Climate Change Protests and Impeachment Inquiry Give Us Some Hope —

Environmental activists protest for action on climate change on the U.S. Capitol grounds in Washington, D.C.: Glynn Wilson

The Big Picture – 
By Glynn Wilson – 

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Well this is extraordinary. Since I came down from the mountain in the Catoctins, crossed through the nation’s capital and setup camp on the Potomac River in Virginia, the people woke up and decided it’s time to protest on behalf of climate change — and the Democrats decided to open an active investigation to impeach President Donald J. Trump.

For the past several months and even years, I’ve felt like a lone voice in the wilderness calling for these very things.

Of course it took a Swedish schoolgirl with asperger’s to get people to turn out to protest for government action to address climate change due to global warming from the burning of fossil fuels.

And it took an anonymous whistleblower in the intelligence community with tips from multiple members of the White House staff about a phone call with a foreign leader by the president threatening to withhold military aid unless he received help investigating former Vice President and presidential candidate Joe Biden to wake up House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to open an impeachment investigation of Trump.

My short stay in Virginia will be up on Monday, so I will be heading back inside the DC beltway to wait for the fall weather to cool off enough to head back south for the winter.

But I will do so with a little more faith in the American people and the Democrats than I’ve had in awhile.

Now if only a few Republicans would begin to do the right thing and stop defending the corrupt mob boss in the White House who clearly wants to be the first American king and dictator, we might begin to have faith in the future of the planet and democracy once again.

We still teeter on the brink of the ultimate disaster on both fronts. While I still cover a few minor national and local news stories unrelated to this from time to time, there are two main stories I am most concerned with: Saving American democracy and saving the planet.

I have long concerned myself with these biggest of stories in a non-partisan way. Yes, I wrote bad things about George W. Bush, but that was not because he was a Republican. It was because of his bad policies that led to an unnecessary war in Iraq, the destruction of the environment on many fronts, and the near collapse of the national and global economy into a worldwide depression.

I’ve criticized Democrats many times in the past, going all the way back to George Wallace in his final term as governor of Alabama, and more recently the Alabama Democratic Party.

And yes, I’ve been critical of Donald Trump since he first started running for president — not because he ran as a Republican, but because like many news organizations, including USA Today, as a political critic I didn’t think Trump has the experience, character or class to serve as president of the United States.

He has proved from day one that he doesn’t understand the difference between a mob boss, a dictator or a king and the president of the United States in this American democracy, going all the way back to George Washington who could have been a king due to his popularity. He declined, and set the stage for our co-equal three branches of government, with the press being the Fourth Estate with all the freedom and power guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Trump clearly has no respect for the Constitution, the Congress or the Press, and he thinks all he has to do is lie over and over again on television and Twitter to keep the People at bay.

Up until this week, it seemed to me that Trump seemed to be right. At least some of that support is finally beginning to peel away. Christians and Republicans still seem to support Trump for political reasons, however, so we still suffer from this debilitating Constitutional crisis.

It is high time for Republicans to once again find their patriotism and loyalty to the Constitution and this country, not this corrupt president. My faith will be restored in the American people and my hope for the future of the planet will return when this happens.

Let’s say the Democrats in the House do find the votes to forward articles of impeachment to the Senate. If the Republicans, who control the Senate still, stand by this man and refuse to convict him and order his removal from office, the 2020 election will be our final hope. If Trump emerges from that political process as a sitting king, fully above the law, then the hope for this country and this planet are dashed.

At that point I will return to my camp chair on the mountain and watch as the world comes to a fiery end. We have one chance here to turn things around. Here’s to hoping the people, the Democrats and at least a few Republicans have the courage to do what it takes to save us.

An American bald eagle fishing along the cliffs of Virginia in the Potomac River: Glynn Wilson