It appears our Founding Fathers took every precaution to make sure our democracy didn’t devolve into tyranny except one of the most important ones: Getting rid of a bad president. Why, especially after Nixon, are we still in murky territory as to whether a president can be criminally prosecuted? Why is there such a blatant loophole allowing a president to fire those investigating him? Isn’t that a pretty fricking important question to answer before we get there? I just find this all a bit mind-blowing. Also why should the question of a president’s guilt ultimately ride on the political question of impeachment rather than some body in the judicial branch? What’s the best remedy for these issues in your opinion?
I’m not sure that the founding fathers anticipated the level of partisanship and obedience to political parties that developed since they were around. I also suspect that they thought the amendment process would be utilized more frequently.
You seem to want to disregard the obvious answer: it’s clear that a President can be removed by one-half of the House and two-thirds of the Senate.
And if you think the House and Senate themselves are complicit, the people themselves can replace each and every House member in no more than two years, along with a third of the Senate. In four years, two-thirds of the Senate may be replaced, plus the President himself is out.
Now, there used to be a law that allowed the appointment of an independent prosecutor, who the President could not fire.
However, when Ken Starr held that role, Democrats did not like the fact that the President could not fire the independent counsel, and the law was permitted to expire without renewal. Remember Ken Starr?
So I’d suggest that the heart of your complaint is: “Other people don’t share my opinion about how important it is to get rid of this president!”
It is the role of congress to investigate the president, they just don’t want to that when the president is in the same party as the majority of the legislature. We at least seek the judicial branch of government to be independent of political bickering, if we move the justice department into the control of the judiciary then we’ll lose the sense that the courts are the arbitrators and not the governors. If we create a fourth body of government for this task then we upset the system of checks and balances. It is remarkable that we have managed to maintain that between three branches so far, a fourth will not lessen the problem will just start a never ending stack of turtles.
Respectfully, where did this come from? I mean, I know I’m inattentive, but I’m pretty sure we haven’t gone through another election cycle yet. (Or have we?) If we haven’t, we have no idea how many outraged voters will get off their butts and toss those evil evil republicans out and vote in democrat angels. And if we don’t know that, what are you talking about?
Because contrary to popular myth, the Founding Fathers were not geniuses of all times. They were smart for their time, but they didn’t have the ability to look back on almost 200 years of Democracy in two dozen different countries and cultures, and compare; to consult sociologists, psychologists, philosophers of law and game theorists on how People act and react.
Therefore, they didn’t write down the best System ever, they wrote a good attempt for that time (after a failed first start).
Because of the love for myths over Facts, People in the past 50 years haven’t looked at what better Solutions are available and adjusted the System, but basked in the “we’re the only true Democracy, we’re the only ones with free speech, we’re the best”.
Because there are several other much worse Problems in the System that are hardly adressed by the majority.
In case of Trump, even impeaching him would not really improve things for the US and the rest of the world.
I think you answered your own question. If not enough people are outraged (or can’t be arsed to act on that outrage, which makes one question just how outraged they really are), then they don’t share your opinion.
The OP seems to think that tyranny consists of a president breaking a law and being unable to be prosecuted for it while in office. Not so. The president can be removed from office and then prosecuted. Or, he can be prosecuted when his term is up. Being able to prosecute him while in office. And implicit in this OP is that we are experiencing tyranny right now. We aren’t. If we were, I have no doubt impeachment would ensue.
Wait, so we have had an election cycle? Man, I need to exit my apartment more.
(Not that elections are really a good assessor of objective numbers of people who like things, because political stratification tends to run along regional lines, and the magic of gerrymandering tends to obfuscate things further. But elections are better than nothing, I suppose.)
Oh, it’s definitely a tyranny, and Trump is acting as a tyrant in numerous ways. The fact that enough Congressmen are putting power over country to enable and justify that doesn’t change it.
The best remedy for this problem is a parliamentary system. In that system the majority party chooses the prime minister. If the prime minister is horrible, the majority party can choose another leader and replace them. Or, if enough of house rebels and the prime minister can’t form a majority anymore then new elections are held to settle the issue.
Of course no system is perfect. Italy kept returning Berlusconi to power.
The real answer of course is that all sorts of political systems can work if the people are engaged. But if the people aren’t willing to hold the government actors accountable, then it doesn’t matter what pretty words are written on some scrap of paper somewhere. The constitution of a country only exists to the extent the citizenry are willing to make it exist.
I didn’t read the OP that way; my interpretation was more “Why is the President not treated in a similar manner as any other citizen suspected of committing a serious crime?” To which I think the quoted response is the reason. The President simply isn’t a normal citizen. In order to criminally prosecute a sitting president, you’d need a prosecuting body that existed wholly outside of the federal executive branch (Congress? Coalition of State Attorney Generals? Something else?). Assuming you could draft rules to form such a body, this would then open up opportunities for political abuse. So you’d just be trading one avenue of potential abuse (the President can interfere in his own investigation) for another (the President’s opponents can abuse the legal system to harass the President).
No, but Congress’s greatest talent is knowing when their jobs are in danger. If a significant number of them felt that they would lose their next election unless they initiated impeachment, then the president would already be impeached, regardless of which party he belongs to.
Perhaps it’s just a matter of time until that day comes. Perhaps the electorate as a whole is not quite as enraged as you are. But either way, the premise of the OP is wrong. The Constitution has explicit provisions for getting rid of a bad president.
I hate Trump as much as anyone, but I recognize that a critical mass of my fellow citizens don’t see it that way, yet. Maybe they won’t ever come around to your perspective and demand impeachment. But if they ever do, so will their representatives in Congress. Appeasing their constituents is how they got the job in the first place.
The Ethics in Government Act was allowed to lapse in 1992 following a Republican filibuster related to Lawrence Walsh’s actions as independent counsel investigating the Iran-Contra Affair. Remember Iran-Contra? It was reauthorized by gasp Democrats in 1994 and signed in to law by Clinton.
Starr could have been fired via the Attorney General at any time. He wasn’t, because Clinton wasn’t an inveterate liar (well, he kinda was), sexual assaulter (shit…), didn’t fire the FBI director (damn it…), wasn’t a complete and utter buffoon who viewed the country as his personal kingdom (FOUND ONE!).
Or maybe the nature of representative democracy is such that so long as representatives’ each personal income is being maximized — not necessarily illegally — each truly cannot perceive a problem. However obvious that problem is, correctly or incorrectly, to some citizenry.
Isn’t the ‘founding fathers’ shtick a little cringy.
Get a grip, you all sound like extras in Wayne’s World.
For some reason this made me imagine American innkeepers in the first half of the 19th century, with the unavoidable absence of television to entertain their guests, gathering their families and performing spirited skits ----- amusing but not vulgar — the evening through, concentrating on the genius of the Founding Fathers, the Inspiration of Christ on the American Constitution and Events from the War of the Revolution.
And persons who retired early might be awakened later to witness the conclusions of these playlets from the comfort of their own bed.
There isn’t a ‘gaping void’ in the constitution, impeachment is a straightforward process for getting rid of a president that a supermajority of congress wants to get rid of. There isn’t, and shouldn’t be, a process for a minority of congress to get rid of a president they don’t like, or a process for random citizens to sue to unseat a president they don’t like, because that makes the office of the president mostly ineffectual.
Before you cheer on whatever process you envision for throwing Trump out, think about what the Republicans would have done with that process against Obama.
The majority party could trivially impeach Trump (putting Pence in charge) if they wanted to. If the Republicans seriously started impeachment proceedings, then the Democrats would follow along to give them the supermajority needed. But the majority party is fine with Trump remaining in power, so he’s staying in, just like a prime minister would stay in power if the majority party doesn’t want to replace him.
The risk isn’t evenly distributed, though. The vast majority of republican congresspeople can safely feel secure in their jobs because their constituents will always vote red, and will always do so even if the congressperson started going around murdering babies with their teeth. They have no reason to fear expulsion, regardless of what they do. (And it kind of shows.)
The congresspeople from swing states may be feeling more pressure, but there wouldn’t be enough of them to put pressure on the party as a whole, I wouldn’t think.
And the vast majority of democratic congresspeople can safely feel secure in their jobs because their constituents will always vote blue.
What is your point?
My point is that, despite Congress’s finely tuned fear-of-firing-sense, the fact that Republican politicians haven’t chosen to instigate impeachment proceedings against Trump says jack about whether the populace in general dislikes Trump.
This is the tail end of the rather odd claim that Trump is in fact popular, and the odd arguments that emerged to defend that odd claim.