06-05-2019, 01:28 AM
(06-04-2019, 01:04 PM)fredtoast Wrote: 1. A failed impeachment would make Trump giddy, and the Senates will not remove him.
2. While we need to be wary of guys like Trump we have to remember that our country has survived Presidents suspending Habeas Corpus (Lincoln); attempting to expand the Supreme Court to pack it with supporters of the President (FDR); and forcing two Attorney Generals to resign before getting one to fire the special prosecutor appointed to investigate him (Nixon). Trump may bluster, but he has not gone as far as any of these previous Presidents.
As for the country as a whole things may seem bad now but here is a little perspective. This country lost its shit when one person died in Charlottesville in '17, but in 1992 fifty-three people were killed in the LA riots after the Rodney King verdict. The death tolls of the race riots in the 60's are staggering (Detroit 43, Watts 34, Newark 26, Chicago 11). And then there were the students gunned down protesting the Vietnam war. In just three school shootings (Kent State, South Carolina State, Jackson State) police/national guard shot 52 students killing 9 (although apparently only the 4 white ones at Kent state really mattered)
I'll share a couple of thoughts on this, Fred.
1. Failed or not, I'm still for impeachment, or at least censure, whether the Senate can remove Trump or not. Pelosi is right not to rush. The public no longer reads. It needs hearings, and Mueller testimony, drawn out explanations and reminders of CRIMINAL behavior. Make clear that this is an ethical choice, a matter of principle. Then let the Senate own whatever they do. Done this way, failed impeachment will hurt more than help Trump.
2. I don't find the Lincoln example very comforting. He was a man of principle, who understood how government worked and what was at stake in the Civil War. His Congress understood why he took measures that needed to be taken in name of greater good. The Depression, not FDR, was the real threat to the US back in the 30s, and his Supreme Court over reach was blocked by a bi-partisan check--back in the day when a Republican Montana Senator could support a Democrat for Congress against his own party. Today that kind of bi partisan, independent action is unlikely.
Nixon is the closest analogy to the current crisis, but again, that conjuncture differs importantly from the present one. Is there now a Goldwater who could go to the WH and persuade Trump the jig was up? Less than a quarter of the House would have opposed Nixon's impeachment on obstruction charges. Nixon's AG was the principled Elliot Richardson; his deputy was William Ruckelshaus. Trump has Barr and Rosen. There was no Fox News back then, or a third of the country would have believed the Watergate break in was a Dem hoax to bring down a sitting president and called for an investigation into the appointment of the independent counsel. Do you think the current public is more principled and informed than their fathers and grandfathers? I don't. Could someone like Trump have been elected in '72? (Or anytime before 2008?)
I remember the 1960s very well, and agree there was more violence and tension than at present. But I had more confidence in the workings of government back then because I had more confidence in the public. Appeals to historical precedent, principles, arguments and data worked to advance or curtail policy, to elect and unelect. I do not have that confidence today. If enough of the public today knows little about how government works, and cares little, then it really doesn't matter what sort of government was put in place in 1789. If checks and balances become the deep state for enough people, and immigrants become seen as a serious internal threat to American identity, then we have started down the path of Hungary and Turkey.
