4 ms·

The answer is impeachment, but when Congress is stuffed with boot licking toadies, then there is no recourse.

by wffurr 1y ago

AndrewKemendo 1y ago
If a population decides to let themselves be run this way then who is at fault? People get the leaders they deserve
- jkestner 1y ago
  We love to blame the common clay, don't we. You can win a majority of voters and lose an election. There are systemic problems, starting with money in politics, two senators per state, the electoral college and gerrymandering.
  - tastyfreeze 1y ago
    We already bastardized the senate by electing senators by popular vote. Senators are supposed to represent each states government, not the people of the state. As a single member of the union a state doesn't need more senators. Making ingredients the proportional to population just makes the senate another house. The people have the house. The cap of representatives has also been harmful to the voice of the people being heard. Representatives are the face for too many people for them to truly represent their constituents.
    - jkestner 1y ago
      Well, yes, the senate is useless. It was useful to check the South’s power in the Great Conpromise, but now the most deliberative body is not needed when the House can slow things down all by itself. Unicameral works for me. Representatives would be more representative if not for gerrymandering.
      - tastyfreeze 1y ago
        It doesn't for me. That is an acceptance that we are a single federal government and the states are nothing more than administrative units of that federal government. For states to remain as sovereign entities that have collectively created the federal government the entity of the state must have representation at the federal level. As for returning back to the original state appointment of senators, that is required for the senate to appropriately represent the state government at the federal level. The original house apportionment had representatives that had about 35000 people. The size of the house was locked at 435 in 1913. Before then the number of representatives grew slower than population but still grew. After the last 2020 census there are 761,000 people per representative. The unevenness of how many constituents a representative from Wyoming has vs a representative from California has is a point of contention in higher population states. The complaint is that the representatives from smaller states have more proportional power. I think that is a bit ridiculous but that is what some Californian's told me. Increasing the size of the house to have a more proportional representation would alleviate that point of contention between states. Gerrymandering is a side effect of not increasing the size of the house.
  - notahacker 1y ago
    You can win a majority of voters and lose an election, but that's not what happened. 77 million people voted for Trump, and it's not like he acted like a mild mannered constitutional conservative with a sensible reform package and turned into a vindictive, chaotic wannabe autocrat whose closest thing to a redeeming feature is is stupidity afterwards. The electoral college and gerrymandering may be ludicrous, but that's not why he won, and nor is lack of funds for opponents. The system of checks and balances isn't what they were cracked up to be, but the reason he's dismantling it is because when he telegraphed that he was going to do it the people of the land cheered him so loudly anyone else that wanted their votes stepped in line.
  - AndrewKemendo 1y ago
    Yet the people of the state continue to allow this state of affairs to persist It’s either free and people are actively choosing this or they are not free and choosing comfort of slavery than risking death for freedom
  - AndrewKemendo 1y ago
    George Carlin said it best: “Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky. They don't pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It's what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain't going to do any good; you're just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it's not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here... like, the public. Yeah, the public sucks. There's a nice campaign slogan for somebody: 'The Public Sucks. F*ck Hope.’” https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/78321-now-there-s-one-thing-you-might-have-noticed-i-don-t https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/78321-now-there-s-one-thing... Video version: https://youtu.be/rVXekzwkz10?si=90VqlzOLiUS_7yFx https://youtu.be/rVXekzwkz10?si=90VqlzOLiUS_7yFx
nerdsniper 1y ago
* s/impeachment/“conviction by the Senate” Impeachment by itself has been shown to accomplish nothing. There is no other mechanism except conviction by the Senate to address constitutional or legal violations made by the president. Also no president has ever been impeached by a House which is controlled by a majority of the same party of the President. If Congress had a full Republican majority during Nixon’s years, he would not have been impeached. If Congress had a full Democratic majority during Clinton’s years, he would not have been impeached. Edit: “Approval voting” is the appropriate escape hatch from 2-party politics. It lets you get rid of primaries entirely and run all the top-n candidates who have the greatest number of valid nomination signatures. Its advantage over range-voting/etc is that it is dead-simple to explain to voters: Put a checkmark next to any candidate that you're "okay" with. The candidate with the most checkmarks wins. https://rangevoting.org/CompChart.html https://rangevoting.org/CompChart.html
- LunaSea 1y ago
  This mostly shows that political parties are the problem themselves rather than the political mechanics of the system themselves.
  - actionfromafar 1y ago
    Except that 2 parties emerge like clockwork from the political mechanics of the system. Winner-takes all almost guarantee a two-party system. Maybe you didn't mean the system as broadly.
  - theptip 1y ago
    Now we are talking. And the dynamic that makes political parties so toxic IMO is “first past the post” voting. If it’s your team or the “worse” team, you tolerate any flaw in your team. If there was a pressure valve where another party can simply take over (for example see Reform vs Conservative parties in the UK, not that I am thrilled with the underlying direction) then there is an alternative: cut bait and condemn what used to be “your team”, and start a new one.
    - deleted 1y ago
Yeul 1y ago
A good point. The people who sit in parliament are very often just machines of the party. Yes yes TECHNICALLY they are elected by the people and have a mandate but your career is over if you speak out. You have to be a very special kind of person to break rank.
- cogman10 1y ago
  Which is the flaw of the impeachment/conviction process. It heavily relies on elected officials having a strong moral compass. It's what the founders got the most wrong about the US as it's basically a worthless process. It really doesn't matter what evidence gets presented or what a president does. The result will always be a party line vote.
alluro2 1y ago
I don't really understand why people still talk about impeachment. It has been very clearly shown to be a futile formality that only makes the ones doing it look even more powerless and worthy of mockery in the eyes of the other side and their supporters. In a bygone era, impeachment would rely on concepts of shame, responsibility and public duty - it would be unimaginable that person that was impeached does not step down from the position and likely from political foreground fully - from the moral and social weight of that consequence. We've seen last 2 times how thoroughly that weight no longer exists in modern society/politics. Without criminal responsibility, there is no responsibility left at all.
- vlovich123 1y ago
  Impeachment is the first step before conviction and removal. That’s why it’s talked about.
jjk166 1y ago
Trump was impeached twice.

The answer is impeachment, but when Congress is stuffed with boot licking toadies, then there is no recourse.

by wffurr 1y ago

The answer is impeachment, but when Congress is stuffed with boot licking toadies, then there is no recourse.

AndrewKemendo 1y ago

If a population decides to let themselves be run this way then who is at fault? People get the leaders they deserve

jkestner 1y ago
We love to blame the common clay, don't we. You can win a majority of voters and lose an election. There are systemic problems, starting with money in politics, two senators per state, the electoral college and gerrymandering.
- tastyfreeze 1y ago
  We already bastardized the senate by electing senators by popular vote. Senators are supposed to represent each states government, not the people of the state. As a single member of the union a state doesn't need more senators. Making ingredients the proportional to population just makes the senate another house. The people have the house. The cap of representatives has also been harmful to the voice of the people being heard. Representatives are the face for too many people for them to truly represent their constituents.
  - jkestner 1y ago
    Well, yes, the senate is useless. It was useful to check the South’s power in the Great Conpromise, but now the most deliberative body is not needed when the House can slow things down all by itself. Unicameral works for me. Representatives would be more representative if not for gerrymandering.
    - tastyfreeze 1y ago
      It doesn't for me. That is an acceptance that we are a single federal government and the states are nothing more than administrative units of that federal government. For states to remain as sovereign entities that have collectively created the federal government the entity of the state must have representation at the federal level. As for returning back to the original state appointment of senators, that is required for the senate to appropriately represent the state government at the federal level. The original house apportionment had representatives that had about 35000 people. The size of the house was locked at 435 in 1913. Before then the number of representatives grew slower than population but still grew. After the last 2020 census there are 761,000 people per representative. The unevenness of how many constituents a representative from Wyoming has vs a representative from California has is a point of contention in higher population states. The complaint is that the representatives from smaller states have more proportional power. I think that is a bit ridiculous but that is what some Californian's told me. Increasing the size of the house to have a more proportional representation would alleviate that point of contention between states. Gerrymandering is a side effect of not increasing the size of the house.
- notahacker 1y ago
  You can win a majority of voters and lose an election, but that's not what happened. 77 million people voted for Trump, and it's not like he acted like a mild mannered constitutional conservative with a sensible reform package and turned into a vindictive, chaotic wannabe autocrat whose closest thing to a redeeming feature is is stupidity afterwards. The electoral college and gerrymandering may be ludicrous, but that's not why he won, and nor is lack of funds for opponents. The system of checks and balances isn't what they were cracked up to be, but the reason he's dismantling it is because when he telegraphed that he was going to do it the people of the land cheered him so loudly anyone else that wanted their votes stepped in line.
- AndrewKemendo 1y ago
  Yet the people of the state continue to allow this state of affairs to persist It’s either free and people are actively choosing this or they are not free and choosing comfort of slavery than risking death for freedom
- AndrewKemendo 1y ago
  George Carlin said it best: “Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky. They don't pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It's what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain't going to do any good; you're just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it's not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here... like, the public. Yeah, the public sucks. There's a nice campaign slogan for somebody: 'The Public Sucks. F*ck Hope.’” https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/78321-now-there-s-one-thing-you-might-have-noticed-i-don-t https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/78321-now-there-s-one-thing... Video version: https://youtu.be/rVXekzwkz10?si=90VqlzOLiUS_7yFx https://youtu.be/rVXekzwkz10?si=90VqlzOLiUS_7yFx

nerdsniper 1y ago

* s/impeachment/“conviction by the Senate” Impeachment by itself has been shown to accomplish nothing. There is no other mechanism except conviction by the Senate to address constitutional or legal violations made by the president. Also no president has ever been impeached by a House which is controlled by a majority of the same party of the President. If Congress had a full Republican majority during Nixon’s years, he would not have been impeached. If Congress had a full Democratic majority during Clinton’s years, he would not have been impeached. Edit: “Approval voting” is the appropriate escape hatch from 2-party politics. It lets you get rid of primaries entirely and run all the top-n candidates who have the greatest number of valid nomination signatures. Its advantage over range-voting/etc is that it is dead-simple to explain to voters: Put a checkmark next to any candidate that you're "okay" with. The candidate with the most checkmarks wins. https://rangevoting.org/CompChart.html https://rangevoting.org/CompChart.html

LunaSea 1y ago
This mostly shows that political parties are the problem themselves rather than the political mechanics of the system themselves.
- actionfromafar 1y ago
  Except that 2 parties emerge like clockwork from the political mechanics of the system. Winner-takes all almost guarantee a two-party system. Maybe you didn't mean the system as broadly.
- theptip 1y ago
  Now we are talking. And the dynamic that makes political parties so toxic IMO is “first past the post” voting. If it’s your team or the “worse” team, you tolerate any flaw in your team. If there was a pressure valve where another party can simply take over (for example see Reform vs Conservative parties in the UK, not that I am thrilled with the underlying direction) then there is an alternative: cut bait and condemn what used to be “your team”, and start a new one.
  - deleted 1y ago

Yeul 1y ago

A good point. The people who sit in parliament are very often just machines of the party. Yes yes TECHNICALLY they are elected by the people and have a mandate but your career is over if you speak out. You have to be a very special kind of person to break rank.

cogman10 1y ago
Which is the flaw of the impeachment/conviction process. It heavily relies on elected officials having a strong moral compass. It's what the founders got the most wrong about the US as it's basically a worthless process. It really doesn't matter what evidence gets presented or what a president does. The result will always be a party line vote.

alluro2 1y ago

I don't really understand why people still talk about impeachment. It has been very clearly shown to be a futile formality that only makes the ones doing it look even more powerless and worthy of mockery in the eyes of the other side and their supporters. In a bygone era, impeachment would rely on concepts of shame, responsibility and public duty - it would be unimaginable that person that was impeached does not step down from the position and likely from political foreground fully - from the moral and social weight of that consequence. We've seen last 2 times how thoroughly that weight no longer exists in modern society/politics. Without criminal responsibility, there is no responsibility left at all.

vlovich123 1y ago
Impeachment is the first step before conviction and removal. That’s why it’s talked about.

jjk166 1y ago

Trump was impeached twice.