning."

Trump probably anticipated a far more vigorous impeachment drive by the Democrats, even though they are in the minority in the House and impeachment resolutions must originate in the chamber they do not control. His luck held. The Democratic Party's leadership decided against what the author calls an excellent galvanizing get-out-the-vote initiative for their voters, 90% of whom wanted impeachment yesterday. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries' (D-Calif.) staffers told inquirers that they didn't know how it would play out.

Jeffries himself told a reporter that "he didn't want to get ahead of that discussion." Ahead of 90% of his party's voters?

Trump—who called for the execution of six Congressional Democrats for reminding soldiers of their obligation not to obey an illegal order contrary to the Constitution or the laws of the United States, as described in the Army Manual for Courts-Martial (MCM) along with international law—must be privately dumbfounded. The more violently extreme and erratic he becomes, the less interested the Democratic Party is in an impeachment drive. (See "Statement from Medical Professionals" in the April 30, 2026 Congressional Record.)

Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) introduced H. Res. 537 on June 24, 2025. It was treated as a privileged impeachment resolution, a procedural status that forces the House to act within a set number of legislative days, and Green took to the floor for debate and a prompt vote to educate the public about the necessity of ordering Trump, "You're Fired." Jeffries and his cohorts opposed it. Trump must have been stunned.

After all, the author argues, people and their children—tens of millions of them—are feeling, seeing, and hurting from Trump's wrecking, endangering, and weakening of America. (See the author's earlier column, "Open Letter to Representative Hakeem Jeffries.")

Under the Jeffries and Schumer anti-impeachment posture—thus, in the author's view, agreeing with Trump—the news media has little activity to cover in Washington, DC. Nor is it keeping up with the civic activity around the country demanding impeachment. (See nader.org/impeachment.)

More puzzling, the author writes, is the refusal of editorial writers to urge impeachment. They regularly make the impeachment case against Trump but decline to tell readers the obvious conclusion: that the House should begin an impeachment inquiry and approve articles of impeachment. Congress also has an important role under Section 4 of the 25th Amendment, ratified in 1967 in the aftermath of President Kennedy's assassination. By statute, Congress may appoint itself—in lieu of the principal officers of the Executive Branch—to determine whether the president is disabled and should be temporarily removed until the disability lapses.

Despite many detailed editorials in The New York Times—such as one showing how Trump is harming the health of the American people, and another "Autocracy Index" piece titled "Trump's Election Meddling Erodes Our Democracy"—the editorial writers, in the author's words, limped off their pages without answering alarmed readers' question: "What do you want done about this?"

Times Sunday columnist Jamelle Bouie relentlessly documents Trump's impeachable crimes, but not once, the author notes, has he recommended this Republic-saving mechanism handed down by the Founding Fathers. The same goes for other Times columnists Michelle Goldberg and EJ Dionne.

The Times' reluctance to employ the "I" word is typical of the mass media. What about the independent progressive media? The Nation, In These Times, Progressive Magazine, and The Washington Monthly have all mentioned impeachment, but few have made a sustained, prominent editorial demand for an impeachment drive. Nor do they report on the rising citizen activities behind impeachment around the country.

Meanwhile, Trump continues to commit "high crimes and misdemeanors" brazenly, taunting the so-called leaders of the Democrats by saying, "This is just the beginning." He provides the Democrats with daily evidence that should prompt shadow congressional hearings, organized by Democratic members of Congress and designed to build a public factual record. Such hearings could attract substantial media attention, particularly if they focused on specific alleged abuses and featured affected witnesses, legal experts, and former public officials. The tactic has precedent: during the Iran-contra affair in 1987, Democrats in the House ran selective hearings that kept pressure on the Reagan administration even without full subpoena power. Nonetheless, Jeffries and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) block any shadow hearings by dissenting House members, the author writes.

What explains this historic cowardice, the piece asks. Is it fear of Trump retaliating? Is it smugness over Trump's low polls and a belief that Democrats can win in November by lying low, raising AIPAC and corporate campaign money, mumbling about affordability, and avoiding heavily poll-favored pledges or contracts for the American people showing specifically what they stand for? (See, Compact for American Workers and Robert Reich's 10-Point Plan To Make America Affordable.) Or is it simply an attempt to avoid Trump accusing the Democrats of having done similar things when they controlled the White House, such as starting or backing unconstitutional wars?

Whatever explains their inhibitions, the author argues, the result is to signal to Trump that he has two-plus unchallenged years to ravage the lives and livelihoods of millions of people at home and abroad, oppose preparedness for climate and pandemic catastrophes, suppress renewable energy in favor of fossil-fuel combustion, deploy federal forces into American cities, and treat children with what the author calls unsurpassed cruelty. It also leaves unanswered serious questions about his personal financial enrichment while in office—estimated at $1.1 million per working hour.

All this, the author concludes, invites the demand that the Democratic leaders resign. The people need fresh, stand-up leaders to take over the Democratic leadership and its party committees. (See RootsAction: "Tell Democrats in Congress to Insist That Schumer and Jeffries Step Aside.")

The Democrats and electorally frightened Republicans pushed Richard Nixon out in 1974 for far lesser transgressions than those the author says Trump commits in a week.