What happened
AlterNet does not actually identify one move that would “completely cripple” Donald Trump. It argues that if Democrats win one or both chambers of Congress in the November 3 midterms, they should pursue multiple impeachment inquiries and, if they control the Senate, block Trump’s judicial nominees. The article presents those powers as the strongest available checks on his administration.
The outlet says impeachment could investigate and publicly document alleged abuses even without enough Senate votes to convict. It also argues that a Democratic Senate could prevent Trump from filling lower-court vacancies or replacing Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas or Samuel Alito if either retired. The election had not occurred in the reporting supplied, so none of these proposed actions had happened.
The headline promises a weapon that does not exist
Congressional control would constrain Trump, not “completely cripple” him. A House majority could open inquiries and approve articles of impeachment. Only the Senate could convict and remove an impeached official, and the article itself acknowledges that conviction may be unlikely. A Senate majority could obstruct nominations, but it could not erase presidential authority or reverse Supreme Court decisions on its own.
That distinction matters. The headline turns institutional conflict into fantasies of a decisive blow. The reporting underneath describes something less cinematic and more consequential: elected legislators using powers they already possess, with results limited by which chamber they control and whether enough senators will cooperate.
Power sits with officeholders
Trump holds executive power. Supreme Court justices exercise judicial power. Members of Congress possess subpoena, oversight, impeachment, legislative and confirmation powers. Voters can change who occupies Congress, but they cannot conduct an impeachment inquiry or refuse a judicial confirmation themselves.
AlterNet partly obscures that chain of agency when it shifts into “where we come in” language. Public pressure can affect politicians, but Democratic lawmakers would make the relevant decisions. If a Democratic majority declined to investigate alleged misconduct or continued confirming Trump nominees, that would be an institutional choice—not a failure by ordinary voters to apply the correct amount of pressure.
Impeachment is oversight, not incantation
The article’s strongest case for impeachment is not that it guarantees removal. Citing political scientist Keith Whittington, it describes the process as an intensified form of congressional investigation that can establish a public record and scrutinize executive conduct. That is a concrete use of power even when conviction is out of reach.
But an inquiry only has value if lawmakers investigate defined conduct, test evidence and distinguish allegations from findings. The article lists an enormous range of claimed abuses while supplying little detail about them. Moral urgency cannot substitute for an evidentiary case. Nor should impeachment become a slogan broad enough to cover every official Democrats oppose.
The durable fight is over the courts
The Senate’s confirmation power may be the more immediate instrument described here. AlterNet argues that Democratic control would halt new Trump judges and prevent the replacement of Thomas or Alito with younger conservative jurists if vacancies arose. That would preserve vacancies, not produce liberal replacements; doing that would also require a later Democratic president and continued Senate control.
This is where the article exposes a larger power structure. Presidents leave office, but judges can shape voting, labor, environmental regulation, abortion and executive authority for decades. Senate majorities understand this when they accelerate friendly nominees or block hostile ones. Describing those outcomes as merely the direction of “the courts” launders the decisions of presidents who nominate judges and senators who confirm them.
Accountability depends on using power
The story’s real subject is not a secret maneuver against one president. It is whether a party that wins institutional authority will exercise it, and whether political coverage will name responsibility when it does not.
Elections distribute governing power; they do not automatically convert victory into accountability. The systemic failure begins when officials treat powers such as oversight, impeachment and confirmation as too disruptive to use, then present the resulting impunity as an unfortunate condition no one created. Restraint is not neutral when one side continues using every office it controls. It is a decision about whose conduct will face consequences—and whose will not.