READING TIME: 3 Minutes
SUMMARY: We’re mad. We’re frustrated. We’re not helpless. We’d love to recall Trump, but only if there were a way. But there is. We can impeach, convict, and remove him. We just have to convince Congress to. To do so, we have to contact our representative and senators. We have to make 2026 a single issue election. We have to, but we won’t.
KEY WORDS: Impeachment, Conviction, Removal, Congress, Representatives, Senators, Election 2026, Trump, Indivisible, Hot Take, Social Media
COMMENT: Why do you think people are so reluctant to call their members of Congress about issues?
Hot Social Media Takes
I’ve see this “hot” take verbatim on my social media feed. Maybe you have, too. It really appeals with happy thoughts of recall petitions dancing through liberal heads. The pwning of Trump and the Republicans really appeals. Ooh, Trump’s stratospheric disapproval numbers could actually mean something. It would work. If only, we could save the nation.
And, in a certain way, it makes sense. If we had a parliamentary system, we could have votes of no confidence which would force a new election. But, even votes of no confidence are initiated in the legislature.
The other reality that no one wants to hear is that we do have a recall method for president and Congress, but we’re really most concerned about the president, right? It’s called impeachment.
Hear me out.
Impeachment & Removal is RECALL
If everyone of us swamped our representative and senators with calls demanding the impeachment of Trump, and swore up and down on a stack of Constitutions to them that that is the single issue we will vote on in 2026, I can guarantee that it would happen.
Too many people in Congress act as if the single most important thing in the country is them remaining in office. Showing them a credible threat to their re-election, and you’ve got their attention.
Recalling Trump is simple. Make election 2026 a single issue election: the impeachment and removal of Trump.
You won’t, will you, though. You don’t believe that calling your people in Congress will have an effect. You don’t believe Congress will impeach and remove Trump, do you?
Why did Nixon resign? Barry Goldwater went to the White House and told him he no longer had sixty votes in the Senate against conviction and removal. Why did Goldwater do that? Because public sentiment turned against Nixon, and we believed as a body politic that Nixon needed to be removed.
Why can’t that happen with Trump? Trump’s disapproval rating hovers around 60%. Why doesn’t that translate to sixty votes for conviction and removal? Why aren’t we demanding Trump’s impeachment and removal?
Getting Trump Impeached and Removed
Here’s how we do that, but you won’t. Not y’all, Bob, Chuq, Ali, but anyone else reading this? Nope. But, you’ll post your “hot” take on social media about recalling the president and members of Congress.
Step 1: Call ONLY your representative and Senators.
They won’t listen to people who are not their voters, so don’t waste everyone’s time by calling them no matter how popular they are. Here’s how you work it out and make the call:
- Get contact information for U.S. senators.
- Find website and contact information for U.S. representatives.
- Call the Congressional switchboard at (202) 224-3121 during business hours. A switchboard operator will connect you directly with the Representative or Senate office you request.
Step 2: Be POLITE.
Okay, it’s not a step, but it is a necessity. Real live human beings answer the phones — when they get answered — and listen to the messages — when the inbox isn’t full — so be nice. The person tasked with answering the phone is usually an intern or a constituency services staff member. All they are going to do is record the issue and whether you’re for or against it. That’s all they’re going to do, so be nice. It’s actually who liberals are. We’re the nice people in our politics, right?
Step 3: Be PREPARED.
The last thing you want is to stammer around and forget to say something important. Write a script, especially since you’re very likely to reach voice mail and need to record your message.
Hi, my name is [NAME] and I’m a constituent from [STATE and LOCALITY].
I’m calling today to urge you to support an impeachment resolution for (or convict if calling a senator) Donald Trump. It is clear that he is the most corrupt person to have ever held elected federal office. It is clear that he is breaking the law, the Epstein Files Transparency Act and conducting rampant open insider trading on the stock market. Congress must exercise its Constitutional duty to impeach Trump.
For me 2026 is a single issue election. I will be voting for a candidate that will impeach (or remove) Donald Trump from office.
It is beyond time for Congress to impeach and remove Trump.
Thank you for your time and attention.
IF LEAVING A VOICEMAIL: please leave your full street address to ensure your call is tallied.
Step 4: Call as a GROUP!
Make it a party. Pass the phone around. Listen in on each other’s calls. Make it fun to do and support each other doing it.
Step 5: Other helpful things to do!
Visit their office! Gather up a group of friends and go down and pay ’em an in person visit. Film your visit.
Alert the media! If you really want to make a splash, get some media involvement. Do something clever with signs and costumes and special days and what not.
Send a letter or postcard. Nothing touches the heart like a personal letter.
Email. Everybody checks their email, right?
@ them on social media. Here’s where your really good memes can actually do some good. Dog pile their social media with impeachment and removal messages.
Join a local group like Indivisible.
Seriously, we don’t have to put up with Donald Trump. We can have him impeached and removed. It will take a concerted effort, but it can happen. We just need to let our folks in Congress know that’s what we want, and that’s what we’re voting for.
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This image was found on On The Record and has a Creative Commons license.
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😀 I skipped down from “Bob, chuq, ali” 😀 (but I’ll go up and finish.) I just had to. I have written to my (Red-POTUSlovin’-R) critters about this specific issue, one time. No one responded. However, most if not all of the Dems running for House and Senate around the country and in my own area are not opposed, so another thing I’ve been doing is encouraging them to not only support Sen. Kim’s Medikids Bill, but impeachment, conviction, and removal of the current POTUS, vocally. Thanks, CalicoJack!
Howdy Ali!
When I heard about Senator Kim’s MediKids Bill, it was one of those D’Oh! Moments. Why didn’t I think of that? It’s a no brainer. That Andy Kim has been a real gem.
I know most people won’t want to get “bogged” down in another impeachment fight, but we can’t let the criminality and corruption go. We just can’t. It is the surest way to the destruction of our democracy. It’s what got us here in the first place.
My bigger point, though, was that people won’t call. They are loathe to call. They hate calling. It doesn’t matter what the issue is, except for the ACA. People turned out for the ACA. That’s the poster child for the effectiveness of calling.
However, I’ve gotten a lot of social media response to it. Not all of it positive. But, still, it’s been good on so many levels.
Blog On, Sibling!
Jack
You are correct. Many don’t even believe they can. Others worry about getting on some list, which does happen.
Ah, well. I’m sorry about the negative response.
Howdy Ali!
Interacting with your electeds shouldn’t include veiled and not-so-veiled threats to your livelihood and well-being, but here we are. In some ways, it is all the more reason to do so. I’ve been fortunate to live in Democratic districts in Texas — the only state I’ve ever been a resident in. My other electeds became Republicans in my lifetime, but was fortunate to have Democrats in office for much of my life.
The negative responses were not as bad as others I’ve had on social media. I block pretty liberally in addition to my politics. I don’t truck with trolls, but this time, it seems like more regular people, which I liked. I won’t argue with people online, which limits how much I’ll respond to. But, I did have some worthwhile interactions that led to my post this week.
Huzzah!
Jack
We had a US Rep who used to put people on the strip-search list back in the early days of the GWOT. One of my friends always bought two tickets for any trip he was taking to help with anti-death penalty or anti-war work, and such. He knew he’d get pulled out of line for extra-careful preboarding security, and miss his first flight, so he had a second ticket so he could still get places. He thought it was funny, and usually got his refunds. I have no idea if that happened with me, as DH and I never tried to fly anywhere. That Rep’s successor, Mike Pompeo, did say he thought he wasn’t certain I was patriotic enough, in reply to a reply of mine to a letter I wrote him regarding some thing or other Republicans were up to. I so wanted to write back that I kept bothering him because I Am Patriotic! DH thought I should let it go. So, I was a bit chilled when, later on, current POTUS made Pompeo head of the CIA (POTUS’s first term.) Now the poor guy doesn’t get some of his government benefits because he ticked POTUS off this time. I don’t know why any serious people support POTUS. But, I have hijacked the thread, and to my knowledge, nothing untoward has happened to me. Hope I don’t have to get strip searched at my advanced age if I ever have to fly!
I’m still sorry about your negative responses, and your losses. I always hate learning that people I think are generally decent, aren’t, so much. sigh
Howdy Ali!
Your rep was a sadist. Good thing their out of office. And, Pompeo learned what we’ve all learned, Trump has the feculent touch and everything and everyone around them is expendable. And, would to have enough money to buy two tickets every time you fly even if one gets refunded.
My bar for social media experiences got set real low since early in the Obama administration. Anonymity and poor impulse control are a bad combination.
I’m gassy and have had significant bladder issues for the past twenty years, in some ways, I hope they strip and cavity search me. Would serve them right. Picking on oldsters.
Huzzah!
Jack
PS I hope more of my comment sections get hijacked! Best thing that’s happened on the blog in a while is hearing some of your stories. Do you ever post them to a blog anywhere?
Not anymore; Scottie has come to a place where he doesn’t need my help at his place, so I took advantage and stopped for a bit. I have a Substack page. Sometimes the spirit moves me, but not hard enough to open a draft and post something. As we get closer to the general, I probably will use that platform again. My Substack is at https://alisonredford.substack.com/ . There is very little there by me, but if you look at my activity as to likes, restacks, and notes, then you’ll see the riches I read there most days!
Howdy Ali!
I certainly relate to the if the spirit moves me vibe. Some days neither the spirit nor the flesh is willing. Some days, they is both chillin’. Most days. Really, it is being distracted by real life. Who knew that retirement would be so busy?
I’ll have a look at your substack. Thanks for sharing the link, and if you decide to write up your political anecdotes there or as a memoir, give me a hat tip.
Huzzah!
Jack
Will do-thank you!
I did it. I think you probably got an email, but I said I’d let you know, so I did it. It’s not much, but it’s new.
Howdy Ali!
I tried to comment on your substack, but I don’t know if you got it or not. If you get this comment twice, oops! Sorry.
Thank you for your service, Ali. Being from Texas, I know what’s like to be in a perpetually red state. You gotta take you victories where you can get them, and the State Supreme Court amendment win is huge. Well done.
Here’s hoping Katy Tyndell wins!
Looking forward to more GoTV and Kansas State political stories.
Blog On, Sibling!
Jack
Thanks! I bet I’ll see it; I always have seen comments in the past. But thank you so much! I closed my email already; getting tabs read & closed to go to bed. So it’ll be in the morning. But thanks again!
The key is calling AND marching. The incumbent legislators need to get the message from independents and voters of their OWN party. My MOC is Chuck Edwards (NC 11th). He knows Democrats are not going to vote for him. We’ve told him so to his face more than once and in numbers. So, if he’s going to listen to anybody besides the donors and Trump, it’s registered Republicans.
And, speaking of donors, mainly the mid-level donors, not the true oligarchs, many of them do have reason to get on an impeachment bandwagon; small and medium business owners and such who are getting hammered by energy prices and tariff chaos, and who are going to be watching their TPS workforce lose their work permits and get deported.
Both incumbents and challengers would have to promise to get it done in the lame duck session, first order of business after the election. After all, at that point Trump could well be illegally and autocratically trying to invalidate the results or invoke the insurrection act against all who voted against him and any who speak of impeachment.
Howdy Bob!
The marching and calling is about right. Both serve two distinct purposes but both also heavily influence the elected.
The problem with impeachment is the inertia. Any big consequential departure from business as usual requires a ton of energy to get the ball rolling. That’s actually one of the functions of protests, marches, and rallies that phone calling cannot fulfill. It shows you how many people agree on an issue. It connects people. Even though businesses of all sizes are feeling the pain of Trump’s destructive policies, they probably aren’t to the JFK era mafia boss discussions of something has to be done about this and probably never will.
The other aspect of impeachment that I’ve been thinking about is that it is the right thing to do. It is right because Trump is so corrupt and destructive. Failing to hold him to account just allows him to escalate his lawlessness. And, it is right because it strengthens our democracy by using its mechanisms and institutions.
Removal will be a heavy lift, but it is no reason not to impeach.
I realize that we won’t have a ground swell of support for initiating impeachment, but it does serve to illustrate just how passive the electorate has become. We no longer see ourselves as integral to democracy or democracy as integral to the US.
Huzzah!
Jack
That gets me thinking about the different relationships people can have with a word like “democracy”. I suspect that for many it is simply part of the description of the country, an immutable virtue that need not be defined, just as “communism” is a bad thing without needing to know any more than that. For many, perhaps most, “America is a democracy.” means it is a good place, and that that status was achieved in 1776 forever and forever, Amen. So, it doesn’t have to be defended except from foreign enemies and their subversive agents. As long as they get to vote occasionally, whether or not they actually do vote, all is well, and democracy is in place.
What happens when large numbers of citizens who have voted or attempted to vote in good faith are blocked from voting, or have their votes challenged or invalidated?
Howdy Bob!
It’s like the word united in the United States of allegiance in the Pledge of Allegiance. We all know the word, but we never really reflect on what it means or its implications. Like Trump, his corrupt Cabinet, and all the Republicans in Congress, we just assume that the country will go on much like it is today and that this is the way it’s always been and always will be.
Black folk are standing up and organizing to vote in November. I hope white liberals will be doing the same. Hopefully, even some of the meh voters will, too. That’s the problem with being a meh voter. Would you even notice that you had been disenfranchised? Would you care?
I think part of the plan is to put ICE on the streets of Communities of Color and Jack people up to intimidate folks from going to the polls. You don’t need armed federal agents at the polling places to suppress of the vote. Just creating a climate of fear and putting them on the streets will be enough.
Switching polling places at the last minute. Closing early voting drop off boxes. They are going to do their level best to cause as much confusion and chaos as they can during this election and hope SCOTUS votes their way when it gets to them.
Blog On, Sibling!
Jack
I think that this will be an election decided by motivated voters and adaptable, agile organizing. Also, state and local election officials, including some very Red state ones, are resisting federal intrusion on their operations.
Howdy Bob!
Every thing I’ve gleaned about the upcoming election is that Democratic voters are motivated and Republican voters aren’t. Also, the Democrats are performing much more effectively across the board in all of the special elections and have real infrastructure going in all of the states. The party made those investments since 2020 and we’re seeing that pay off.
People run for office for a variety of reasons. The lower they are on the totem pole, the more likely it is to be because of patriotism and a commitment to democracy rather than a commitment to MAGA and Trump. I would expect most secretaries of state, attorneys general, and state election officials to be highly motivated democratic technocrats. The elected office are more likely to have more political motivation, but we’ve seen those office holders stand up for the country since 2016.
I keep coming back to that 2000 election, the Brooks Brothers Riot, and the Supreme Court. Three of the current Supremes were involved in W’s case and Thomas was on the Court when it was decided. I think, if a case deciding the seating of the new Congress reaches SCOTUS, all bets are off.
Huzzah!
Jack
If the Democrats take the House and Senate Trump and Team MAGA will contest in some way every loss. However, he is looking increasingly weak on multiple fronts, and talk among Republican incumbents in both houses blaming him is being reported. Given that he is likely to overreach in response to loss, impeachment and removal in the lame duck session is still conceivable. One thing is certain. The Iranians are going to do everything they can think of to make him look like the clueless idiot he is, and they are getting better at it.
Howdy Bob!
Most of us seem to have underestimated the allure of the lucrative post-Congress lobbying gig for 65+ year old geezers. Maybe there isn’t enough lobbying jobs to go around? How many MAGA podcasts can the economy support? I have no hope for any Republican ever “doing” the right thing. It just seems like everything THEY do is self-serving or not done at all.
If Susan Collins, Dan Sullivan, or Joni Ernst loses would they vote against the old windbag? Do you really think Bill Cassidy, John Cornyn, or Thom Tillis would vote for it? Collins and Murkowski voted to remove last time, so we have 47 Dem votes (Fetterman, really?), Collins, and Murkowski make 49, even with the YOLO caucus, we only 54. Who would the other seventeen be? Would McConnell revive himself enough to vote? Thune? Kennedy?
Trump would have to do something more egregious and long lasting than lead an insurrection that directly threatened the lives of the Senators to get them to impeach. Maybe actually using tactical nuclear weapons against Iran. I don’t think we’d be launching ICBMs because it would alarm the Russians and Chinese too much and there’d be too much of a possibility of a misunderstanding.
The Trump administration weakened our national cyber defenses — hoping to get evidence of foreign tampering with an election? — and the Iranians are attacking our cybe infrastructure starting with water supply. It won’t stop there. Right now, it’s at the warning stage. They’ll escalate the seriousness of what they’re doing. Maybe that will do it?
Huzzah!
Jack
One of the special things about cyber warriors is that they don’t have to be int he line of fire, or even in the same country. Iran’s hackers have been probing our systems for a long time. They have said many times in this war that they have more cards than they have shown.
Knowing TRump, if he were to threaten anybody with nuclear weapons he would talk of total annihilation, not some puny, one-off tactical hit. The generals would have their hands full talking him down of the narcissistic high. Whether he has any diplomats and spies left who could get him to understand how the rest of the world, allies, enemies, and neutrals, would respond, I seriousl doubt.
Howdy Bob!
Hasn’t Trump talked about total annihilation? Bombing them back to the Stone Age? Erasing their culture? It is very likely he’s talked about it and wanted it from day one. It just fits too well with his narcissism. He would love to nuke Iran. He’d be the first president to do so. The other presidents would all call him and say they wanted to and congratulate him on doing it. You can just image the social mediaing he’d do with it.
Hopefully, it would be the line in the sand our officer corps wouldn’t cross, and there would be mass resignations should the actual order go out. But, we’ve been murdering people on the high seas, so who knows.
Huzzah!
Jack
Oh Jack…..he has been impeached so many times we lose count…..Dems cannot agree on anything and impeachment would be just another issue that would make the party sluggish in elections. I like the idea of him being thrown out on his ass…..but do we as Americans have the stomach for another round of impeachment talks? I think the reasons the progressives are doing well is because they are laser focused on the same issues not twisting in the political wind like normal. chuq
Howdy Chuq!
The funny thing about impeachment is that we won’t do it. If eight million people called their folks in Congress and demanded impeachment and removal, he’d be impeached and removed. Eight million is the most that marched in the last No Kings rally.
We’ll march, but we won’t call. And, that tells us something important about our democracy: we are not engaged in the democratic process. It is the biggest reason Trump is succeeding in killing our democracy.
Huzzah!
Jack
Jack in that lies the problem….’we are not engaged’……chuq
Howdy Chuq!
Not only are we not engaged, we don’t see ourselves as integral to democracy or democracy as integral to the US.
Jack
Jack that is an excellent point…..chuq
This could be an item in Five Calls. IDK how to get it there, but that app makes it super easy.
The Democratic Party establishment is too busy worrying about “Too far Left” and Too Far Center”, and which issues to prioritize. If this got rolling, it would be The Unifying Message. And, there may be enough Republicans who would be glad of the permission from We The People to be rid of the Orange Embarrassment if they survive the election.
Also, it has potential to go viral and contagious across party lines and among those infrequent voters.
Howdy Bob!
If impeachment and removal got rolling, it certainly would be the unifying message. Trump is the most felonious person to hold office, yet we won’t demand his ouster. Eight million people in towns big and small will march, but we won’t call our folks in Congress to voice our opposition.
That we stubbornly persist in believing that calling your elected officials doesn’t work but proudly and righteously march in the streets tells us that Americans prefer what? Revolution? Fighting our government? Is it the corollary to the Second Amendment? I don’t know, but it tells us something about how we prefer to participate in democracy.
Huzzah!
Jack