Honestly, I don’t think anyone’s surprised that the congress is taking action against President Trump. However, I am surprised this is the reason why Trump is being impeached for. President Trump has allegedly committed multiple atrocities, such as sexual misconduct, obstruction of justice, abuse of power, violating immigrant rights, and much more. Of course, I believe what Trump has done falls under abuse of power and is indeed an impeachable offense, but it is only one of many reported felonies Trump has commited.

— Elina Chen, J.R Masterman

This event has in my opinion been a long time coming. I am by no means a supporter of either established party, I firmly hold with Washington’s beliefs of the matter, however that being said I dislike Trump both as a man and as a politician. This administration and even his candidacy was marred by all the hallmarks of an abuser. Trump has constantly pushed the American system to its limits, whether it was asking Russia to find Hillary’s emails, chanting “Lock her up”, telling those 4 Democrats to “Go back where they came from” (even though 3 of the 4 were born here), and now we reach the critical point of telling both the Ukrainian and Chinese governments to investigate one of his rivals.

— Andrew Cruz, Gilbert, AZ

I believe that Trump was using his power of the Presidency to gain personal power in the future elections. I believe that a president should never use his presidential power to gain an individual advantage and if he does he should not be the leader of our country.

— Kate Buckley, South Burlington, VT

The impeachment inquiry is being done for political gain

Overall I do not think that Trump will get impeached due to how much power he holds in office and the fact that the Republican party dominates the senate. However I do think this fiasco is likely to hurt Trump’s polls in 2020. Democrats that didn’t vote in 2016 will realize that if this person gets elected again we could have an even larger problem on our hands. I think Trump will not get impeached because Americans find it too dangerous to impeach presidents because it is not a political tool we know how to control in a democracy.

— Jasper, J.R. Masterman

I’m beginning to understand what both sides are doing. The democrats are kind of making this last-ditch effort to remove Trump from office which would lead the presidency in the Vice President’s hands. It seems that the Democrats are doing this mostly because of how uncertain they think their candidates are at running and winning the election. The Republicans, however, are on the defense with either denying most evidence or they themselves just not understanding what’s going on. Whether your political views, the situation is confusing.

— Devin, Northbrook

Its been interesting to see both the scrambling of the white house to cover up their tracks and the desperation of opposing figures scrambling to make something stick to the current US president. The impeachment is over a foreign meeting that dealt very little with the actual gain or loss for the US people, which shows how badly the white house simply wishes to gain an upperhand in US politics and finally mark the left as corrupt, while the impeachment itself feels less like senate trying to protect the people from the president, and more like political figures trying to finally get the control they desire over the country. The impeachment does not so much make me appreciate democracy, but more taught me to lose faith in both political parties, because even our elected officials, both right and left wing, can treat their jobs like a political wheel, constantly trying to stay on top.

— Lisi, VT

I do not think that our democracy is at stake, simply because I do not think Trump will get stripped of his name. In my opinion, Trump’s actions do rise to the level of impeachable offenses, and the Congress will look into it, but nothing will change, because the Government wants to distract us from what’s really going on (behind the scenes). I haven’t been paying attention to the news recently, so I can’t really give an opinion on my sympathy towards Trump. All I can say is that everything that he thinks, will come out of his mouth. So, small opinion: I don’t really have any sympathy for trump.

— Justin, Burlington, VT