He has a low approval rating, so we know what the general populace thinks. So what, though? Are you suggesting we should kick out every president if their approval ratings drop below 50% or something?
I am suggesting that Bricker’s odd attempt to trivialize KidCharlemagne’s argument here is garbage.
What an odd wending path we took to get to this point.
The Office of the Independent Counsel was terminated in 1999. Democrats didn’t like Starr very much, but they were the minority party in both chambers of Congress that year. Of course, you didn’t say it was the Democrats who got rid of that office, did you.
I’m making no such claim.
I’m saying that the contrary to the plaintive cry of the OP, there is a mechanism to replace a President: Congress. And there is a mechanism to replace Congress: the voters, every two years.
Except, as well you know, it’s not anywhere near that simple.
I’ve always felt impeachment powers have been abused in the US.
Impeachment is supposed to be a last resort procedure to remove a very corrupt or mentally incapacitated President.
Remember the world that existed in 1776. Minor corruption was common. One hand washed the other. You help me, I help you. It was major corruption that the founders worried about. Or drastic abuse of power like they saw in Mad King George.
Instead it’s always been used as a political weapon. Starting with Andrew Johnson’s attempt to replace Lincoln’s cabinet.
Nixon broke the law, but it was public anger and political pressure that forced him to resign.
Clinton endured multiple investigations. It was a BJ and the lies that followed, that almost cost him his office. Somehow, I don’t think that’s what the founders envisioned for impeachment.
It’s kinda tough to call three times ‘always.’ The data set is extremely small.
No, he’d’ve finished out his second term except that Congress was on the verge of impeaching him, for provable crimes. It had nothing to do with public opinion or pressure.
It wasn’t the BJ that nearly cost him his office; it was the perjury (and obstruction). And the Founding Fathers would’ve agreed with it.
I agree three is a small set.
The 45th President may be the first test of using mental incapacity for Impeachment. Depends on how it’s defined. Trump isn’t certifiably crazy, but there are clear signs his decision making is significantly impaired. Imho
The last two impeachments were unanimous in the House, and one of the two officials was removed by unanimous vote of the Senate (the other resigned).
And I would suggest you need to stop creating strawmen “hearts” that are deliberately crafted to make the other person look foolish. The OP says nothing of the sort, so you don’t get to craft an underlying “real” meaning that is inherently ridiculous on its face.
The OP asks the very valid question of why there is no system baked into the system to take down a criminal president. Yes, there is impeachment, but party loyalty guarantees this is not an unbiased system.
The answer is that our system was not made with political parties in mind. In theory, Congress would be completely independent of the President. Hence it makes sense for them to convene to judge him.
It is true that Congress created the concept of a Special Prosecutor in the past, one that does not answer to the President. But that was still Congress’s power. And Congress let it lapse. To be more specific, a Republican Congress let it lapse, unlike your clear insinuation that Democrats let it lapse due to Ken Starr.
The other option, the judiciary, was not really treated as being a third, equally powerful branch of government at the Constitution’s creation. In fact, the founders seemed more worried that legal system might be used to stop a government official from doing their duty, going out of their way to make Congress exempt from a lot of things.
Then there’s just the fact that many if not most assumed that the people would want to get rid of a criminal president, or never even elect them in the first place. Hence allowing Congress to do it, rather than people tasked with upholding the law.
Yes, in retrospect, there should have been more safeguards on the President. But, honestly, no one thought the system was this messed up. Everyone thought that anyone elected president would at least have to try to pretend to be ethical. Even after political parties were a thing, we thought that no party would embrace an obviously unethical president, for fear of harming the party.
But here we are. In a world that is different than many of us imagined it actually was.
It’s very simple. It’s rare, because the remedy is designed to be usable only in rare circumstances. So I suspect you mean ‘not simple’ in the sense that it’s a high bar to reach, as opposed to the simplicity of the concept. What must be done is very simple to understand.
It’s very difficult for me to imagine valid suggestions from you.
Counteracting the stilted playing field the party in control has. Blatantly discriminatory voter ID laws. Gerrymandering. An antiquated electoral system. A certain portion of the public that appears to be almost willfully ignorant.
No, it’s not ‘simple’ at all.
An interesting development is the Emoluments Clause lawsuits being brought by the attorneys general of Maryland and DC, and a group of Congressional democrats.
I’m not sure what they’re asking for - they don’t have the power to remove him from office - but I can imagine that a big enough legal threat to his business interests could cause him to resign. Whether or not these suits are such a threat remains to be seen.
CREW’S similar suit may be lost due to lack of standing, but apparently states may have a lower bar to pass in that regard, at least from some of the reporting I’ve read.
So, and correct me if I’m wrong, since so many voters are so stupid and have been gerrymandered anyways, we need a different system where a minority of people can remove and prosecute a president? What are you proposing?
ETA: A unitary executive is fraught with peril. The founders bounced around the idea of a three-headed executive, but settled on one where the President has exclusive control. We can amend that provision if it is so bad.
Sort of like a (generally) rural minority ruling the House, Senate, White House, and the (generally) urban majority? How did that happen in this supposedly democratic nation?
If he has provably committed a crime, absobloodylutely.
What we need is for the President to fear checks and balances, for instance by making him (or her) prosecutable in criminal court like any other citizen.
The previous President didn’t seem to fear checks and balances. After all, “I won” and “I have a phone and a pen.” Do you remember that?
And how many times were the Obama Administration’s positions overturned by the Supreme Court, often unanimously, or close to it?
So, for the purposes of argument, let me concede that the US is undemocratic. What do we do? Remove the President with 40 votes in the Senate?
We should stop letting the stupid public decide things, right? Place authority in the hands of those who know what’s best, am I right?
Or really just that portion of the public that appears willfully ignorant. We know what’s best. Those bozos just retard progress.
Impeach him first. Then he can be prosecuted.