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unblock

(52,253 posts)
Wed May 22, 2019, 10:21 AM May 2019

do donald fraud's actions rise to the level of impeachable offenses? as usual, wrong question. [View all]

the framing of issues is tremendously important, and the primary question that gets asked get cause people to fixate on only one aspect of a complex situation while ignoring everything else. this can lead to many problems, such as seemingly intractable disputes and highly unconstructive debates because everyone is talking past each other.

has he committed high crimes and misdemeanors? really, there's no objective doubt that he has. remembering that notwithstanding the legalistic words in "high crimes and misdemeanors", the term really has always simply meant gross inappropriateness for the job. abuse, misuse, or neglect of the powers and duties of the office.

donald fraud has done this in spades from day one. the comparatively petty pecuniary actions, such as steering business (both government and foreign) to his private businesses is really an open and shut case, though the list of impeachable offenses is vastly longer and grows by the day.

lest anyone think i'm making a mountain out of a molehill just on the basis of emoluments and/or profiting off secret service stays at his hotels, remember that hillary would certainly be impeached over a similar thing. remember how they went after her for making a small profit over a few futures trades? remember how they went after her for some donations to her charities?


anyway, point is, it's the wrong question.

has he committed impeachable offenses? hell yes, of course.
should he be impeached and removed and barred from future office? hell yes, of course.

but the real question is not what he deserves.

the real question is: has our government been rendered too corrupt, too servile, too inept to actually do what good governance demands?

if we had a functioning senate that cared about governance, he would be removed inside a week. we're really beyond the point where republicans gave up on nixon. nixon didn't last two years after his electoral crimes in 1972.


so the question for the house is not about doing the right thing. if the senate were functional, the right thing would be obvious: impeach and remove. the real question for the house is how do we keep republicans/russians from further corrupting it, and how do we restore sufficient integrity into the system so that we have a properly functioning democratic republic again?

impeachment, at the right time, is likely a very important part of that; certainly investigations will be.

but they are a means to a vastly more important end.


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