The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
‘What this country needs is healing, not further divisive types of conversations’
Local reaction to impeachment doesn’t follow partisan path
Amid turbulent times, not everyone who wants Donald Trump out as president got pleasure from watching his second impeachment — and not everyone who thinks he’s done a good job as president feels at all comfortable with what’s gone on in the United States of America over the past few days.
And not all of them watched the historic 232-197 House vote to impeach Trump, in which 10 Republicans broke party ranks to vote in favor of impeachment, including Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, chairman of the House Republican Conference.
For many, including the organizer of a local proTrump flotilla last September and one of the organizers of New Haven’s Black Lives Matter movement, this is a time of decidedly mixed emotions.
Todd Petrowski, a registered Republican who organized the Boaters for Trump and Blue Lives Matter Boat Parade from Branford to New Haven Sept. 26, 2020, said he wasn’t watching the impeachment Wednesday.
“I’ve got to be 100 percent honest with you, I’m just so disgusted. I haven’t watched a thing,” Petrowski said.
While he believes that “as far as running the country, I think (Trump) did a good job ... besides the way he runs his mouth,” Petrowski, who lives in Branford, said that “since he lost, with all the bull—, I kind of lost interest in it, to be honest.”
But “I’m not going to break something or destroy something because I didn’t get my way,” said Petrowski, who was shocked by what he saw last week when a mob stormed the U.S. Capitol during a massive pro-Trump protest.
“Just let the guy leave,” Petrowski said. “They just want to impeach him and get rid of him so he can’t run” in four years, he said.
Petrowski, who is considering changing his affiliation to unaffiliated because of issues he has with the Branford Republican Town Committee, said he doesn’t think Trump was treated fairly “from the day he got in. He never even had a chance.”
But “I’ll give Biden a chance,” he said.
Ala Ochumare, one of the organizers of the numerous Black Lives Matter protests that went on in and around New Haven in the weeks and months following the May 25 death of George Floyd, a black man, while being subdued by a Minneapolis police officer, is not a fan of impeaching Trump a second time.
“I’ve been thinking about that a lot,” Ochumare said. “If he was to get impeached,” the subsequent Senate vote “would happen
the day before or possibly on the day of the inauguration.
“I would love if we did not begin the beginning of our next presidency holding on to Donald Trump and his mess,” Ochumare said. “I would prefer to allow Biden and cabinet” to focus on other things, such as distributing the COVID-19 vaccines and getting additional stimulus checks to people who need them, she said.
“So many of the things that we need” are so important, she said. “COVID is a real thing — folks are dying and losing their houses and their jobs . ... There’s so much stuff that’s happening that, unfortunately, this impeachment is way late.”
Besides, “nothing that happened in the last week is, in my mind, surprising,” Ochumare said.
“In my eyes ... it’s really important for us to let things die. The last four years have been nothing but a pushback further into oppression,” Ochumare said. “My opinion, as far as the ‘insurrection’ and this farce of what would be an impeachment” is that there are more important tasks at hand, she said.
She worries about how long dealing with Trump and his impeachment “is going to allow Congress to take their eyes off of COVID relief ... Donald Trump and his whole regime can be held accountable without doing an impeachment.”
Quinnipiac University political science professor Scott McLean said “the critical turning point of this entire affair is the decision by Liz Cheney, the third person in the leadership in the House of Representatives, saying that she’s going to vote for impeachment.”
The key thing to watch was how many Republicans broke ranks to vote in favor of impeachment, he said before the vote was complete. The number ended up being 10, with four more Republican abstentions.
A large number of Republican votes could give Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., cover to hold a Senate trial before Trump leaves office, McLean said.
“Just from a constitutional procedural angle, I think it’s remarkable that the Republicans in the House are not going to whip this impeachment,” McLean said. “... Normally, there’s a House minority whip who goes to each and every member and tells them how the leadership would like them to vote.”
But “on this vote, the House leadership is divided ... which means that Republicans are free to vote their conscience,” he said.
McConnell “has said he thinks that what the president did,” concerning claims Trump incited the mob at the Capitol, “is impeachable,” McLean said. “If there are a lot of Republicans that vote for impeachment, that would make it hard for McConnell not to hold a trial.”
Middletown Common Council Minority Leader Phil Pessina, a Republican, said that “what this country needs is healing, not further divisive types of conversations.”
President-Elect Joe Biden has a “hard road ahead” over the next few months, Pessina said.
“You can’t let [these types of incidents] keep going, because now we’re on the verge of a new president, a new administration taking control of the country,” he said. “People should respect the democracy.”
Pessina questioned the haste with which the House acted on the matter, asking, “Do they really need to impeach the president now, and only add more divisive activities when the country is in turmoil?”
Known locally for his bipartisanship, Pessina, a longtime politician, always keeps history and setting precedents in mind, he said.
“We all have to be careful in our roles. Our children are watching,” Pessina said. “We have to be mindful of the fact they are our future.”
Young people watching these proceedings already may be interested in entering the “political arena” in the future, he said. “They are the ones who are going to lead us no matter what happens.”
Meanwhile, Pessina is anticipating the new regime. “We have a great country here, and we need to just take a deep breath and move forward and see what this new administration can do.
“The bottom line is, Trump and his attorney [Giuliani] should be held accountable just by their words and actions for what occurred Wednesday prior to the mob and insurrection,” Pessina said.
The Torrington Democratic Town Committee, in a written statement, called last week’s attack on the U.S. Capitol “a shocking assault on our Democracy and our Constitution.”
The statement, issued before the impeachment vote, said that “President Trump must resign immediately. If he does not take the honorable way out, he should be removed from office by the 25th Amendment or by impeachment.
“And those serving in Congress who aided him with pernicious lies should resign or, at the very least, be censured,” it said.