B X Lee -- Trump Removal Depends on ‘We the People’
Removal Depends on ‘We the People’
Emergency Meeting Today at 7 p.m. EDT / 4 p.m. PDT
*Information on the emergency meeting today is far below.
A former Congress member wrote to me on Tuesday:
I just felt the need to let you know I think of you often these days, especially today. Wish you were getting more recognition for warning the country about Trump, but more concerned people are belatedly realizing how accurate you have been. I’ll never forget that you told me that his pathology always gets worse, never better. How right you were…. The world needs you more than ever…. You are a hero to me, and one day I trust you will be a hero to the country.
This is immensely generous, coming from a highly-respected former member with a long and illustrious tenure, whom I consider to be uncommonly prescient in his own right.
There was another lawmaker who called me his “hero” the first time I stepped into the Halls of Congress, which overwhelmed me, for he was no ordinary personage himself. In those early days of 2017, I was immensely beholden by the honorable leadership our country had, how well-read, intelligent, concerned, and capable they were—after all, they were almost visionary in inviting me and my colleagues of their own accord. These are the voices in Congress that do not get heard or even covered, and then are tragically sidelined and suppressed by party leadership for some reason.
It is no wonder that they, surprisingly, told us they depended on us to continue to “educate the public medically,” so that they could “intervene politically.” This is when I truly felt the power the people had, that public opinion not only mattered, it drove the lawmakers’ ability to do almost anything. Even in our tattered democracy, we must not forget: “The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed,” to quote South African medical student-activist Steve Biko. In other words, we can choose not to surrender but to keep for ourselves a tyrant’s most potent weapon: our own mind.
Indeed, former presidential candidate Ralph Nader said at “Impeachment Symposium 2026,” held yesterday in a House of Representatives’ meeting room:
There are those who think that impeachment is impossible because the Republicans control the Congress. We have seen that in the past, and we have seen the Republicans in 1974, looking at their plummeting polls in the forthcoming election, abandoned Richard Nixon and send a delegation to the White House saying to him, “You’re going to be impeached and convicted. Your time is up,” and Nixon resigned. That was once considered impossible for a president who was reelected by 49 out of 50 states in 1972 with 60 percent approval rating. It went from impossible, then possible, then probable, then achieved—and he was out of office.
Bruce Fein, former U.S. Supreme Court candidate and the foremost constitutional lawyer in the country who helped impeach three presidents, stated the purpose of the conference:
to further intensify publicly-committed Americans around the country…. They all have a stake in saving the Republic and the Constitution for which it stands, from the predatory fascist hands of Donald J. Trump and the people he has brought in to dismantle that part of the federal government that serves the people.
Fein had helped draft the articles of impeachment (earlier this year, he showed me more than forty, thirteen of which Rep. John Larson of Connecticut filed on April 7, 2026):
to remove Donald Trump from office as the President becomes more unhinged and risks the lives, safety, and security of the American people. Larson is also calling for the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment as Trump escalates his illegal war and threatens to annihilate an entire civilization….
“Donald Trump has blown past every requirement to be removed from office. And it’s getting worse…,” said Larson. “He’s becoming more unstable by the day. His profane and sacrilegious Easter Sunday and subsequent threats, including ‘a whole civilization will die’ and ‘open the Strait … or you’ll be living in hell’ not only foreshadow war crimes, but put our security at risk.”
Nader surprisingly added:
The most shocking silence of all is … of our ex-presidents, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and even George Bush, who despises the destruction of his AIDS program in Africa by Donald Trump. In their luxurious retirements, they have been constantly battered by Trump publicly with almost no rebuttal or challenge. Has there ever been a greater example of cowardliness or indifference or indulgence by former presidents who have received hundreds of millions of votes and still have a lot of support in the country. To go back into the arena, organize the citizenry, get great media, raise funds for local pro-impeachment lobbying groups from liberal and conservative voters in every congressional district.
These ex-presidents can decisively turn the balance of power and reflect the demand of the task force and many others for the immediate impeachment and removal. We must demand that they do so. They harbor the trust of millions of Americans for better and for worse, and they are not using that trust, given the enormous latent assets that could be awakened if they stepped forward in the public arena…. We need to bring together all civic assets that we can.
Just two days after I wrote, “Emergency Appeal to the Four Living Former Presidents of the United States,” Nader is echoing it! (I cannot be sure he read my column, but sometimes he surprisingly does, so thorough is his research). I conceived the idea as a way to wake up the people, to remind them of when they were not under the total whim of the current “leader”, and to show that, ultimately, their opinion matters more than anything: all “leaders” in Congress are actually followers. The people are the leaders.
Indian independence activist Mohandas Gandhi toppled the mighty British Empire by showing that rulers can have no authority if the people refuse to submit. French magistrate Étienne de La Boétie said: “Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed.” Our own Martin Luther King Junior said: “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.” Now it is our turn. We are not powerless observers but active participants. No institution, no office, no individual can withstand a public that is clear in its thinking and resolute in its will. When the people break away from the “spell” of oppression and reclaim their mind’s focus, courage, and sense of responsibility to one another, democracy lives again—not because it was repaired from within, but because it was demanded from without.
*Please join me for a live conversation at an emergency meeting today, April 10, 2026, at 7 p.m. EDT / 4 p.m. PDT. The link will be sent to paid subscribers an hour before the meeting (apologies again for making it paid, but it is in part for attendees’ protection).
Announcement:
Dr. Bandy X. Lee is in the process of establishing SURVIVAL UNIVERSITY. Please use the contact form to join and to help make this unprecedented effort successful. She is also leading a public course series with Preventing Violence Now, about which you can find out more and register here.
https://bandyxlee.substack.com/p/removal-depends-on-we-the-people
Yes, I agree. The four ex-presidents need to speak out loudly and clearly. I am surprised and appalled that they are silent for the most part. Obama has come out on his own in speaking up. Why aren't they as a group doing so?