You said:
Without any qualifier to the “had” (i.e., in the past), it wasn’t clear to me that you understood that there was no mechanism to replace a vacancy in the Vice-Presidency prior to 1967.
Apologies if you thought I was beating a dead horse.
Boris \Johnson shows how well our system works. Thrown out of office for lying to the House
The current mess in UK demonstrates that the parliamentary system is not an elective dictatorship. Starmer failed to get his welfare reforms confirmed despite having a large parliamentary majority. The threat of a back bench rebellion stopped him.
Attempts to implement measures that were not in the manifesto generally fail
Not before his lies led the UK to Brexit.
Margaret Thatcher.
I’m curious, when exactly, in a functioning system, do you think Boris Johnson should have been kicked out of office; before the Brexit vote happened, before article 50 was triggered, in the early stages of negotiations with the EU or before the final negotiations?
If we’re looking for a constitutional system that makes it impossible for a scoundrel or a fool to gain power, or for an incumbent to do things that hurt people, we’re going to be looking a LONG time.
Never have been selected at all.
Good point.
The Boris Johnson comments here don’t make sense.
The Brexit referendum and triggering article 50 both occurred before he took office. He then resigned after other activities which caused many members of his government to resign; he followed.
Trump has trampled over the constitution, made several really odd executive appointments, blatantly profited from his office yet there is no viable/workable mechanism to remove him. Not at all like the UK!
In February 2016, Johnson endorsed Vote Leave in the “Out” campaign for the 2016 European Union membership referendum.[274] Following this announcement, which was interpreted by financial markets as making Brexit more probable, the pound sterling slumped by nearly 2% against the US dollar, reaching its lowest level since March 2009.[275]
In April 2016, in response to a comment by President Barack Obama that Britain should remain in the European Union, Johnson wrote an “ancestral dislike” of Britain owing to his “part-Kenyan” background may have shaped Obama’s views.[276] Several politicians condemned his comments as racist and unacceptable.[277][278] Conversely, former Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith and UK Independence Party (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage defended them.[277][279]
Johnson supported Vote Leave’s statement that the government was committed to Turkish accession to the EU. Vote Leave was accused of implying that 80 million Turks would come to the UK if it stayed in the EU. When interviewed in January 2019, he said he had not mentioned Turkey during the campaign.[280][281] In a televised debate on 22 June 2016, Johnson declared 23 June could be “Britain’s independence day”.[282] According to James Murdoch, Johnson did not believe the Brexit referendum would pass and when, during a meeting between him and other executives of Fox News, he was asked its potential result he replied “We’ll see”.[283]
https://www.npr.org/2026/06/23/nx-s1-5867281/brexit-10-years-later
Johnson succeeded May and promised to “get Brexit done,” and managed to secure a bare-bones trade deal after negotiations that left U.K.-EU relations in the deep freeze.
This paper seeks to argue that Boris Johnson, one of the most prominent leaders in the Leave campaign during the 2016 Brexit referendum succeeded in persuading British voters to be on his side and choose to leave the European Union (EU). One of the arguments advanced by Johnson during the referendum campaign was that leaving the EU would allow Britain to regain its sovereignty as well as its role in the world. This study is focused on Johnson’s two speeches, one on the Brexit referendum and one on the Brexit result, given their significance in manipulating British public opinion in relation to their stance on the EU. The analysis is based on Obeng’s (1997) indirectness strategies and Fairclough’s and Fairclough’s (2012) practical reasoning framework. The central argument is that Johnson’s verbal strategies have been influential in the results of the referendum, putting an end to a long partnership between the EU and the UK. Such a split ushered in a new era for both partners in the aftermath of Brexit, putting EU’s integrity at stake, raising concern about more frictions within such an institution.
Sure. Both the Legislative and Judicial branches have largely abrogated their responsibilities, leaving the Executive branch free to do a lot of damage. Any system devised by man will break down when enough people decide to ignore it. Though as permissive as the Legislative and Judicial branches have been, Trump is still finding out he can’t do whatever he wants as his recent losses demonstrate.
I disagree. There’s nothing wrong with the system, which has been functioning for over two hundred years.
Our system has procedures built into it for removing a President who breaks the law or becomes mentally unfit. Our current problem is that the Republicans who control the government are placing their loyalty to Trump and the Republican party ahead of the loyalty to America and the Constitution.
Legislative, yes, Judicial no.
Correct.
I disagree with this. Our government is broken, it does not work for the people, it does not promote equality like it should. Slavery is still legal in prison settings, for example. Gerrymandering completely undermines democracy. The Senate should be abolished.
The US’s greatest sin was not rewriting the Constitution during Reconstruction.
So, when a person commits a crime, they cant be put into prison, as that is slavery??? And boy, that is a lifeboat case. “If you cant do the time, dont do the crime” as Sammy Davis Jr sings.
Your misunderstanding is hurting my head a bit.
The 13th amendment states, bolding mine:
Amendment XIII
Section 1.
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
It is legal by the 13th amendment to enslave incarcerated people. It is legal to force them to work for little to no pay.
Care to expand upon that? The Supreme Court has pulled the reins on Trump a time or two, but it also helped him get elected and assisted him in other ways.
Populations don’t tend to veer into extremism unless something is wrong, so I can’t help but agree with you that something is broken. A healthy polity does not select someone like Donald Trump as their leader. Twice.
I’d like to ask the Federalist Paper authors, “What if the elected representatives collectively choose to abdicate their duty in order to empower a tyrant?”
Their answer is likely to be, “We must earnestly counsel the shunning of opium, madame, for it doth confound the intellect most grievously,” i.e. “What are you smoking?”
Agreed. The American system limits any scoundrel or fool to only 4 years. The fact that Trump got 8 years has more to do with the voters than the system of Government.
It’s funny. The Founding Fathers were so obsessed with Rome, and yet they never really considered how the Roman Republic fell.