We interrupt the holiday spirit to bring you the impeachment of a president.
In festive haunts, buzzing stores and rush-hour frenzy, Americans absorbed the moment Donald Trump became only the third president branded with the mark of impeachment, the Constitution’s gravest political indictment.
Depending whom you ask in this deeply polarized country, Americans saw the House vote Wednesday night as a just expression of the nation’s founding document, or a gross distortion of it. They saw Trump getting what he deserves, or being hunted by witches.
They reflect the polling that finds a great divide over whether Trump should be driven from office. On this, though, they might agree with Mark McQueen, a state government worker in Tallahassee, Florida: “Tensions are high across the land.”
The Associated Press asked people about the impeachment in a half-dozen states important in the 2020 election or in the primaries that will choose Trump’s Democratic rival.
MANCHESTER, New Hampshire
On Manchester’s liveliest street for drinking and dining, Elm, most of the TVs in the Thirsty Moose Taphouse were tuned to sports as the House vote loomed and none showed the debate.
Walking outside, James Adamonis, a 39-year-old Navy veteran, voiced support for the impeachment. “He does absolutely nothing for this country, especially for veterans like myself,” Adamonis said. “He’s just an awful president. Everything he’s done has been a lie right from the get go.”
Adamonis said he didn’t vote last time and doesn’t know if he will next year.
Alice Cutting, a 60-year-old office manager who voted for Trump in 2016 and plans to do so again, called impeachment “ridiculous.”
“This is just a waste of taxpayers’ dollars,” she said. “Do something more productive, something that’s going to help this country.”
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LOS ANGELES
Working on her laptop in a Los Angeles mall, Natasha Adams welcomed Trump’s impeachment, believing he abused his powers in leaning on Ukraine to investigate his political opponents and withholding military aid in the meantime.
She’s a regional manager for a jewelry store, in town on her 42nd birthday from Rockville, Maryland. She’s a Democrat.
“I felt like he’s done a numerous amount of things already to probably get him impeached,” Adams said. Referring to the Democrats, she added: “I feel like now maybe they’re just fed up and they need to set that example.”
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DENVER
Morgan O’Sullivan, a 31-year-old Denver brewpub owner and Democrat, kept glancing at his phone as it sent him alerts.
His immediate wish: that his state’s Republican senator, Cory Gardner, doesn’t just fall into partisan lockstep during the Senate trial on the House articles of impeachment. If Gardner shows some independence, he said, “I’d gain a significant amount of respect for the Republican Party and I’d start to believe there was some bipartisanship out there.”
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TALLAHASSEE, Florida
“Any time you impeach a president, it’s a historic moment,” said Aimee Brewer, 49, a nurse from Monticello, Florida, who voted for Trump in 2016. “Being impeached is bad, but I don’t know if it’s going to be just a blemish or something bigger. Either way, I’m going to support him.”
She said of the Democrats: “They never really made a decent case against him. We needed a little more proof; it was all circumstantial.”
Mark McQueen, 46, is an informational technology engineer with the state government and a Democrat. “We are divided as a society,” he said. “Tensions are high across the land. I think people risk losing faith in the political process,” he said.
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Calvan reported from Tallahassee, Florida, and Woodward from Washington. Associated Press writers Nicholas Riccardi in Denver, Kathleen Ronayne in Los Angeles and Hunter Woodall in Manchester, New Hampshire, contributed to this report.