To impeach or not to impeach - and it’s not what you think
Apr 20, 2019 14:33:17 GMT
lucyg, rodeomom, and 1 more like this
Post by Deleted on Apr 20, 2019 14:33:17 GMT
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From Vox..
“The problem with impeachment”
From the article..
”In his classic book on impeachment, constitutional lawyer Charles Black Jr. argued that the true question impeachment poses is not whether the president committed a crime, but whether the president’s crime merits overturning the result of the last election and preempting the public’s opportunity to make their own choice in the next:
The election of the president (with his alternate, the vice-president) is the only political act that we perform together as a nation; voting in the presidential election is certainly the political choice most significant to the American people, and most closely attended to by them. No matter, then, can be of higher political importance than our considering whether, in any given instance, this act of choice is to be undone, and the chosen president dismissed from office in disgrace. Everyone must shrink from this most drastic of measures.
I think Black is right about this, even if it might be better were he wrong. I’m on record arguing that impeachment should be normalized, and that unfitness for office should be impeachable. But that normalization hasn’t happened. The fact that it is the Mueller report that has triggered this conversation shows we still see impeachment as a response to presidential criminality.“
Forget for a moment the debate if trump should or shouldn't be impeached but focus in on why Black feels a President/Vice President shouldn't be impeached.
This part...
“but whether the president’s crime merits overturning the result of the last election and preempting the public’s opportunity to make their own choice in the next:”
In 2016 the majority of Americans did make their choice and they still lost. And the possibility of it happening again exists in 2020.
How we elect a president in this country is messed up. And to take impeachment of a president off the table to let a minority of people decide in the next general election if that person should continue to be president is even more messed up.
From Vox..
“The problem with impeachment”
From the article..
”In his classic book on impeachment, constitutional lawyer Charles Black Jr. argued that the true question impeachment poses is not whether the president committed a crime, but whether the president’s crime merits overturning the result of the last election and preempting the public’s opportunity to make their own choice in the next:
The election of the president (with his alternate, the vice-president) is the only political act that we perform together as a nation; voting in the presidential election is certainly the political choice most significant to the American people, and most closely attended to by them. No matter, then, can be of higher political importance than our considering whether, in any given instance, this act of choice is to be undone, and the chosen president dismissed from office in disgrace. Everyone must shrink from this most drastic of measures.
I think Black is right about this, even if it might be better were he wrong. I’m on record arguing that impeachment should be normalized, and that unfitness for office should be impeachable. But that normalization hasn’t happened. The fact that it is the Mueller report that has triggered this conversation shows we still see impeachment as a response to presidential criminality.“
Forget for a moment the debate if trump should or shouldn't be impeached but focus in on why Black feels a President/Vice President shouldn't be impeached.
This part...
“but whether the president’s crime merits overturning the result of the last election and preempting the public’s opportunity to make their own choice in the next:”
In 2016 the majority of Americans did make their choice and they still lost. And the possibility of it happening again exists in 2020.
How we elect a president in this country is messed up. And to take impeachment of a president off the table to let a minority of people decide in the next general election if that person should continue to be president is even more messed up.