Rallies in the USA — is it possible to remove Trump through impeachment?

Mass protests "No Kings," which have swept all 50 U.S. states and include over 3,200 events, have once again raised the question of President Donald Trump's political accountability. Millions of Americans have taken to the streets, but the main question remains open—can this lead to impeachment and removal from office?

Is it realistic? UNN has examined the procedure and political logic.

How Impeachment Works in the U.S.

Impeachment in the U.S. is not a conviction or an automatic removal of the president. It is a complex, multi-stage procedure consisting of two key phases.

The first stage is the House of Representatives. It is responsible for bringing formal charges. A simple majority vote is sufficient for this. This is essentially a political decision—if the majority of congressmen support the charges, the president gains impeached status.

The second stage is the Senate. This is where the president's fate is decided. To remove him from office, at least two-thirds of senators' votes are required. This is a critically important point that makes the procedure extremely difficult.

Without 67 votes in the Senate, impeachment does not lead to resignation.

Why Protests Do Not Equal Impeachment

Mass protests, even on the scale of "No Kings," do not by themselves trigger the impeachment process. They can create political pressure, but decisions are made exclusively by political institutions—Congress and the Senate.

Historically, there have been instances in the U.S. where presidents faced widespread discontent, but this did not lead to their removal.

For example, during the Vietnam War, tens of thousands of Americans protested against President Lyndon Johnson's policies, but this did not lead to impeachment—he simply did not run for a second term.

In Richard Nixon's case, mass protests also accompanied the Watergate scandal, but the key factor was not street discontent, but a loss of support in Congress. Only after this did Nixon resign, without waiting for impeachment.

During Bill Clinton's presidency, there were also protests and political pressure due to the Monica Lewinsky scandal, but even after impeachment was announced, the Senate did not support his removal.

And during Donald Trump's first presidential term in 2017–2020, large-scale protests took place, including the "Women's March," but this was not a decisive factor in the impeachment process—the vote in Congress remained crucial.

The main thing is not the number of protesters, but the balance of power in Congress. Political support or its absence determines whether impeachment has a chance of completion, not the scale of street actions.

Has anyone been removed from the U.S. presidency?

In U.S. history, four presidents have been impeached. Andrew Johnson in 1868, Bill Clinton in 1998, and Donald Trump twice—in 2019 and 2021. In all cases, the Senate acquitted the presidents, and they remained in office.

Richard Nixon is worth mentioning separately; he resigned in 1974 amidst the Watergate scandal, when impeachment was practically inevitable.

Thus, impeachment in the U.S. is a real political tool, but its final stage—the removal of the president—remains highly unlikely in practice.

Political Math - The Main Obstacle

The key reason why Trump's impeachment currently seems unlikely is political arithmetic.

Even if the House of Representatives could theoretically vote for impeachment, the main barrier is the Senate. Removing a president requires the support of a significant portion of his own political allies.

In practice, this means that dozens of Republican senators would have to vote against their own president. Historically, such scenarios are almost unheard of.

The Role of States - Why They Don't Decide the Issue

Despite protests occurring in all states, the states themselves have no direct influence on impeachment. The decision is made at the federal level—in Washington.

States can only influence indirectly, through the election of congressmen and senators. This means that even if support for protests is maximal in individual states, it does not automatically mean a change in the Senate's position.

Despite large-scale protests and political tension, Donald Trump's impeachment remains an extremely difficult and unlikely scenario.

The procedure requires not only political will but also an extremely difficult majority in the Senate, which is practically impossible to gather without a split within his own party. Thus, even amidst millions of protests in the U.S., impeachment remains not a tool of the street, but a mechanism of rigid political math—and it is currently working against its realization.