The 2020 Election, Part 4

"The election is only one year from today".

"Only"?

That's the comment I heard on the news this morning, and my reaction, and that's why we've started a new thread here even though the last one wasn't at that stage where we'd normally go to the next installment.

The campaign has being going on for months and there's still a year to go. Frankly, that's patently absurd.

Canada recently had a national election that featured a campaign of about sixty days. That's just about right.  An election process that takes over a year to complete is monumentally messed up.  No regular person is paying that much attention at this stage and that means that the only ones who are, are political aficionados who likely don't reflect the views of average voters at all.

This isn't all of it of course.  But it doesn't help.  By this time we will have had an election, but we will also have had endless primaries, caucuses, and conventions.  Congress will go in and out of session as will the Supreme Court.  The House will have voted to impeach the President and the Senate will vote to keep him in office.  Quite a few voters who voted in the early primary seasons will be dead by the election itself, and new voters who vote in the general election will not have been old enough to have voted in the primary.  Pundits are fond of saying that tradition is the vote of the dead, but in this system, the vote of the dead actually is the vote of the dead.

November 4, 2020.

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Yesterday came the news that Michael Bloomberg is filing to run as a Democratic candidate for the Presidency in Alabama.

This is more in the nature of preserving his options than anything else.  Alabama has an absurdly early deadline to file to run for the office.  As I've noted before, the entire country would be better off if this entire process only had a 90 day lead into the General Election, rather than a year long one. Anyhow, Bloomberg has to file there if he intends to run anywhere.  It doesn't mean he will run.

It also doesn't mean he won't and he's obviously thinking about it.

If he does, it'll be a real symbol of what's currently wrong with American politics.  Bloomberg is 77 years old and yet another East Coast candidate.

Just a week or so ago a 25 year old New Zealand politician noting the average age of House of Commons members there in a speech was heckled by an older politician and suddenly became famous when she dismissed the heckling seamlessly with a "OK Boomer" retort.  That action has shocked members of the Baby Boom generation, and no wonder given that they have such a death grip on American politics.  The average age of the U.S. House of Representatives is 58 years of age, and the Senate 62 years of age.  The average age of the top contenders for the Presidency right now has to be in the 70s.  The last thing the Democrats need is another candidate whose political concepts were cast in the 1960s.

Indeed, my prediction is that if Bloomberg runs, the temptation for Hilary Clinton to run will become overwhelming.  Bloomberg's candidacy only makes sense in any fashion if Biden is crashing towards a failure, assuming that Bloomberg isn't wholly delusional about his chances of success and assuming that he's not willing to drag the entire party down in order to make whatever point he's seeking to make.  Assuming that those items are not the case, a Clinton run actually makes more sense than a Bloomberg one, and she'll know that.

November 8, 2019

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Americans today will experience something they haven't since the early 1990s, that being live televised impeachment proceedings.  Indeed, they'll actually experience something they've never experienced to the extent these will, which is live electronic media impeachment proceedings.

As noted above, there's now less than one year before the General Election and its difficult to imagine Congress really doing anything rapidly.  How long these will go on isn't clear to the author, but we're in the tail end of 2019 now, and even if Congress moves with blistering speed, nothing is really going to get done prior to the end of the year. Assuming that Congress moves forward really quickly, and assuming that there's a party line vote, that would mean that the Senate might have an Impeachment Trial on its plate in very early 2020.

Whether the Senate moves quickly is another matter. Both sets of proceedings risk being turned into circuses of a sort, and the length of them might end up depending upon how long any one body feels that they obtain an advantage by doing that. Any way its looked at, however, it seems the results are basically clear right now.  The House will vote to impeach and the Senate will vote not to.

What isn't clear is how this will impact the overall election.  If there are real bombshells that come out during the proceedings, it might.  Having said that, so far nothing has really changed all that much in basic support in committed camps to date.  A real risk for the Democrats may be that the focus on this sort of thing has now run for a full three years and they're exposed to claims of having done nothing else.  Irrespective of how a person feels on that sort of claim, it's already starting to circulate and it makes a bad basis for anyone's Presidential campaign.

Those old enough to remember the Nixon impeachment in the 1970s will recall that there was an overall air of collapse at the time.  This was less true during the Clinton proceedings, but at that time there was a real feeling of political cynicism.  Both atmospheres stand to be much amplified this time.  That the country could go for a century between the first and second impeachment efforts, and then end up doing it three times in less than fifty years isn't a good development.

November 13, 2019

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Deval Patrick, formerly the Governor of Massachusetts, has entered the race as a Democratic candidate.

Patrick, age 63, is taking the late entry approach.  It'll be interesting to see if this works for him. Coming in now, he will receive attention at this late stage whereas many earlier former stars in the campaign have faded.  At age 63, while not young by normal calculations, he is in this race. He's generally a liberal candidate.

It's now strongly rumored that Hilary Clinton is in fact pondering running.  I think at this point she's likely decided to in fact run.  My guess is that a full Bloomberg announcement and a Clinton one will come shortly.

Clinton is unlikely to be any more successful in 2020 than previously, and I don't believe that she'll secure the nomination.  Her mere presence in the race, however, will hurt the Democrats overall. Bloomberg's will do the same.

November 14, 2019

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Not surprisingly, the weekend shows focused on the impeachment hearings.

One did have Deval Patrick on it, however, and the two I listed to both discussed him.  He's seen as a middle of the road, centrist, Democrat.  In that context, it was noted that the reelection of Louisiana's governor saw the reelection of a Democrat of the nearly extinct social conservative variety. There was quite a bit of speculation that the rank and file is searching for somebody in the middle.

Buttigeg has been rising in the polls in Iowa and there's lots of speculation that may be for the same reason.

Indeed, on the one news show that Patrick was interviewed on he came very close to being examined in a bit of a hostile way on Buttigeg. The suggestion from the while interviewer was, or at least seemed to be, if Patrick was trying to take that position as he realized that he was he was 1) black, and 2) not homosexual, and therefore more electable.  Patrick who probably understood that this was the point, nicely sidestepped it, and frankly the question shouldn't have been asked.

Indeed, Patrick interviewed extremely well in general.  He's clearly more personable than Buttigeg and frankly, if this interview is any guide, more personable than any other running Democrat.  He did miss the ball a bit when asked what the difference was between he and Buttigeg and while he did not that he had a variety of experiences that made him qualified for the Oval Office, he didn't contrast himself directly.  If he had, it would have to be noted that he's been the Governor of a major state, where as Buittigeg has only been the mayor of a mid sized city.

On the same general topic, over the weekend President Obama came out in a speech noting that Americans like improvement but they don't like radical overhaul. That's an arrow shot at the hard left of the Democratic Party.  It did hit home with at least one weekend show pundit who claimed, basically, that Obama was betraying his own past as he had been the radical candidate.  The evidence doesn't support that.

On candidates who don't have a uniformly radical past, Bloomberg, who has been in both parties (like Trump) in his past, disavowed his "stop and frisk" policy from his days as the Mayor of New York. That was controversial, but it was also quite successful, giving us an interesting example of a politician disavowing his own successful actions in the past when they don't fit his current political aims.

November 18, 2019

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I happened to listen (not view) a Democratic debate this season for the first time.

The reason is that Meet The Press had it on their podcast feed and I heard it there while driving somewhere.

It was quite interesting, in part because listening to it gives you a prospective on the prospective of the pundits.  Not too surprisingly, my takeaway was different from theirs.

I'll note that listening to a debate is different than viewing it, and that too can have an impact.  But the Press also tends to go into these debates with a preconceived narrative to a degree, so they're not that inclined to alter it no matter what's said, except around the margins.

Listening to it, it was frankly Andrew Yang who won the debate.  A person doesn't have to agree with everything he believes in order to say that.  He's the only one who had fresh views and didn't have difficulty explaining them.  His answer on national defense was brilliant. So much so that a later "major" candidate co-opted it for his own later answer.

Compared to Yang, everyone looked pretty anemic.  Having said that Buttigieg came across fairly well. An effort to go after his experience by Amy Klobuchar ended up simply embarrassing Klobuchar as Buttigieg dismantled her on that topic and then used  his answer to dismantle everyone else.  Buttigieg also manged to really disrupt a statement by Kamala Harris on none of the white candidates really being able to understand the position of black voters, even though Harris clearly had a point on that demographic being used repeatedly by the Democratic party.  Again, a person doesn't have to agree with Buttigieg on anything in order to see that his debating skills were superior to nearly every other candidate.

Harris came across as a snot and surprisingly relied on her courtroom history as a California district attorney in her closing, noting for most of her professional time she's done that and started off her public addresses with "the people of. . ."  That'd be true, but in a debate in which Corey Booker had just complained about how the government has incarcerated a lot of minorities on drug charges, Harris' former role in putting people in jail seems like an odd thing to emphasize.

Harris was big on "recreating the Obama coalition" without explaining it.  Indeed, the "Obama coalition" may not have really ever existed in the first place.  That emphasizes, however, that the Democratic base isn't anywhere near as left wing as candidates are and that caused hemorrhaging towards Trump in the last election.  It's already known that black voters are uncomfortable with Buttigieg and that the "black church" retains a significant role in that demographic which is likely grater than any other religious demographic in the Democratic party.

Indeed, Warren basically stated that there's no room whatsoever for Democrats like recently re-elected John Bel Edwards in the Democratic Party.  Edwards is pro life and and Warren made support for abortion a litmus test on the basis that its a human rights matter, an extremely weak argument for supporting a policy that ends human life.  Harris leaped on this and indicated that she'd codify Roe v Wade as a matter of Federal law, which isn't a position that many who hold the freedom of state's to craft their own laws will find popular.

While she was able to hardly get a word in, after the debate got rolling, Tulsi Gabbard may have been next to Yang in being clear and blunt.  Her post election role as a commentator and her strong animosity towards the Clintons resulted in a debate with Harris and she pretty much took Harris apart.  Indeed, Harris may have come across the worst in the debate as her answer for everything seems limited to snark.

In terms of ideas, again, like them or not, Yang's were the freshest and well thought out.  Buttigieg's seem thought out.  Klobuchar should have done well, as she does in other venues, but she just came across as angry.  Warren came across as a person whose ideas are limited to the concept that no matter what the problem is, large or small, she'd sick the Federal government on it with a super expensive program of dubious utility.  Indeed, she makes Lyndon Johnson's backing of the Great Society look minor in comparison to what she'd try.

In other news Bloomberg launched a gigantic ad campaign.  The This Week pundits made the interesting observation that he's not really a Democrat, and he's been in both parties.  His presence in the race this late is likely because Warren and Sanders are sinking and people are losing faith in Biden.  It's doubtful that Bloomberg will make a real difference in the race, however, no matter how much money he spends on it.

Bloomberg's entry means that, if we include both parties, there are now no less than three candidates who are old New Yorkers, Bloomberg (who was born in Massachusetts), Sanders (who grew up in New York and retains an extremely thick New York accent) and Trump.  It's hard to grasp, for those who live outside of New York how the state and city retain such a grasp on the nation's politics.

November 25, 2019

I've noted here before that a lot of the demographic assumptions that the Democratic Party has made for quite some time are likely based on a set of false assumptions.  The past week the degree to which that is true and becoming more true started to play out in the primary, all the detriment of Pete Buttigieg.

I noted above that Buttigieg had taken criticism from Kamala Harris and seemingly effectively parried it during the debate. That perception, however, may not have been shared by black voters at all.

Indeed a poll on Buttigieg's position in the upcoming Iowa primary not only showed him last among black voters, but actually at 0%. That's a stunningly low figure and shows that there's definitely going on in a demographic that the Democrats absolutely depend on.  Not only is Buttigieg dead in the water in the campaign if he can't fix that, and that will be hard to fix, but it shows that the party as a whole, may be in really deep trouble in regard to black voters.

We'll get back to that in a moment, but continuing this story on, early in the week a prior statement by Buttigieg surfaced in which he attributed a lack of black economic advancement basically to a lack of role models (I'm really condensing this down).  This resulted in an explosive op ed being published in which a black author not only went after him but in no uncertain terms.  That op ed was in turn rapidly circulated on the Internet and received widespread black voter applause.  Buttigieg reacted by calling the author who credited him with listening, which he said was he could expect a white person to do, showing a real lack of any hope for anyone paying attention to the issues raised.

All that's telling, but a poll that was released coincident with all of this finds that black Democrats are much more conservative, indeed on some issues outright conservative, than their white counterparts. They're also older, showing that the Democrats aren't attracting younger black voters.  That no doubt will stun the Democrats and my prediction is that they'll ignore it.  In the minds of party leadership black voters are in the hardcore left, and that's a view that tends to have been supported by the fact that black politicians who have risen up in the party have seemed to be of the left.

In reality, however, black voters are largely in the Democratic Party due to events that occurred in the 50s through the 80s.  Since that time the GOP has made nearly no effort to recruit black voters even though it knows it needs too.  Irrespective of that, what turns out to be the case is that the black demographic in the Democratic party tends to be conservative on social issues and liberal on economic ones. This is the classic position that pertains to immigrants, and in this sense they're effectively internal immigrants in their own country.

Not yet addressed, this same problem exists for the country's growing Hispanic demographic.  They're highly socially conservative and are only in the Democratic Party because of economic issues and the party's seeming position on immigration.

Up until now none of this has had an impact in a national election, but now for the first time it is. And this shows a trend that's played out with other voting blocks over time.  Once economic conditions are no longer paramount for a voting block, social ones tend to take over.  In the case of the black demographic economic conditions are still an extremely large concern, but social issues are now actually playing out.  And in addition to that Buttigieg, who is the son of an academic and lead what amounts to a very upper middle class, left wing, sheltered life, is showing a lack of understanding on the situation for American blacks that they are really reacting to.

My guess is that he won't be over to overcome this problem.  But beyond that, a person has to wonder if this is a tipping point and the Democratic Party will start to lose black voters.  If it does, at least right now they'll end up independents by and large, which is what actually seems to be happening with younger black voters.  In some rural regions, the Democrats are losing black voters to the GOP, although they seemingly haven't noticed this.  The Democratic Party has three candidates this year who are African Americans, with one being in much too soon to have really been heard from, but those candidates don't seem to be gaining much headway.  All of this may suggest that a voting block that the Democrats have depending on since at least the 1970s is being lost to them seemingly without their having noticed it.

November 28, 2019

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Kamala Harris, whose campaign never really took off, in spite of pundit expectation that it would, bowed out of the race yesterday.

Harris never seemed to really get rolling and instead came across as a younger candidate, in the American sense (age 55) who had promise but somehow never delivered.  Her most notable moments came when 1) she proposed clearly unconstitutional actions in regards to firearms and was debated down on the topic by Joe Biden; and 2) when she took Buttigieg to task in regard to his statements about his support of the black community.  Those latter statements may very well have impacted him as the following week he was the subject of an op ed that was blistering on the topic.

Harris was a prosecutor prior to becoming a politician and frankly, to some degree, that may have hurt her in the Democratic field.  She came across as snarky, something that lawyers can easily do if they've spent much time in the courtroom, and its hard to take a candidate very seriously about their support of the downtrodden if they've spent a career in that branch of the law.  She was from the hardcore left and her departure leaves the field somewhat more level.

Also departing the race is Montana's governor Steve Bullock (age 53). Bullock was a moderate who should have done well as a candidate from a state where he has to pull from all political spectrum.  His campaign, however never took off and he acknowledged that and withdrew in the face of the inevitable.

The Harris departure brought another politician into the Twitter spectrum when Washington Post reporter Matt Viser noted that now the only candidates who have qualified to appear in the next debate are Biden, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Sanders, Steyer and Warren.  Qualification is based on funds raised and therefore this doesn't reflect every Democrat running.  Yang and Booker, for example, are running.

Anyhow, Viser noted that this meant that while the field was "historically large and diverse" it is now all white.

This is interesting for a number of reasons.  For one thing, there's been a press obsession with the ethnicity of candidates that has actually operated to make it less diverse than it actually is.  Harris was regarded as black by the press, but that definition really hearkens back to the old Slave States definition of black as "one drop of blood".  In reality, her mother was of Tamil heritage and was born in Indian and who had Canadian and American citizenship.  Her father was from Jamaica.  Both parents had strong careers in academics.  Harris regarded herself, quite naturally, as black and Indian, but her ethnic heritage gives her a different ethnic heritage than most African Americans.  The press never really looked at this and simply regarded her as African American.  Corey Booker, on the other hand, has a more conventional African American heritage.

This none the less brings up a point which pundits seem to dance around.  While Harris expressly noted that she was "the only black candidate on the stage" last debate, her support among black voters was just slightly better than Buttigieg's, which is at a stunning 0%.  Harris may in fact have suffered i this area by claiming to be "black" when that status doesn't reflect the same sort of experience that the average African American would have.  White voters certainly aren't going to bring this up but African American voters have been highly savvy about things in the past.  They tend to very strong identify with candidates that they believe appreciate their circumstances and often don't worry about ethnicity when they vote as a result, preferring results over ethnicity.  Indeed, even in the segregation era black communities in the South would sometimes vote for white candidates that appeared to support segregation in a race, as they knew that their actual efforts in office would aid them.

This may have played into rock bottom black support for Harris in the race.  She was claiming to be black and does have Jamaican black heritage, but she's also half Tamil as well and her personal history diverges significantly from most African Americans.  As a former prosecutor, moreover, she has a history that most African Americans would have associated a lot more with problems in the system than with efforts to address them.

Booker's campaign is also faltering and signs exist that he'll be out of the race quite soon.  Earlier in the week he was begging for donations so that he could qualify for the next debate and that appears to have failed.  So far he is still in.  For some reason his campaign also has rock bottom support in his own ethnicity.  The reason for that is hard to grasp, but it may simply be because black voters don't regard him as somebody who will likely be effective.  It might also be, however, because his credentials haven't really impressed them so far.

An added aspect of this, however, ties into Buttigieg. All three of these candidates, Buttigieg, Book and Harris lacked support not only from black Democrats, but from Hispanic candidates as well. Again, this may simply be because minority voters identify with effectiveness over ethnicity, to their credit, but it may also be because the old reasons for these communities identifying with the Democratic Party are wearing off.  Combined with that, these communities contain social views that are much more conservative than the Democrats have been espousing in recent years.  This has been wholly ignored by the Democratic Party as a whole and minority Democratic candidates have very carefully aligned themselves with the seeming party platform in order to note loose white Democratic support. But a winnowing process seems to be going on, hardly noticed, in which, in spite of its claims to the contrary, the Democratic Party is becoming the WASP party.  It's presently hemorrhaging young black members as a result.

The remaining African American candidate, Deval Patrick, can't qualify for a debate yet as he just started running and hasn't obtained sufficient donations.  Of course, another new candidate who is extremely well self funded, Michael Bloomberg, can't qualify either.

Anyhow, Viser noted that while the field started large and diverse, only white candidates will be debating next go around, which isn't implicitly diverse.  Perhaps that's true, but it can't be said that Biden, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Sanders, Steyer and Warren are all stamped out of the same mold either in numerous ways.  Be that as it may, Liz Cheney took Viser's comments as the opportunity to comment on Twitter, about Warren; "What about Pocahontas"

What exactly would motivate a person to say a thing like we'd have to leave unanswered, but it wasn't a smart thing to do.  It drew floods of Twitter protests and it make Cheney look incentive.  Her point, no doubt, was to thrown stones at Warren for claiming to be a Native American, something Warren was being patently absurd in doing in the first place, but extreme claims from Warren seem to be her thing.  Being as its a storm on Twitter, it probably has already faded, but she should think twice before saying something like that again.

According to the Chicago Tribune Klobuchar is rising in the polls in Iowa.  The Democratic field is clearly shifting, if not actually getting smaller given that two have gotten out and two have gotten in, but it seems almost certain that Booker is out of the running and that Patrick and Bloomberg won't be successful in getting into it.  Given that, the candidates who will debate next time, Biden, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Sanders, Steyer and Warren, with perhaps also Yang, are those who are going to keep on keeping on until mid race.  Steyer's campaign has a lot of money but is not likely to go anywhere, and Yang has a lot of enthusiasm and originality but is not likely to go anywhere. So the really serious contenders appear to be Biden, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Sanders, and Warren.  The field has suddenly narrowed.

December 4, 2019

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Since typing the above out a couple of days ago I've now heard analysis on the element of race and the Democratic Party on multiple platforms, one that was recorded before I set out the above, but others after that.  It's interesting in part because I'm hearing my own analysis repeated back to me by pundits.

On that, I'm surprised that some pundits are surprised that black voters don't necessarily vote for a black candidate simply because the candidate is black.  I'm also surprised that some pundits are surprised that Hispanic voters don't vote for a black candidate on the basis that Hispanics are minorities (although my prediction is that their category as such will cease to be recognized within a generation as they go through the same process that the Italian and Irish "racial" minorities have in the past), and minorities "of color" will of course vote for a candidate of color, even if their ethnicity is considerably different in terms of heritage.

Some Democrats who were backing or running seem to have made those assumptions as well, and Corey Booker, who is of course still in the race, was loud in the press regarding Kamala Harris' departure on the issue, nearly claiming that black voters owed their votes to him or to Harris because they were black.  Of interest on Harris, I've since seen one post by an Indian American about how proud Harris made her, which brings up once again that while Harris campaigned as a black candidate, her claim to that status is a bit mixed as none of her ethnic heritage comported with the African American norm.  That shouldn't matter, but to some it seems to, and candidates themselves will seem to claim votes based on those claims.

Anyhow, most of the analysis is really close to what I already set out, with pundits rediscovering the really long held truths that: 1) African Americans place their votes with the candidate that they feel best realistically serves their interests, irrespective of that person's race; and 2) African American voters aren't necessarily as loyal to any political party as Democrats have tended to assume in recent years.

On the latter, one commentator, a liberal African American figure who appeared on Meet The Press went further and noted something that I've hinted at, but which he was much more blunt about.  Perhaps his status as an African American allowed him to take on a topic that others don't want to address as they don't want to tread the risky waters that accompany it, and I don't blame them. That had to deal with Buttigieg's almost total lack of support among black and Hispanic voters.

That commentator flat out brought up that Buttigieg has trouble with black voters, and Hispanic voters, as they are "conservative morally", by which he meant that the two demographics do not share the WASP acceptance of homosexual conduct as a moral nullity.  That fact has been a somewhat loudly whispered truth for awhile, but it probably does take a black liberal to openly state it.  He did, and then went on to state that the Republicans are missing a bet as they don't exploit the social conservatism of African Americans and Hispanics.

In stating that he's correct.  The GOP has not known how to address this in recent years and has basically done nothing much more than to note that the Democratic Party simply depends upon black voters without actually assisting them much.  The recent departure of Harris from the race may be a good example of that as Harris was really pronounced on traditional Democratic hard left issues, but none of those directly address black and Hispanic concerns and one of her open positions, her position in regards to abortion, runs directly contrary to a view held by large numbers of Hispanic voters and isn't really all that popular with black voters.  This tends to show that, as previously noted, black and Hispanic support of the Democrats has been for economic reasons and, in regards to Hispanics, because the GOP has been perceived as hostile to Hispanics.

In spite of all of that, the fact that things were beginning to change in this are should have been evident in the 2016 race.  During that race the GOP had two Hispanic contenders who remained in the running for a very long time and one black candidate who did fairly well early on.  Comparing that to the 2020 race, none of the Democratic minority candidates have done well at all.  The one who is likely to remain in the race the longest, Yang, is able to do so due to his unique positions and self funding, but whether fairly or not Asian Americans are regarded as having been more fully assimilated into the nation as a whole than other minorities.

At any rate, the fact that the Republicans did have serious minority candidates who didn't campaign on their ethnicity should be worrying to the Democrats as it signals something going on at the street level.  The GOP is beginning to have conservative black candidates at the state level, which means that the Democrats are now hemorrhaging some voters who had been in the GOP over social issues.  And the GOP has picked up one entire Hispanic demographic, Cuban Americans, and there are starting to be inroads into other Hispanic demographics. As the Hispanic economic situation improves the social issues will start to rise, and even such notable left wing Hispanic figures of the past have voiced some very conservative social views openly.  As Hispanics, moreover, begin to assimilate into Middle America, and they are doing so now, this will accelerate.

The irony this presents is that in this cycle the Democrats are leaping leftward, and they can probably at least safely do so as President Trump has the pretty united opposition of both African Americans and Hispanics.  But at the same time Democrats who for years and years have pointed out with glee that the GOP has a demographic problem are now pointing out that the Democratic Party also has a demographic problem.

December 6, 2019

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Yesterday Finland sat a new Prime Minister.

What, you may legitimately ask, does this have to do with the United States and its election?

Well, perhaps this.

All three of the contenders from Finland's major political parties for this position were under 35.  The government, formed by Social Democrat Sanna Marin, has five women at its head, as a coalition government, four of whom are under 35 years of age. Marin is 34.  She replaces outgoing Social Democrat Anitti Rinne who is 55.

The point?

Well the point isn't that I'm endorsing the Finnish Social Democrats, with whom I have a lot of disagreement.  The point isn't even that I'm endorsing any Finnish political party, all of whom I probably have a lot of disagreement with.  Indeed, Finland shares the Nordic peculiarity, even though the Finns aren't actually a Scandinavian people (save for the minority Swedish population) of seeming political goofiness in recent years.

Rather, I'm noting the stark contrast in ages that the leaders of some other democracies exhibit in contrast to ours.

Indeed, in the current election, as noted before, we're actually fielding potentially the absolute oldest field of candidates of all time.  Donald Trump is the oldest President in his first term ever.  If reelected he'll be the oldest President to be reelected and if he's defeated there's an outstanding chance that whoever replaces him, in the current slate, will then become the oldest President to have been elected to the office.

Prior to Donald Trump, no American President was elected to a first term who was in his  70s.  Now, three of the Democratic top contenders are in their 70s.  Bernie Sanders will actually be 79 years old by the election next year.  Trump will be 74.  Elizabeth Warren will be 71.

What does this argue or indicate?  Probably nothing much more than the first grasp of the Baby Boomer generation on the nation's politics and culture.  Of the nation's 45 presidents, only 11 have been over their 50s when they assumed the office. Granted, that's roughly 1/4, but it's also the case that some who  assumed the office in real times of crisis were much younger.  Franklin Roosevelt was 51.  Abraham Lincoln was 52.  George Washington was 57.

Is this significant?  At least in some senses, it must be.

December 10, 2019

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Bernie Sanders has reacted with outrage to Major League Baseball's proposal to cut 42 minor league teams.  Indeed, he wrote the commissioner of baseball about it and posted as much on his twitter feed.  On the latter, he took an economic, and social justice, point of view, stating:

This has nothing to do with what's good for baseball and everything to do with greed. 

It would destroy thousands of jobs and devastate local economies.

One of the teams slated for the axe, we'd note, is the Vermont Lake Monsters.

Champs, mascot of the Vermont Lake Monsters, a minor league team slated for removal by MLB.  From wikipedia commons and listed as public domain.

December 16, 2019

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The 2020 Election, Part 1

The 2020 Election, Part 2

The 2020 Election, Part 3

Meanwhile, in the United States House of Representatives. . .

where the makeup of parliament is not an immediate concern, Republican maneuvers Thursday meant that the vote on the articles of impeachment for Donald Trump rather than occurring yesterday afternoon, in time for the evening news cycle, will occur today.

Speculation abounds, but it appeared that GOP objections and actions were designed to push the vote late into the night with the corresponding result that it would hit the news for most people this morning, when they were otherwise concerned about work and the day, and therefore make less of a splash.  Chairman Jerry Nadler was apparently having none of it and gaveled the hearing down, meaning the vote will occur today.

A lot of the political maneuvers and spectacle surrounding the impeachment proceedings has been a feature of routine politics, old fashioned politics, and aiming for the media fence on the part of both sides.  It hasn't been pretty.  Never content with the normal opening and closing statement that should be routine, the hearings have featured daily openings in which, at least in the intelligence committee, featured a Democratic Congressman who presents as an absolute pompous ass v. a GOP Congressman who didn't seem to quite know what the real issues are. Everyone looks horrible.  Indeed, it makes a person nostalgic for hearings as presented in The Godfather or The Aviator, which were supposed to show defeated proceedings but which look so much more adult.  In truth, they've probably always been this juvenile but we didn't get a front row seat until recently.  Having said that, the chance for Congressmen to imagine that they're making points at home with their declarations means that the temptation to drone on while pretending to be Roman Senator from a 1960s vintage movie or a jacketless Teamster is just too strong for some.

So the vote will come today.

Having said that, savvy press folks take the view that the best time for a story to break is a Friday, as people want to get home and quit thinking about the hard week behind them.  Many people never read a Saturday newspaper and if they do, they read the sports page so they can see what their teams are doing that day and tomorrow.  Others check the local events.  Political circus isn't on most people's minds.

Particularly when it appears that most people have their minds made up already. So the maneuver may prove to be wise indeed.  The hearing will end with a whimper and it looks like it'll never get much beyond a motion to dismiss in the Senate.  We'll hear about the whole thing all next year as Democrats try to use what occurred to whip up support for their Presidential candidates and the President uses it to accuse the Democrats of doing nothing the past four years except look for ways to remove him.  Frankly the Democrats are pretty vulnerable to such accusations now that this is set to fail.  Nancy Pelosi's early instincts in this area will prove to be correct.  Nobody who is not in one camp or the other is going to be deeply moved by these results, and those strongly in either camp will see the entire matters as vindicating the views they already held.

And one of those views is that Congress has done pretty much nothing over the past four years. That's not completely correct, and indeed the House passed a major trade bill this past week.  The Senate, in fact, has been making a record number of Court appointments and that fact, little notice,d means that the Federal bench has been more impacted since any time since Jimmy Carter's administration, when the Carter appointments reformed a left leaning bench into a solidly left leaning bench.  Now it'll be a solidly conservative bench.  The result of that will be that many topics now decided by courts rather than legislatures will have to be done the other way around, with the national legislature having to really actually work for the first time in over a decade.

If it can find its way around to doing that.

The Resolution on Impeaching Donald Trump.

It's undoubtedly an historic moment, although a sad one to be sure. For the fourth time in the nation's history the House of Representatives is taking action to impeach a President.  Notably in this, this is the third time in less than fifty years that this is taking place, showing how the country managed to go nearly two hundred years before repeating an impeachment, after having gone about sixty years of its initial existence before undertaking one.

We're doing this, in other words, more often than we used to.

This will of course result in the third impeachment trial in the country's history, as Nixon chose to depart prior to being impeached.  President Nixon remains the only President who surely would have been removed from office had the trial go forward. This effort is highly unlikely to remove President Trump and it may prove to be a political miscalculation by the Democrats, to be used by Trump's supporters, in the fall election.

The resolution goes further than some anticipated by including an obstruction of Congress charge, which is much like an obstruction of justice charge.  This puts the Executive squarely at odds with Congress on the murky topic of Executive Privilege, something that is likely to end up in the courts at some point and have long lasting consequences that everyone may regret.

116TH CONGRESS

1ST SESSION House of Representatives. 

RESOLUTION 

Impeaching Donald John Trump, President of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors. 

Resolved, That Donald J. Trump, President of the United States, is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors and that the following articles of impeachment be exhibited to the United States Senate:  

Articles of impeachment exhibited by the House of Representatives of the United States of America in the name of itself and of the people of the United States of America, against Donald J. Trump, President of the United States of America, in maintenance and support of its impeachment against him for high crimes and misdemeanors.

ARTICLE I: ABUSE OF POWER 

The Constitution provides that the House of Representatives "shall have the sole Power of Impeachment" and that the President "shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors". In his conduct of the office of President of the United States and in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed--Donald J. Trump has abused the powers of the Presidency, in that: Using the powers of his high office, President Trump Solicited the interference of a foreign government, Ukraine, in the 2020 United States Presidential election. He did so through a scheme or course of conduct that included soliciting the Government of Ukraine to publicly announce investigations that would benefit his reelection, harm the election prospects of a political opponent, and influence the 2020 United States Presidential election to his advantage. President Trump also sought to pressure the Government of Ukraine to take these steps by conditioning official United States Government acts of significant value to Ukraine on its public announcement of the investigations. President Trump engaged in this scheme or course of conduct for corrupt purposes in pursuit of personal political benefit. In so doing, President Trump used the powers of the Presidency in a manner that com promised the national security of the United States and undermined the integrity of the United States democratic process. He thus ignored and injured the interests of the Nation. 

President Trump engaged in this scheme or course of conduct through the following means:

1) President Trump?acting both directly and through his agents Within and Outside the United States Government?corruptly solicited the Government of Ukraine to publicly announce investigations into:(A) a political opponent, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden, and(B) a discredited theory promoted by Russia alleging that Ukraine rather than Russia interfered in the 2016 United States Presidential election.

(2) With the same corrupt motives, President Trump acting both directly and through his agents Within and outside the United States Government conditioned two official acts on the public announcements that he had requested:(A) the release of $391 million of Unites States taxpayer funds that Congress had appropriated on a bipartisan basis for the purpose of providing vital military and security assistance to Ukraine to oppose Russian aggression and which President Trump had ordered suspended;and(B) a head of state meeting at the White House, which the President of Ukraine sought to demonstrate continued United States support for the Government of Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression.

(3) Faced with the public revelation of his actions, President Trump ultimately released the military and security assistance to the Government of Ukraine, but has persisted in openly and corruptly urging and soliciting Ukraine to undertake investigations for his personal political benefit.

These actions were consistent with President Trump's previous invitations of foreign interference in United States elections. 

In all of this, President Trump abused the powers of the Presidency by ignoring and injuring national security and other vital national interests to obtain an improper personal political benefit. He has also betrayed the Nation by abusing his high office to enlist a foreign power in corrupting democratic elections. 

Wherefore President Trump, by such conduct, has demonstrated that he will remain a threat to national security and the Constitution if allowed to remain in office, and has acted in a manner grossly incompatible with self-governance and the rule of law. President Trump thus warrants impeachment and trial, removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States. 

ARTICLE II: OBSTRUCTION OF CONGRESS 

The Constitution provides that the House of Representatives shall have the sole Power of Impeachment and that the President shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors. In his conduct of the office of President of the United States?and in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed--Donald J. Trump has directed the unprecedented, categorical, and indiscriminate defiance of subpoenas issued by the House of Representatives pursuant to its sole Power of Impeachment. President Trump has abused the powers of the Presidency in a manner offensive to, and subversive of, the Constitution, in that:

The House of Representatives has engaged in an impeachment inquiry focused on President Trump?s corrupt solicitation of the Government of Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 United States Presidential election. As part of this impeachment inquiry, the Committees undertaking the investigation served subpoenas seeking documents and testimony deemed vital to the inquiry from various Executive Branch agencies and offices, and current and former officials. 

In response, without lawful cause or excuse, President Trump directed Executive Branch agencies, offices, and officials not to comply with those subpoenas. President Trump thus interposed the powers of the Presidency against the lawful subpoenas of the House of Representatives, and assumed to himself functions and judgments necessary to the exercise of the sole Power of Impeachment vested by the Constitution in the House of Representatives. 

President Trump abused the powers of his high office through the following means:

(1) Directing the White House to defy a lawful subpoena by withholding the production of documents sought therein by the Committees.

(2) Directing other Executive Branch agencies and offices to defy lawful subpoenas and withhold the production of documents and records from the Committees in response to which the Department of State, Office of Management and Budget, Department of Energy, and Department of Defense refused to produce a single document or record.

(3) Directing current and former Executive Branch officials not to cooperate with the Committees?in response to which nine Administration officials defied subpoenas for testimony, namely John Michael, Mick Mulvaney, Robert B. Blair, John A. Eisenberg, Michael Ellis, Preston Wells Griffith, Russell T. Vought, Michael Duffey, Brian McCormack, and T. Ulrich Brechbuhl.

These actions were consistent with President Trump's previous efforts to undermine United States Government investigations into foreign interference in Unites States elections.

Through these actions, President Trump sought to arrogate to himself the right to determine the propriety, scope, and nature of an impeachment inquiry into his own conduct, as well as the unilateral prerogative to deny any and all information to the House of Representatives in the exercise of its ?sole Power of Impeachment?. In the history of the Republic, no President has ever ordered the complete defiance of an impeachment inquiry or sought to obstruct and impede so comprehensively the ability of the House of Representatives to investigate high Crimes and Misdemeanors. This abuse of office served to cover up the President's own misconduct and to seize and control the power of impeachment and thus to nullify a vital constitutional safeguard vested solely in the House of Representatives. 

In all of this, President Trump has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice, and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States. 

Wherefore, President Trump, by such conduct, has demonstrated that he will remain a threat to the Constitution if allowed to remain in office, and has acted in a manner grossly incompatible with self?governance and the rule of law. President Trump thus warrants impeachment and trial, removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States. 

December 10, 2019 (7:16 am.)

And then there's December 10, 2019. . .

which I predict to be a particularly silly, self affirming, self righteous, day on Twitter and Facebook, as well as certain quarters of Reddit.

And I'm not even pointing fingers, I'd note, at any one side when I say that.

The Scholars

I didn't hear any of the Constitutional scholars testify in front of the Judiciary Committee yesterday, as I was practicing law instead, but I would have liked to.

Fortunately, you can find transcripts that are done and this blog does it everyday.

Maybe I'll get time to read some.

In order to really know what they have to say, you really have to actually hear it or read it.  Otherwise, all you will get a is a news snipped and pundit commentary, neither of which is fully accurate or important. As an example of the latter, the news was all about how one scholar said something about Trump's 13 year old son (I don't know what), and the First Lady replied by Twitter (with I don't know what), and the scholar apologized. Whatever the deal was, it doesn't really matter.

If you are like most people, and don't have an occupation where you can watch impeachment testimony all day, NPR's Politics blog summarized the first day's hearings and I'm sure will summarize them all.  Basically, their take was that the first three witnesses, the Democratic witnesses, all testified on the history the impeachment provision and were of the opinion that President Trump's actions were impeachable offenses. The fourth witness, the Republican witness, had perhaps the most interesting testimony, apparently, as he agrees that the President's conduct was reprehensible, but he feels that the bar for impeachment is much higher and there were no impeachable offenses.  Apparently he did feel that President Nixon's conduct in helping to cover up the Watergate break ins would have been impeachable, and that President Clinton's actions in "lying about sex" was also.  I disagree in regard to Clinton's actions, but I'd tend to agree regarding Trump's actions. The proper bar, it seems to  me, should be quite high.

The Impeachment Reports released

This has been sort of an odd week in a way in that the public received two, not one, reports out of the House Intelligence Committee this week regarding impeachment.  One's a Republican reply, which came out before the Committee's actual report.  Because of the strict partisan divide, the House Intelligence Committee report is effectively the Democratic report.

The reports are large and available as pdfs on line.  I haven't read them and I'm not going to link them in here. They're easy to find.

None of which means that the process is actually over in the House.  Now the process is back in the Judiciary Committee.

Interestingly, it was taken out of the Judiciary Committee as it was originally thought that the process would be too hot, if you will, over there, but now people think that it may be more judicious in that committee. The Judiciary Committee is apparently going to hear from experts on Constitutional Law before determining whether or not to recommend a bill of impeachment.  It's going to make that recommendation, but the fact that its hearing from experts first on this topic should be, at least for legal junkies, really interesting. 

So basically, the way the process has worked out, Adam Schiff has played the role of prosecutor and Devin Nunes as defense lawyer.  Schiff is the last word in pompous jerk but he's overall done a better job in his role than Nunes.  There's even been some suggestion that he should be the prosecutor in the Senate, although that suggestion has so far been rejected by him.  Anyhow, this leaves the Judiciary Committee basically as the Grand Jury and the presiding Judge.   The speculation is that they'll approve a bill of impeachment by Christmas.

The renewed speculation is that it'll simply be dismissed in the Senate.  That seemed likely to me early on but then that speculation was reversed by the pundits.  It's their opinion, once again. The public, for that matter, seems to have become bored with the entire process.  Interest will resume once the Senate trial starts, but my prediction is it will quickly wane and this entire episode won't be terribly influential in the fall election.

Lex Anteinternet: The lesson of past hearings. . .

On This Week guest Amy Klobuchar, fresh from a really disappointing performance in last week's debate, with the personal highlight for her being getting chewed up and spit out by Pete Buttigieg, also made reference to both the McCarthy hearings and Joe Welch.

Lex Anteinternet: The lesson of past hearings. . .: Joseph Welch, hand in head, being questioned by Joseph McCarthy Joseph Welch was the chief legal counsel for the U.S. Army when it fe...

Welch is from her native state, which may explain the reference.  She quoted the famous "have you no decency sir." line.

So we've had a week of Impeachment hearings and

they don't make President Trump look good.  It's clear that he was pressuring the Ukrainians to engage in the investigation of Hunter Biden and that he had intellectual capitol invested in a conspiracy theory that nobody believes in who has looked at it.

Moreover, as Ms. Hill noted, the Administration's ongoing belief about Ukraine and election interference means that Vladimir Putin's efforts to mess with our election were not only successful, but it continues to be successful.

Yume, Vladimir Putin, and Buffy.  Any way you look at it, the figure who looms large over all of this is Vladimir Putin, the autocrat of Russia.  He has to be laughing as Americans openly continue to struggle with Russian interference in the 2016 election and the success of those efforts in destabilizing American democracy right up to the present moment.  Krelim official photograph, kremlin.ur.  

Beyond that, the current President doesn't seem to have any lines between the personal and political.

All of which is bad.

But is any of it illegal?

A reader poses the question if this conduct violates 52 U.S.C. § 30121

Apparently there's been some speculation out there that this is the provision that all this bad conduct violates.  

It doesn't.

Here's what this provision states:

Contributions and donations by foreign nationals  

(a)Prohibition 

It shall be unlawful for— 

(1)a foreign national, directly or indirectly, to make— 

(A)a contribution or donation of money or other thing of value, or to make an express or implied promise to make a contribution or donation, in connection with a Federal, State, or local election; 

(B)a contribution or donation to a committee of a political party; or

(C)an expenditure, independent expenditure, or disbursement for an electioneering communication (within the meaning of section 30104(f)(3) of this title); or 

(2)a person to solicit, accept, or receive a contribution or donation described in subparagraph (A) or (B) of paragraph (1) from a foreign national. 

(b)“Foreign national” defined  

As used in this section, the term “foreign national” means— 

(1)a foreign principal, as such term is defined by section 611(b) of title 22, except that the term “foreign national” shall not include any individual who is a citizen of the United States*; or 

(2)an individual who is not a citizen of the United States or a national of the United States (as defined in section 1101(a)(22) of title 8) and who is not lawfully admitted for permanent residence, as defined by section 1101(a)(20) of title 8.

Let's take out the obvious.  Trump isn't a foreign national.

Okay, so in order for this statute to apply, the President would have to "to solicit, accept, or receive a contribution or donation described in subparagraph (A) or (B) of paragraph (1) from a foreign national."

So, some are theorizing, by pressuring the Ukrainian president to investigate Hunter he's soliciting "a contribution or donation".

That's strained in the extreme.

Whether the Democrats rely on this provision in their upcoming articles of impeachment is yet to be seen, and I doubt they will.  Frankly, I don't think the articles will have any citations to statutory law at all.  It'll be a series of accusations that he did improper things, but they won't be things that they can pin as illegal.  Immoral?  Perhaps?  Exceptionally crude and inappropriate?  Perhaps again. Vested in debunked theories?  Perhaps yet again.  But violating a statutory code?  So far, that seems unlikely.**

All of which puts everyone in a bad spot.  

The simple solution to this is an election. But the Democrats now have so much invested in this that they seemingly  have to go forward no matter what. For that matter, the Republicans have been put in a terrible spot as well as they've been left with seeming little choice but to defend conduct that they never otherwise would have.  All of this is serving to elevate extremist in both parties to greater heights.  And that will serve to make the upcoming election ever more extreme.

Indeed, as a trial will occur in the Senate, at this point it's impossible not to imagine the Impeachment Trial turning into a weeks long Republican effort to praise the President and perhaps give credence to discredited theories and, moreover, for the entire process to be converted by the Administration as a way to dominate the news for election purposes.  It'll be one long campaign rally, potentially, just as the House Impeachment hearings have been one long No Confidence Hearing in a country that lacks a No Confidence feature in its Constitution.

All in all, this is doing damage to everything and now that the ship has sailed there's no recovering it.  The Democrats are yielding to uber snark rather than doing anything serious.  The GOP has been reduced in its arguments to defending conduct it no doubt doesn't really approve of, which may be why the GOP figures we've heard from in the House are people that we've never heard of before.  Adam Schiff is coming across like a pampas jackass.  Devin Nunes as somebody who needs to take a public speaking class. And Jim Jordan looks absurd.  The President comes across just as he always has, which shouldn't surprise anyone. Everyone looks pretty helpless.  

Indeed the only ones who have come out looking good so far are career diplomats and government service officers who are the heroes of the moment.  Unfortunately, at the exact same time this gives credit to those on the hard right who argue that Trump is sabotaged at every turn by "the Deep State" and disloyal staffers.  And not doubt those sort of claims will be amplified in the upcoming election.

Indeed, the election itself will become even more about Trump than it already is. And that's not going to be a good thing.  Issues and policies will be buried.  And that will mean, should the Democrats win in the fall, the country will have elected somebody it probably knows almost nothing about.  The vast field of Democratic candidates right now operates to to increase that problem in that its tough to know very much about any of them, particularly with this element of background chatter constantly going on.

All of which goes to show that those who claimed that Nancy Pelosi was a master politician were pretty much right.  Her instincts were to not go in this direction, and now we know why.  When she did, she probably didn't have much of a choice.  But my guess is that her absence from the press attention during this has been studied on her part.

________________________________________________________________________________

Addendum:

Thomas Jefferson.  Morally problematic and enigmatic, but still brilliant.  Has the day that he feared we'd get to arrived?

After I wrote it, but before it was published, I received an email from The New Republic which I think demonstrates the really surreal state of our republic at the current time.

The email linked in an article in the current issue entitled:

To Lock Up a President

It goes on to start off with:

Democrats seem to agree that Trump should be brought to justice. Whether they agree on the precise nature of that justice is an open question.

The Article notes that there are now protesters on the left wanting to "lock up" Trump. This quote from Bernie Sanders is included in the article.

“I think the people of this country are catching on to the degree that this president thinks he is above the law,” Sanders said. “And what the American people are saying, nobody is above the law. And I think what the American people are also saying is, in fact, that if this president did break the law, he should be prosecuted like any other individual who breaks the law.”

And hence the really disturbing problem.

Things may change, and if they did substantially I'd agree that the implications of violating the law are what they are. But so far, there's been no evidence at all that Trump broke the law.  What the evidence is that he mixed his personal political aspirations with official policy in a highly inappropriate way.

But that's political.

We've definitely had Presidents break the law.  Indeed, I'd argue that both George Bush II and Barack Obama broke the law in their licensing the use of military force without a Declaration of War, although I'm one of the very few people who seem bothered by that.  Richard Nixon undoubtedly broke the law.  Reagan's lieutenants broke the law in a way that would certainly seem to implicate Reagan.  Probably most of the Cold War Presidents crowded the law in some fashion.  But what we are really seeing here is the suggestion that Trump must have broken the law because, those people argue, they don't like what he did.

Well, that doesn't make it illegal.  There's been a lot of Presidents who did stuff that was outright icky and morally questionable in the extreme (John F. Kennedy for example), but that doesn't mean all of that was illegal (although the Bay of Pigs invasion may have been).

At some point since George Bush I we've started to stray into that dangerous area of making moral failings illegal and political failure illegal.  That's a scary development.  The entire effort to impeach Bill Clinton was a spectacular example of that, but there have been plenty of others.  Since at least the Clinton Administration simply being in an Administration has exposed office holders to potential prosecution simply for failure.  It's spread to industry and commerce as well, with "insider trading" laws being an example of actually making simply being in the know illegal, and crises to prosecute bankers for failed banking practices something we've heard since 2008.

Crises of "lock him up" can't come as too much of  surprise for somebody who campaigned against his 2016 opponent with cries that she was "Crooked Hillary" and who didn't shut down supporters when they yelled "lock her up".  So a person really can't feel too sorry for a politician who is now receiving treatment similar to that which he meted out.  But a person can feel sorry for the country.  People vilified nearly every President we ever had, but the efforts we've seen since Clinton to remove them on pretexts is new and distressing in the extreme.

When the country was founded, it was famously given a republican form of government which, as Benjamin Frankly wry noted, may be difficult to keep.  We have so far. A republican government is a democracy, in spite of those who really haven't thought it out occasionally stating "a republic isn't a democracy".  Yes, it is.  What we didn't get with that republic is a democracy without a written constitution, like the British Parliament, or a pure unrestrained democracy, like the ancient Athenian democracy.  And for good reason.

Thomas Jefferson theorized from the onset that American democracy was in fact completely doomed.  His view is that it would have a long run, but only as long as it had territory to expand into and therefore a population of yeomen farmers.  Once that class yielded to an urban class, and he was certain that it would, he was certain that the urban class would rise and that politicians would purchase its votes through favors to the urban class, which he regarded as a mob.

Jefferson proved absolutely correct that the yeoman unfortunately yielded to the urbanites.  But a lot of modern democracies are more urban than rural and appear very stable.  Quite a few of the European democracies were urban when they became democracies, although at least early in the history of most of them, and ongoing in some, a yeoman class was strongly represented politically.  Ironically, in recent years some European economies have become much more open and free market than our own and are functioning politically much better than we are.

At any rate, Jefferson's view was long term gloomy.  He probably didn't regard it as such as he thought that settling the western expanse of the continent would take 1,000 years, something he was massively off the mark on.  But there are real reasons to feel that what he featured would take place after the conclusion of that 1,000 years may have been right in some form.  Americans don't seem to interested in the democratic process any more.  Like Athenian democracy, they appear okay with screaming for the head of political opponents simply because they can, and are fine with making the opponents criminals because they are opponents. And like Jefferson feared, one party at least is pretty comfortable with buying the loyalty of voters in economic positions promising to fund all of life's decisions, from education (Sanders and others) to having children (Booker), and any other number of things that prior generations would have been insulted to have the government involved in.

A republic. . . if you can keep it.

Addendum, November 25, 2016.

This Week featured a couple of lawyers who are "Constitutional Scholars".  I don't know what their backgrounds are other than the very short snipped regarding them, and they may very well be that, although what that likely means is that they're academic lawyers.  Most practitioners don't get that title as a rule, unless they're being interviewed by the press on a specific topic or case.

Anyhow, they, and the panelist, irrespective of political persuasion, all tended towards the view that "high crime and misdemeanors" is sufficiently vague such that an impeachment can be done for political reasons.  That view surprises me, but it was the uniform view.  

Indeed, they discussed the current statute on bribery and debated if it is really relevant at all.  There was no real consensus.  Some suggested no, as it wasn't the law at the time.

Frankly, I think its relevant as the Constitution says "high crimes and misdemeanors", but the provisions are admittedly vague.  The uniform view is that its a political process, which means that as a quasi judicial process, if that view is held, it's more political than my general view here would have it.

_________________________________________________________________________________

*For those who might wonder, the line excepting foreign nationals who are U.S. citizens creates an exception for dual citizens.  It might frankly be impossible for a person to know who and who is not a dual citizen in common politics and therefore this exception precludes all sorts of accidental violations of the law.

**Indeed, in my view relying upon 52 U.S.C. § 30121 creates a legal risk as if the Senate was actually to remove Trump from office, which it is not going to do, it would raise the question on whether or not the Senate can remove a President from office for the violation of a crime upon which he has not been convicted.

This problem would exist anyhow, and always exists in Impeachment hearing in which the President has not been so convicted.  Of note, no U.S. President who has been subject to an impeachment trial has actually been convicted of a crime.  Nixon came the closest but he wasn't impeached.  Indeed, the Nixon example shows why the strange presumed prohibition on prosecuting a President for an actual violation of a crime during his office doesn't make any sense at all.  Anyhow, as no President has been removed, the impeachment clause of the Constitution has actually never been tested.

What we don't know, and its an interesting question, is what would happen if a President was removed.  It's a power clearly vested in Congress and up until quite recently such powers were pretty much absolute.  In recent years, however, the Supreme Court has held that they are not.  

In other words, had Nixon been impeached, or Clinton, and then they tried to take their impeachment to the Supreme Court, the Court would have ruled quickly it had no jurisdiction over the matter.  Now, we can't be so sure.  If the Court found it did have jurisdiction and took the matter up (there's some procedural matters that would have to occur in order for that to happen) it might very well hold that it has the exclusive right to interpret the clause and render a decision on its meaning.  There's good reason to hope that this never occurs.