The Alternate Reality of Queen Donna Rump
January 4, 2020
Imagine, if you will, an alternate world in which the right wing was living under the presidency of their worst nightmare, the “liberal” version of Trump—a dangerously unqualified, mentally unstable reality TV personality who had propelled herself into the political spotlight by obnoxiously championing left-wing platforms.
The Premise
Liberals often use the “What if Obama/Clinton did that?” scenario to highlight the hypocrisy of Republicans who let Trump get away with cartoonish levels of corruption. But that comparison doesn’t quite capture the absurdity of the reality we’re living in right now.
Writing for Slate prior to the 2016 election, Seth Stevenson came a little closer when he used Sean Penn as an example, imagining a world where the “wackadoo candidate is in the other party.” https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2016/08/would-democrats-accept-a-wackadoo-nominee.html But that comparison misses one key aspect of why so many liberals are disgusted by Trump. Liberals tend to blame the destruction of the middle class on the generations-long campaign of the country’s top .1% to use their influence to distribute more and more of the fruits of this country’s labor into their own offshore bank accounts. (Liberals believe this because, well…facts.) Not only is Donald Trump a racist, misogynistic, unqualified reality TV personality, but he is also the most obnoxious personification of a system that lets the wealthy snatch increasing amounts of the country’s prosperity from the people who work the hardest for it.
In contrast, conservative leaders have a history of mis-directing their white working-class bases to blame their ever-dwindling economic prospects on the fictional “Welfare Queen,” a racist caricature who refuses to work but still lives a life of luxury. (Conservatives do this because, well…racism.)
So, instead of asking Republicans what they would say if Clinton/Obama/Sean Penn were guilty of any particular corruption, the better question would be, what would they say if these infractions were committed by the personification of a racist caricature? (Yes, the comparison has to be a fictional character, because, let’s face it….it would be WAY more difficult for someone to live the high life on welfare than for someone born rich to get richer by using an army of lawyers and accountants inherited from his daddy to cheat on taxes, file for multiple bankruptcies, and default on paying smaller businesses.)
So, with no further ado, here is a description of the alternate universe in which the President is an African American welfare queen/reality TV celebrity.
The Background
When she took her oath of office on January 20, 2017, Donna Rump was the unlikeliest person to have ever assumed that office. Born in June 1946 in a ghetto in Queens, New York, Ms. Rump got pregnant soon after high school, and hastily got married to her baby’s father. She and her husband struggled to make ends meet for years, forced to live in slums when they weren’t accepted into any apartment buildings run by a notoriously racist landlord in Queens. When Ms. Rump’s husband left her alone with three young children in the 1970s, she had no other recourse but to go on welfare.
Fortunately for Ms. Rump, she proved to be an astute learner of the ins and outs of the welfare system, and was able to effectively navigate the red tape to create a comfortable life for herself, her children, and her subsequent husbands. Not satisfied with just getting by, and not inclined to actually go out and get a job, Ms. Rump continued to mine the welfare system for any and all benefits, ultimately ending up in what was essentially a public housing penthouse, which she furnished opulently in the gaudy, gilded style that best fit her taste.
Because her scamming of the welfare system was technically legal, Ms. Rump enjoyed bragging about her success, and started gaining a bit of fame and notoriety in the 1980s. Dressed in the most ostentatious African-themed clothing and jewelry, she frequently became a guest on daytime talk shows while earning mentions in the New York City tabloids. (Sometimes she even planted stories about herself, posing as her own PR agent when she called columnists with tips about her “client’s” fabulous adventures.) With her unique look, unflinching self-confidence, and no-frills/no-nonsense sayings, her fame quickly grew. She was given her own reality TV show in the late `90s, in which she and her five children (fathered by three different husbands) were filmed living their best ghetto lives on the taxpayer dime.
At this point, the welfare queen from Queens was making real money, and naturally branded herself as “Queen Donna,” often referring to herself in the third person. While a stereotypical wealthy WASP might invest in prestigious golf club real estate, Ms. Rump was true to the stereotypical caricature she personified, and used her new capital to launch her own national fried chicken restaurant chain, “Queen Donna’s Poultry Palace.” She also affixed her brand to a cosmetics/skin care line, which targeted urban housewives, promising to make them rich if they could enlist their friends to join the sales team and buy a supply of Queen Donna products.
In the early aughts, she also started inserting herself into the political world, becoming an outspoken advocate of causes like Black Lives Matter, and fighting for restitution for the exonerated Central Park Five. She was a frequent guest on TV news programs, sought out for her colorful, relatable commentary.
The Campaign
When she first decided to enter the Democratic primary in June 2015, most people thought it was a joke. (The video of Ms. Rump and her third husband descending the mall escalator to a franchise of her fried chicken chain would be seared into the country’s collective memory.) Mainstream America didn’t realize just how angry the left had become after decades of financially subsidizing red states while having to suffer through red-state Puritan regulations and prejudices. Ms. Rump was able to build a core base of support by promoting and amplifying this cultural divide. With the radical left-wing internet sites firmly behind her, she captured the greatest share of Democrat votes in a crowded field, since the votes for more mainstream candidates canceled each other out.
Ms. Rump was not constrained by facts. She promoted a ludicrous conspiracy theory that the father of her Republican opponent, Ted Cruz, was somehow involved in the JFK Assassination. She also claimed that “thousands” of white police officers had taken to the streets in celebration of the murder of 12-year-old Tamir Rice at the hands of a police officer, a claim that was debunked as being utterly untrue. But even when presented with incontrovertible evidence that the tales she was spewing were pure nonsense, she doubled-down on these claims. Her base either didn’t notice or didn’t care that their reality-TV heroine was seemingly unhinged from reality.
Ms. Rump exploited and fomented racial animosity throughout her campaign. “America For Us,” was her official campaign slogan. Her campaign team scoffed when Rump’s opponents implied that the “us” in the slogan referred to blacks/minorities, but many previously disenfranchised African Americans heard in that motto the potential to get even for the country’s legacy of slavery and racism.
Ms. Rump’s most popular campaign promise was to build high-quality affordable housing for urban welfare recipients in desirable neighborhoods throughout the country. “Build My Crib!” Rump fans enthusiastically chanted at her rallies, bringing the crowd together in the giddy prospect of reparations and retribution. While most professionals in the field of low-income housing advised that there were far more practical, less expensive, and less polarizing ways to effectively provide necessary housing options to under-served minority communities, Ms. Rump refused to entertain these ideas. After all, a practical, effective long-term solution wouldn’t give her the sound bite of “Build My Crib!” and wouldn’t satisfy her followers’ craving for a big “F.U.” to white America that was a core part of “America For Us.”
When she wanted to cater to more mainstream supporters, Ms. Rump campaigned on a platform of fiscal responsibility, insisting with a straight face that, as a woman who had successfully manipulated and benefitted from the welfare system, she was the only person who could reform it.
She drew some negative press when she was sued in a class action lawsuit for her Queen Donna cosmetics line, which was clearly nothing more than a pyramid scheme that had preyed on those who were gullible enough to believe in her. To try to avoid criminal prosecution, Ms. Rump used money from a charity fundraiser she had organized to successfully bribe the Florida attorney general to not press charges.
Another thing that was particularly troubling about Ms. Rump was her ties to Mexican drug cartels. Wealthy Mexicans with close ties to drug cartels had invested in Queen Donna’s Poultry Palaces. These Mexicans had also orchestrated an online propaganda onslaught, saturating Facebook and Twitter with memes and fake news stories slandering her opponent Ted Cruz (“Lyin Ted,” Ms. Rump called him). Hackers working for the Mexican cartel were able to break into the Republican National Committee’s and Ted Cruz’s emails, and in corroboration with Wikileaks, started to release these detrimental emails. A conspiracy-brained contingent of Ms. Rump’s supporters—some of whom went on to key roles in her administration—even bizarrely seized on the word “pizza” in the RNC/Cruz emails to come to the conclusion that Ted Cruz was running a child sex ring in the basement of a DC pizza restaurant. During her rallies, Ms. Rump publicly embraced Mexico’s support and encouraged more interference. “Mexico, if you’re listening, get me some more of those emails!”
Her campaign seemed to hit what many assumed would be an insurmountable setback when audio from several years earlier surfaced of her talking with Wendy Williams on a bus to meet Billy Bush for an Access Hollywood segment. Wendy Williams was heard asking Ms. Rump about what she thought about suburban white people who were angered by her path to wealth and fame. “I can do whatever I want! I’ll punch those crackers right in the face!” Ms. Rump retorted, “And if whitey don’t like it, whitey can eat my black p*ssy!”
Over 20 (mostly white) men came forward to say that she HAD physically abused them over the years, ranging from a punch in the arm, to hard sucker-punches to the face. (This would’ve been damaging, because Ms. Rump was known to have extremely large hands.) Rump’s supporters accused these men of being fame seekers or political pawns, despite the fact that only one had minor name recognition, none had ever been politically active, and none subsequently went on the talk show circuit or tried to capitalize on the accusations to gain money/fame.
To the surprise of the nation and the world, these scandals did not sink her campaign, and when the votes were counted in the wee hours of the morning on November 9, 2016, Donna Rump had been elected to serve as President of the United States. She had eked out an electoral college victory based on the support of her loyal base, combined with the votes of mainstream Democrats who didn’t like her, but who held their noses and voted for her for the sake of appointing federal judges who would protect women’s rights, promote working people ahead of wealthy corporations, and who wouldn’t be beholden to NRA blood money.
But Ms. Rump wasn’t actually chosen by most of the country’s voters—in fact she lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million—but due to an electoral college system that was designed to favor states with large urban populations, she achieved a shocking electoral college victory. The electoral college, which had been intended as a safeguard against the country electing a dangerously unqualified demagogue, had done just the opposite, delivering the presidency to a woman who was as phenomenally unqualified as she was confident that the presidency was her destiny—despite the will of the American voters.
The Presidency
From the very first words of her presidency, President Rump signaled that her allegiance was only to her core base. Her bizarre, rambling inauguration speech almost seemed like it was written for cartoon villain. The intent was obviously to foment the “us vs. them” political mood and whip up her base against the “others” who had traditionally subjugated them.
One issue that had come to light during the campaign, and took on more urgency after the inauguration, was Ms. Rump’s ties to Mexican drug cartels. Mainstream media pundits raised some alarm when, immediately upon taking office, Ms. Rump delayed the enforcement of sanctions that would’ve had a negative impact on Mexican drug cartels—sanctions that had been passed by Congress as a bi-partisan security measure. Mexican leaders were also among the first foreign representatives she invited to the White House, and during their visit, President Rump blurted out highly classified information that jeopardized the security of one of our country’s allies.
The fact that Ms. Rump’s campaign colluded with Mexicans became even more evident when it was discovered that key members of her campaign—including her oldest daughter and her daughter-in-law—had met with a person with ties to Mexican drug cartels who had promised dirt on Ted Cruz prior to the election. “If it’s what you say, I love it!” her daughter had emailed when they were setting up the meeting.
Conservative pundits and mainstream media outlets believed that President Rump’s tax statements would shed light on how much she was indebted to these dubious Mexican bad actors, but she was the first president in over 40 years who refused to release her tax statements—coyly making the vague (and irrelevant) excuse that her taxes were “under audit.”
President Rump didn’t seem to think her ties to Mexican criminals should be an issue—she seemed to be more interested in building herself up as a literal Queen. Her first order of business was to fill her cabinet with a legion of loyal sycophants, campaign donors, and family members. Her oldest son (her obvious favorite—the son she frequently spoke of in sexual terms) was married to a woman who was the scion of another restaurant chain family, so naturally she deemed her daughter-in-law to be the most qualified person to establish peace in the Middle East.
Her first televised cabinet meeting in June 2017 turned into a bizarre spectacle when the new president, dressed regally in royal purple with a matching African headdress, praised her own supposedly unmatchable accomplishments, thereby giving her cabinet the not-so-subtle cue to take turns showering her with praise. They obeyed, tripping over each other in an apparent competition to prove who could be the most obsequious to a degree that would have been cringeworthy even to Kim Jong-un. “It is the greatest privilege of my life to serve as the vice president to a president who is keeping her word to the American people,” her vice president proclaimed. Her chief of staff went even further, “On behalf of the entire senior staff around you, Madame President, we thank you for the opportunity and the blessing you’ve given us to serve your agenda and the American people…”
Conservatives had real fears that they would never be able to rid themselves of “Queen Donna.” Following her win, the Democrats at all levels of local, state, and federal government doubled down on the process to disenfranchise Republican voters, finding any excuse to purge the voter rolls in white suburban/rural districts. They continued gerrymandering initiatives, and fought any resistance to these practices in the courts, which were increasingly being packed with judges whose only “qualifications” were that they were young left-wing partisan hacks (deemed unqualified by the American Bar Association) who would rubber stamp attempts to disenfranchise white rural/suburban voters.
On the policy front, one of Ms. Rump’s first initiatives was welfare reform. Her plan was to simplify the system, “reforming” it so that in order to achieve a comfortable middle-class lifestyle, welfare recipients (those already in the system) would simply be given $50 - $70K annual salaries (the actual amount being based on minority status), eliminating the need for them to seek out elaborate loopholes. Ms. Rump’s justification was that the “trickle-up” effects of the formerly poor’s new spending habits would offset the costs. When the U.S. deficit ballooned to over $1 trillion, liberals pooh-poohed conservatives’ concerns, maintaining that there was no reason to worry since the healthy economy Ms. Rump inherited from her predecessor had not yet collapsed.
President Rump also had an open policy when it came to the Mexicans and Central Americans who were in the country illegally. Her administration offered amnesty to these undocumented immigrants, giving them the benefits of legality that Republicans had long falsely claimed they had anyway. To further protect them—and to create more future Rump voters—she proposed fast-tracking their path to citizenship. To those conservatives who complained that these “illegals” shouldn’t be rewarded for breaking the law, President Rump countered that these immigrants had already paid their dues, having been exploited for years to build and clean the sprawling golf clubs of rich landowners who wanted to use cheap labor and cheat taxes.
To make room for Latin American immigrants, President Rump issued an Executive Order to freeze all immigration from traditionally white European countries. She ordered ICE to raid Irish pubs in major cities, demanding to see the “papers” of the bartenders/wait staff. Her administration deported as many of these Irish immigrants as possible, even if they were technically in the U.S. legally, for any minor parking ticket/infraction. President Rump also took a hard line against the “infestation” of “illegals” from Eastern Europe, sending ICE to raid modeling agencies that employed Eastern European talent. She even went so far as to try to revoke the green cards/citizenship of Eastern European gold-digging models who obviously could never have been attracted to the fat old rich men they married.
The system couldn’t handle the increase in immigrant detainees, so many of these Irish and Eastern Europeans were crammed into crowded cages while their cases were being processed, denied adequate nutrition, healthcare, and even basic hygiene products. This led to several deaths of immigrants in government custody.
While most of President Rump’s supporters would genuinely take offense at being labeled as racist against whites, there was a marked resurgence in militant African American group activity—at least partially encouraged by the fact that as soon as Donna Rump took office, she pardoned several African Americans who were in jail for violence against white police officers. The Black Panthers were reborn and started to use online intimidation/propaganda, as well the threat of physical violence to intimidate communities who opposed them.
In early August 2017, a makeshift statue was erected in Philadelphia to honor the convicted cop killer/death row inmate Mumia Abu Jamal. The neighborhood and police officers correctly interpreted the statue as an assertion of radical black power against law enforcement, and decided that it should be removed. In response, Black Panthers from across the country violently descended on the neighborhood to protect the statue, killing one community protester in the process.
At her initial press conference after the fatal Black Power rally, Ms. Rump was subdued as she read prepared remarks from the teleprompter. The next time she was in front of the cameras, however, she couldn’t restrain herself from showing her support for the Black Panthers, stating that there were “many fine people on both sides.”
In yet another scandal, it came to light that during the campaign Donna Rump had violated campaign finance laws by paying out illegal hush money to silence a story that could’ve been fatal to her campaign. Shortly after the release of the “whitey can eat my black p*ssy” audio, her campaign knew that she was in danger of losing more moderate and/or white voters who were disturbed by her boast about abusing (primarily white) men, and that if it had come to light that she had once briefly dated OJ Simpson, her campaign would suffer. To stop this story from seeing the light of day, she paid OJ Simpson hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep quiet.
Still, the rabid support of President Rump’s loyal fans seemed to grow with every controversy. They wore purple hats emblazoned with her “America for Us” catch-phrase, flew Rump flags on their lawns and out their apartment windows, and gleefully cheered her on during her rallies, professing their star-struck love for her while she slurred and rambled on throughout hours-long, nonsensical diatribes punctuated by catch phrases and juvenile insults pointed at her political enemies. They claimed that anyone who was opposed to President Rump’s corruption or otherwise criticized their Dear Leader hated America, and even accused them of treason.
Her fans agreed with her frequent proclamation that she was a “stable genius,” even though she made ill-informed statements that indicated that she thought Frederick Douglass was still alive, that wind causes cancer, and that there were airports during the American Revolution. After misspeaking about that path of a hurricane, instead of admitting her mistake and moving on, President Rump scrawled lines on an official weather map, apparently thinking that no one would notice, in a move that was so juvenile that the average third-grader would be too mature to attempt it. Her ability to read from teleprompters was so noticeably poor that several conservative pundits and comedians credibly argued that she probably couldn’t read beyond a fourth-grade level.
Snopes and Politifact found themselves researching a flood of fake news/unsubstantiated memes that were churned out primarily by left-wing websites (many originating with Mexican-cartel-funded trolls) to praise President Rump and vilify her detractors. When the fact-checking sites meticulously debunked these stories, President Rump’s supporters dismissed the fact-checking sites as conservative propaganda. By preemptively dismissing the fact-checkers’ conclusions, Rump supporters were essentially admitting that their belief system was based on lies, and they were okay with that. They never questioned why there were no “liberal” fact-checking sites to counter-balance the reporting of sites like Snopes and Politifact. If they had ever bothered to ask themselves that simple question, they might have had to inch toward the uncomfortable understanding that the people they believed in needed followers who were whipped into anger by a barrage of disinformation.
The Rump administration provided a lot of real corruption for the fake news and left-wing trolls to try to subvert. Members of President Rump’s administration were embroiled in the controversy regarding ties to Mexican drug cartels. Her National Security Adviser (someone who had publicly promoted the “pizzagate” conspiracy) had misled the FBI about his communications with the Mexican ambassador to the US, and accepted money from foreign governments without approval. President Rump asked James Comey, the director of the FBI, to take it easy on her appointee, and then abruptly fired Comey when he refused to end the investigation. The political and intelligence community was shocked at this flagrant obstruction of justice, but President Rump was un-phased and unrepentant. In a television interview, she outright admitted to Lester Holt that the reason she fired Comey was because he was investigating her administration’s ties to Mexican cartels. As a direct result of President Rump firing the FBI director, a Special Counsel was appointed to look into whether or not Ms. Rump’s campaign was complicit in soliciting Mexican help to win the election.
In addition to being the first president in decades to refuse to release her tax returns, President Rump refused to step down from her fried chicken empire. She left the day-to-day operations of Queen Donna’s Poultry Palace to her two oldest daughters, but since she didn’t put the business in a blind trust, she continued to profit from it. Her family also used their position to funnel money from the campaign directly into their business, wildly over-charging the campaign for the inaugural party held in the largest D.C. area Poultry Palace. Even more troubling, $40 million from her campaign was unaccounted for after the inauguration.
President Rump continued to force taxpayer dollars into her fried chicken business, visiting Poultry Palace locations with her entourage of secret service, staff, and visiting foreign dignitaries nearly every week. Politicians and lobbyists from around the world quickly learned that they could curry her favor by complimenting her restaurants, often showing up to meet her dripping in chicken grease.
“Queen Donna” Rump also frequently used her official platform to publicize the Poultry Palace. During a televised interview—an interview that was supposed to be about international security issues—she rambled on about the “succulent, juicy chicken” she was eating with the leader of China at a Poultry Palace as they discussed air strikes that were taking place against a hostile nation. “The most beautiful fried chicken you’ve ever seen,” she said, turning the international policy interview into an impromptu fried chicken commercial.
Policy-wise, President Rump managed to shove her agenda through in various ways—including bypassing Congress—to the dismay of the country’s conservatives. Her term included the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, putting 800,000 government employees out of work during the holiday season. Goaded by left-wing media talking heads, President Rump had refused to sign any appropriations bill that didn’t include $5.7 billion for new welfare “build my crib” housing. When Congress refused, she declared a national housing emergency to divert funding from military construction projects that had been approved by Congress.
As President Rump’s term continued, the nearly two-year Special Counsel investigation into ties with Mexican drug cartels came to a close, uncovering corruption by numerous members of President Rump’s campaign and resulting in several jail sentences. In his report, Special Counsel Robert Mueller described behavior that would have been considered criminal obstruction, except for his belief that a sitting president cannot be charged with crimes, and that holding a president accountable was the sole responsibility of Congress through the impeachment process.
To bolster their false claims that there was no Mexican collusion, left-wing Media seized on an alternate narrative that, instead of Mexican cartels interfering in our election to try to secure Donna Rump’s victory (as unanimously confirmed by all U.S. intelligence agencies), it was Guatemala that had interfered to benefit the campaign of Senator Cruz in 2016 (a story that was unanimously debunked by all U.S. intelligence agencies). Increasingly consumed by conspiracy theories, President Rump enthusiastically embraced this much more flattering fever-dream alternate election storyline.
As a perceived mainstream and unifying Republican, Senator Marco Rubio was seen as the front-runner to challenge Ms. Rump in the 2020 election. Conveniently enough for conspiracy theorists, back in 2014, Rubio’s brother had accepted a high-paying job at a Guatemalan fruit exporting company, Bananisma, while Senator Rubio sat on important committees that could impact Bananisma’s operations. Aware of the apparent bad optics of the Guatemala situation, Senator Rubio had been careful not to do anything inappropriate, and conducted himself in accordance with U.S. policy and international consensus. This included calling for the ouster of a key government official who had refused to investigate Bananisma’s corruption.
Although the left-wing media/politicians didn’t raise any alarm while the senator’s brother held this lucrative board position from 2014 – early 2019, they became obsessed with the idea of Rubio family Guatemalan corruption once Marco Rubio began to emerge as President Rump’s likely 2020 opponent.
At this time, Guatemala was desperately in need of U.S. funds and public U.S. support to help curtail the encroachment of Mexican drug lords into Guatemalan territory. Congress had approved millions of dollars to help the Guatemalan government in this effort. With Guatemalan citizens in more danger of being killed by Mexican drug cartels every day, the president of Guatemala depended U.S. financial and diplomatic support.
Instead of releasing these funds, President Rump first instructed both her personal lawyer and handpicked ambassador to Honduras to pressure the president of Guatemala to publicly announce that he was launching an investigation into Rubio family corruption. “Do us a favor, though,” President Rump said on her phone call to the Guatemalan president, and then continued to ramble on about debunked conspiracy theories about the Rubios and Guatemala. Understanding what was required to have the money released, the Guatemalan president scheduled an appearance on a US news network to make this announcement and lend legitimacy to the left-wing conspiracy theory. Fortunately, he was saved from having to follow through when a whistleblower came forward, at which point the Rump administration released the funds to Guatemala.
Much to the surprise of President Rump and her supporters, although the administration had survived being guilty of numerous violations since the beginning of her term—violations of campaign finance law, the emoluments clause, as well as obstruction of the Mexican investigation, multiple occasions of bypassing Congress, fraud, and gross humanitarian crimes—the Guatemalan bribery attempt was what seemed to be the final straw for Republicans. Having taken back the majority in the House of Representatives during a “Red Wave” in the last mid-term election, Republicans were now in a position where they could actually provide the checks and balances to hold President Rump accountable for her actions. An impeachment inquiry was launched.
In their best defense of President Rump, her supporters tried to use the fact that she was always deeply unpopular as a shield to defend her. The left-wing logic was that, since Republicans had taken issue with President Rump’s corruption and crimes since she took office, they were too biased to be allowed to hold her accountable for any subsequent corruption. Left-wing Catch-22 logic seemed to say that only President Rump’s most ardent and consistent supporters should have the right to hold her accountable.
President Rump refused to comply with Congress’s subpoenas for documents, and she forbade the top people in her administration who would’ve had the most knowledge of her interactions with Guatemala from testifying to Congress. Through this blatant obstruction, she refused to acknowledge Congress’s constitutionally defined status as a co-equal branch of government.
Democrats called the impeachment proceedings in the House a “circus,” but they were the ones acting like the clowns, constantly interrupting the proceedings to demand that highly irrelevant witnesses, such as the whistleblower, Marco Rubio and his brother, be called to testify. They did whatever they could to hijack the proceedings to turn them into an investigation of an already thoroughly debunked conspiracy theory. They even pulled a stunt that jeopardized US security by barging into a SCIF with their cell phones in hand, supposedly to protest a “secret” meeting—a meeting in which Democrats actually had representation.
The evidence that President Rump had dangled aid in front of the Guatemalan president in exchange for a political favor was overwhelming. The transcript of the call, as well as President Rump’s subsequent on-camera solicitation of Guatemalan interference during an interview on the White House lawn provided incontrovertible evidence, directly from the president’s mouth. During the impeachment hearings, witness after witness (nearly all of whom were highly respected diplomats who had faithfully served the country under both Republican and Democratic administrations) confirmed that there was a calculated campaign to make funding and a White House meeting contingent upon the Guatemalan president’s announcement of investigations into debunked conspiracy theories.
As expected, the vote for impeachment fell along party lines. Since Republicans held the majority in the House of Representatives, President Rump became the third president in the history of the United States to have experienced the taint of impeachment. Because Democrats had the majority in the Senate, it was widely expected that the Democrats would vote to acquit her in the Senate so she could finish her term and continue her crusade to dismantle any chance of a fair election in 2020.
The Conclusion
As of January 2020, the House of Representatives had impeached President Rump, and the trial was set to go to the Senate. The world waited with bated breath to see whether the Senate Democrats would uphold their oath of office as members of a co-equal branch of government and vote to remove a flagrantly corrupt president who had defiantly abused her power for her own political gain, or if they would put Democracy in peril by asserting that an utterly ridiculous and cartoonishly corrupt reality TV personality should be above the law.
To Be Determined…
