By Crescenzo Vellucci
Vanguard Sacramento Bureau
SACRAMENTO – They didn’t have torches or pitchforks, but as many as 1,500 anti-Trump protestors rallied at the State Capitol here Tuesday night, joining an expected 200,000 in more than 600 similar demonstrations nationwide calling for the impeachment of President Donald Trump on the eve of the House of Representatives’ expected vote Wednesday.
Sacramento protestors – there was also a rally in Davis – weren’t polite in urging Congress to not only impeach but “throw out” the president.
“The last thing we want is a party line vote….Congress, do the right thing,” said Scarlett Bustos, one of the organizers. “He’s breaking the law, violating his oath of office and he’s put himself above the law,” said Bustos, trying to keep the crowd pumped up in the bone-chilling cold.
Another speaker called not just for Trump’s impeachment and ouster, but that of Attorney General William Barr, yelling “Impeach Barr” to a wildly cheering crowd of young and old.
“Trump got caught. We will not rest until he’s gone,” said other speakers, including one that asked the big crowd to give a big hand to “brave whistleblowers.”
And Allen Asch of the ACLU of Sacramento announced that while the ACLU has only done it once before, it has called for the impeachment of Trump – unanimously.
“We have to fight Trump for justice. Become a resistance fighter,” Asch said.
“I heard there are open cells in prison…Trump should be in one of them,” said a speaker, while another reminded the crowd that “it took Trump to make some of us pay attention to our Democracy.”
National organizers said, “These nationwide ‘Nobody Is Above the Law’ rallies will put a face to the majority of Americans that support impeachment and removal. Those marching in the streets will send a clear message to Congress…Voters are watching, and we will remember who shows more loyalty to Donald Trump and the Republican Party than to the Constitution and their oath of office.”
The House on Wednesday is expected to approve articles of impeachment that accuse Trump of abusing his power and obstructing Congress.
“We have all of the evidence we need to prove that Trump is unfit for the presidency, and must be removed from office,” MoveOn, one of the sponsors of the Sacramento action.
As Michelle Goldberg wrote in a New York Times that Tuesday is a day for the “anti-Trump majority… to make itself seen” by hitting the streets.
“High-profile protests have, perhaps naturally, waned as the Trump presidency has dragged on. Ordinary people can’t sustain a sense of emergency month after month, and much of the Resistance has poured itself into organizing around local elections,” wrote Goldberg. “But in this moment, when the political valence of impeachment is still unclear, and the fight for a thorough, transparent trial in the Senate is just beginning, citizens can make a real difference by gathering en masse and voicing their outrage.”
Impeachment, even if the senate rejects Moscow Mitch’s BS defense of the traitor and convicts him, might not do the trick. He will try to stay. I fear we will need to be a little more direct.