Letters to the Editor: Are Republicans passing up a chance to make Mike Pence president?

To the editor: Robert Stern argues that Republican lawmakers are afraid that if they vote to impeach and remove President Trump from office, their base won’t turn out to reelect them.

Don’t the Republicans understand that removing Trump would be good for the GOP? If Trump is impeached and removed from office, Vice President Mike Pence would come to power. Yes, Pence’s politics are just as abhorrent as Trump’s, but at least he is stable.

In addition, it’s likely that if Pence became president after impeachment, he would be elected and reelected in 2020 and 2024, so the Republicans would have an opportunity to dramatically reshape our country (although I find that thought terrifying).

It would be in the Republicans’ best interest to impeach and remove Trump.

Tami Roleff, Yucca Valley

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To the editor: Stern explains most reasonably the Republican thinking on the Trump impeachment: Winning is all that matters, and politics is everything.

Notice how there is no mention of right or wrong or what is good for the country in his accounting of GOP behavior. He does not point out how un-American Trump’s behavior toward Russia has been, for example.

However, Stern is correct that, for the moment, it makes “political sense” to support an otherwise despicable president. It is for all of us to wonder how these Republicans will be able to live with themselves when it’s all over.

Karl Lisovsky, Venice

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To the editor: Stern’s piece is more than a political analysis. It is an indictment of the Republican Party for moral bankruptcy, intellectual hypocrisy and abetting the lawlessness of the Trump administration.

Stern notes that 94% of Republicans support Trump; these people know what he has done to violate his oath and the Constitution and to undermine the institutions of our republic so he can advance his personal goals. For politicians to seek these voters’ support so they can remain in office is morally repugnant and cowardly.

Stern points out that Republicans care only about the political calculus of being reelected or getting a future job in a Republican administration. What about doing what’s right? What about putting country before party?

Saul J. Faerstein, Beverly Hills