We commend the thousands of people who turned out Tuesday night in rallies in more than 600 locales around the nation to call for the impeachment of President Trump. We believe that the president must be removed from office before he causes further dam- age and irreparable harm to our nation’s democracy.

This is not a time for neutrality. The gravity of what is being debated in Congress — and on the streets of our nation — is too critical for any American to turn a blind eye or deaf ear.

It is clear from the recent testimony by govern- ment officials — including several of his own ap- pointees — before the House Judiciary Committee that President Trump abused the power of his office and endangered national security by trying to enlist a foreign government’s interference in the 2020 election by asking Ukraine to investigate his political rivals, including Democrat Joe Biden, while withholding U.S. military aid as leverage. The president then obstructed Congress by ordering officials to ignore House subpoenas to testify. He also blocked access to many documents in the case.

The impeachment inquiry has been neither a witch hunt nor an attempted coup, as President Trump and his Republican allies in the House have claimed. But the president’s actions and rhetoric that paved the way for impeachment are intense signal flares that he believes he is above the law.

We have long called for President Trump’s im- peachment, believing that his racist, misogynistic and xenophobic actions and policies have been harmful to immigrants, people of color, women, LGBTQ individuals and many other communities. He has denigrated our nation’s intelligence and national se- curity specialists and their efforts with his continued embrace of our nation’s Russian adversaries whom U.S. intelligence agencies concluded interfered with the 2016 presidential election.

We believe President Trump must be removed from office before he is successful in having foreign powers influence or corrupt the presidential election in November 2020.

We are disappointed by the attempts of some con- servatives to downplay the proceedings by labeling them a “circus” in an effort to dissuade the American people from paying attention.

We also are disappointed that many Republicans, like the president, seem more attached to their own personal and political interests than to the interests of the nation by dismissing the impeachment testimony with the same talking points used in rotation by Fox News and Rush Limbaugh.

This is a somber and critical time for our nation. It calls on us to decide whether we are willing to stand up to protect the principles upon which our Constitu- tion was crafted. That is why it is important for all Americans, regardless of age, background or political inclination, to tune in to the deliberations before the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate and come to our own conclusions about impeachment and the future of the nation.

Like the people who braved the rain and cold on Tuesday evening outside U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine’s office in Downtown urging him to vote to impeach President Trump, we know where we stand. Where do you?