Edi­tor’s Note: The fol­low­ing is the text of a let­ter sent by NPI today to the offices of the Pacif­ic North­west­’s Unit­ed States Rep­re­sen­ta­tives in Congress.

Dear Rep­re­sen­ta­tives:

I’m writ­ing on behalf of the board and staff of the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute to ask that you vote to impeach Don­ald Trump for high crimes and misdemeanors.

For much of his life, Don­ald Trump has stoked the fires of racism, xeno­pho­bia, and big­otry in our coun­try and around the world. He has lied inces­sant­ly – to the press, to the Amer­i­can pub­lic, and even his own fol­low­ers. And he has incit­ed, encour­aged, and abet­ted vio­lence against peo­ple opposed to him or his agenda.

Last week’s ter­ror­ist attack on the Capi­tol was hard­ly the first time Trump has exhort­ed peo­ple to resort to vio­lence. Dur­ing his first cam­paign for Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States, in 2016, Trump encour­aged his rabid fol­low­ers to be vio­lent with any­one stag­ing a protest inside of his hate-filled rallies.

“If you see some­body get­ting ready to throw a toma­to, knock the crap out of them, would you? Seri­ous­ly, okay? Just knock the hell … I promise you I will pay for the legal fees. I promise, I promise,” Trump said on Feb­ru­ary 1st, 2016 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

At a suc­ces­sive Las Vegas ral­ly, Trump said of a pro­test­er: “He’s walk­ing out with big high-fives, smil­ing, laugh­ing… I’d like to punch him in the face, I’ll tell you.” *

And at anoth­er ral­ly in War­ren, Michi­gan, that same month, Trump said: “Get him out. Try not to hurt him. If you do, I’ll defend you in court. Don’t wor­ry about it.”

The fol­low­ing year (2017), speak­ing to a gath­er­ing of law enforce­ment, Trump said: “When you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a pad­dy wag­on, you just seen them thrown in, rough. I said, ‘Please don’t be too nice.’ When you guys put some­body in the car and you’re pro­tect­ing their head you know, the way you put their hand over [their head], like, ‘Don’t hit their head and they’ve just killed some­body, don’t hit their head.’ I said, ‘You can take the hand away, okay?’”

This destruc­tive behav­ior is unac­cept­able, but too many peo­ple have become desen­si­tized to it. Worse, a grow­ing num­ber of Amer­i­cans have become rad­i­cal­ized by this would-be fas­cist dic­ta­tor and his enablers.

Last year, the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives impeached Don­ald Trump and pre­sent­ed the com­pelling case for his removal to the Unit­ed States Senate.

The Sen­ate unwise­ly did not remove Trump from office.

Sev­er­al Repub­li­can sen­a­tors who vot­ed against con­vict­ing Trump (like Susan Collins) incred­u­lous­ly sug­gest­ed after­ward that Trump had learned his lesson.

In fact, all that expe­ri­ence taught Trump was that he still com­mand­ed almost com­plete loy­al­ty from the Repub­li­can Par­ty, one of America’s old­est insti­tu­tions, and would not be held account­able for his wrongdoing.

For Trump, the out­come of the impeach­ment tri­al sim­ply rein­forced his belief that, in his words, when you’re a star, they let you do it… you can do anything.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, this time must be dif­fer­ent. Kind­ness and appease­ment do not work against bul­lies like Trump. Bul­lies must be con­front­ed and held account­able, or their destruc­tive behav­ior will con­tin­ue indefinitely.

Last week, Don­ald Trump and his most loy­al sur­ro­gates, includ­ing his chil­dren and Rudy Giu­liani, sent a vio­lent ter­ror­ist mob down Penn­syl­va­nia Avenue to attack the Unit­ed States Capi­tol and the Unit­ed States Con­gress, includ­ing Vice Pres­i­dent Mike Pence, the Pres­i­dent of the Senate.

Not since British troops attacked our cap­i­tal city in 1814, dur­ing the War of 1812, has our seat of gov­ern­ment been defiled and des­e­crat­ed like this.

Then, while that vio­lent ter­ror­ist mob that he incit­ed was storm­ing the Capi­tol, Trump sat back and watched from the com­fort of the White House, under the pro­tec­tion of the Unit­ed States Secret Service.

These actions – like Trump’s attempts to pres­sure Ukraine into going after his oppo­nent, Pres­i­dent-elect Joe Biden – were a com­plete betray­al of every­thing the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca stands for.

Our Founders antic­i­pat­ed that a time might come when a dan­ger­ous, dis­loy­al, self­ish, nar­cis­sis­tic sociopath like Trump might hold the pres­i­den­cy or anoth­er fed­er­al office. That’s why the Con­sti­tu­tion pro­vides for impeachment.

As you know, the House has the sole pow­er to impeach.

You are mem­bers of the Unit­ed States House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives who have sworn and signed an oath to sup­port our Constitution.

We call on you to ful­fill your oath and defend our Con­sti­tu­tion against one of the great­est threats it has ever faced. Vote to impeach Don­ald Trump now so that the Sen­ate can rec­ti­fy the mis­take it made a year ago when it failed to pro­tect our repub­lic by remov­ing Trump from office.

Even if Trump is not removed before his term expires, he can still be con­vict­ed and dis­qual­i­fied from hold­ing or enjoy­ing “any Office of hon­or, Trust or Prof­it under the Unit­ed States”. This must happen.

This repub­lic was giv­en to us to keep, and keep it we must.

An ancient proverb holds that we do not inher­it the Earth from our ances­tors, but rather bor­row it from our chil­dren. The same could be said of our demo­c­ra­t­ic repub­lic. It is in our care now, but we are bor­row­ing it from our chil­dren and their chil­dren – and their chil­dren. For them and for us, we must put the val­ues our coun­try was found­ed upon above all else, includ­ing any polit­i­cal considerations.

We call on you to vote fear­less­ly to impeach Don­ald Trump, and assure the future of these Unit­ed States.