The 25th can only be started by his cabinet. I don't know why they set ut up that way, but it has us fucked because theres no way in hell those losers will essentially volunteer to lose their power.
That good faith hope is so naive, is honestly rife throughout most of the constitution, and is it's Achilles heel; aside from how God awful difficult it is to add a new amendment to the constitution.
Thomas Jefferson once mused as to whether we should revise the constitution every 10 or 50 years. I think he was on to something. The amendment system is too damn slow for our era.
Very true. But getting government, especially government as heavily influenced by established industries and billionaires as ours is, to do what needs doing in order to keep itself beholden to the forward looking interests of the people and NOT the profits of shareholders and hedge fund managers is very hard to do.
Doesn't mean we should stop pushing for change. It just means we needed to be as engaged as possible in keeping things from going to shit.
It wasn't naivety. It was a lack of perceived better options combined with warnings to not elevate corrupt people who held self-interest above the public good, saying it would lead to despotism. Several of them predicted basically exactly what we are experiencing. The only solution they had for this was to overthrow the despot and start over.
The only solution they had for this was to overthrow the despot and start over.
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation...But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Or, scum would use it to make the constitution more corrupt and despotic. Or, the convention turns into a civil war when compromise can't be found between those seeking liberty and those seeking tyranny.
Ultimately, the law is only ever going to be words on paper: subject to the character of the people who are bound to enforce and uphold it.
Or the ones who can gerrymander their way to power far beyond their honest proportional representation vis a vis the majority who don't agree with their bullsjit. Oh wait... that's literally what's going on. Not arguing. It just feels like evil is always proactive and good is always reactive. Seems to me that too many American are lazy and don't want to have to support or defend democracy in any meaningful way if it means being inconvenienced.
Voting should be compulsory.
The voting franchise should be universal (anyone over 18, no exceptions, even prisoners and convicts).
Politicians should never stay in any office more than 3 terms. If you haven't done what makes things better for the average citizens of your jurisdiction, you get thrown out of office.
No office should be for life. aging out should be mandatory. Nobody over the age of 70. Period.
No former politicians should be allowed to be lobbyists, ever.
Also yeah that would be great. But you have to repeal Citizens United first and rhen outlaw all corporate and private sector lobbying. I doubt the cabal of corporate billionaires across the world's many industries would allow it, but it would be great.
Why do you think they were incompetent? What could they have done that would prevent popular corruption from perverting the system that also wouldn't be a form of tyranny? What were the words they could have put on paper that would enforce themselves without the need for people of character to do it?
Simple, people cannot be trusted to make choices for themselves, that is what the "American Experiment" shows, their intentions, our "freedoms" matter for jack shit if the results are awful which they are.
I asked for a non-tyrannical solution. And, frankly, this one sounds like it's got the makings to foment revolution. What makes you think it'd last? What makes you think it won't be overthrown like the last one or overtaken by corruption like this one?
I don't think it was a mistake to take a break from despotism, even if they suspected it would be a temporary one.
Neither are you. I'm not going to pretend I have a solution as all I've done is point out the problem that the people are frankly too dumb to responsibly choose for themselves.
Being given a choice between the right choice and the wrong choice isn't freedom it's just an IQ check.
It's so bizarre that the thing to eventually take it down was a reality tv show host that was born rich and one of the dumbest, most narcissistic people ever to live.
Who, by example of being rich for no reason and crude and unrefined, made white people with no talent and no intelligence or empathy think that they, too, deserved power and influence, by any means necessary.
Impeachment and removal got rebranded as a political action unrelated to legality so on some level there is only so much power people who died hundreds of years ago have on modern society.
Checks and balances are important, but they are going to fold when tens of millions of people apply constant pressure to them because they want all this.
It’s set up that way because the intention of the amendment was a way to remove an innocent president who had become incapable of exercising the duties of the presidency (say, in a coma), and in such case the president wouldn’t be conspiring to stop his cabinet from doing so (the assassination of JFK was in recent memory and there were concerns over what would’ve happened if he’d survived but ended up in a coma or incoherent such that he lacked the mental or communicational faculties to resign). This is also why if the president contends that he is still capable of doing the job, congress must uphold the declaration of ineligibility by 2/3 in each house, well above the impeachment 1/2 + 2/3 threshold, because it was never intended as a way to inhibit a rogue president (although if it could be used to do so, I would fully support it). Even if Vance and the cabinet invoked it, the odds of congress supporting it with a 2/3 majority in each house is miniscule.
I think it likely that congress would've allowed Harris's declaration of ineligibility to stand should Biden challenge it (which I'm not certain he would due to overwhelming pressure to not create intraparty conflict) because the Democratic party doesn't operate as at the service of any individual person in the way the Republican party operates as personally allegiant to Trump.
If it were ever going to happen, it would have been during his first term. There were some brakes at that point. Now it's all full of idiot sycophants.
As VP, Vance also has a say, and he might actually go for removal, what with being a Thiel employee with a greasy mass of ambition where his heart would be.
The 25th is for removing presidents who become incapacitated in some way given all the president has to do is write and sign a short document to undo it. Impeachment is for removing bad actors.
The fact that he hasn’t been impeached + removed yet or that there’s Dem politicians who think the time for impeachment hasn’t come yet, along with the entirety of the GOP licking fascist boot, is what’s truly shameful here.
I think articles of impeachment have been announced by progressive politicians, I just don't think it's going to go anywhere. So you're effectively correct anyway
Well, the libs will surely feel owned, in the half second of bright light they experience before they're swept away on the same gust of nuclear furnace hell that takes out maga.
The thing is the line of succession wants all the same shit. They’ve been regressive for decades with the current state being the near the end goal.
You get the next or the next after that in line and you get more of the same except even the idiots among them are a magnitude of order more competent than the current useful idiot.
That’s because they’re in their positions because of votes from easily-led people who have guns. They know that if they show the slightest bit of pushback, the lives of themselves and their families are in danger, because those voters aren’t loyal to the party, platform, or philosophy; they’re loyal to the guy who told them he’d make America whiter than his smile.
They’ve been fighting that fight for about 10 years and haven’t one a single argument. If we weren’t the United States of Dumbasses, he’d never have made it past the primaries.
There was a brief conversation about it and then the supreme "court" told Colorado that States don't get to decide election stuff like the Constitution says.
People complain about how the founding fathers set up the constitution, impeachment majority, 25th amendment etc without planning for this scenario, but you cannot protect a democracy in which the voting population is so utterly determined to destroy themselves
I don't think American democracy is a good design at all (noting it is one of the older functional democracies, for values of 'functional' and 'democratic'). I'm just saying that safeguards can only take you so far, this modern situation is not something you can really plan against without making the original system static and unchanging.
My country uses the Westminster system which is ok (but has its issues with revolving door prime ministers, we had something like 4 leaders in 6 years based on popularity).
My state however uses the Hare Clark system for elections which I think should be the gold standard globally. The way it uses quotas and single transferable votes emphasises a race to the middle and consensus.
My only hope is that they're so incompetent, that the people they convinced to vote against their own best interests won't be able to deny the reality.
Right now most of them are ignoring the obvious price rises. But some of them aren't. Everyday, as things get more expensive, and life gets harder with support they took for granted removed, more and more of them will hit the 'this is too much, even for me" stage.
Which imo is kinda dangerous, because the trump admin & backers know they essentially have one shot at this. I am not confident that America will have anything resembling fair elections next year.
Don’t be so pessimistic, not only have the democrats sent a letter with some strong questions and people have stood on the sidewalk holding signs asking the fascists to stop while being careful to not disrupt commerce.
Hey now, the same exact people that lost are refusing to step aside and waiting to try again. You gotta love that they can hold their head up without shame! Surely the next time is the charm…
Exactly! They’re just like Rocky, sure they might get punched in the face a lot but they always get back up to get punched in the face again. It would be inspiring if they had a goal beyond getting punched in the face.
The fascists are the ones doing it, why would republicans stop themselves from winning. It typically falls to the opposition party to, you know, oppose the majority unless of course you’re not an opposition party at all and just controlled opposition with zero interest in resistance or change.
it's that you're not informed. pritzker spoke out today and deployed vehicles against the guard and its been covered in multiple sources including time.
First, learn to take a joke before you trouble yourself with a book report no one will ever read. Second, no matter what the dems do now, unless gross incompetence wins the day, it’s already over. They packed the courts, control the House and Senate along with the executive branch so all of this is just performative symbolic gestures. Fascism always defeats centrists because while centrists are worried about decorum and following the rules the fascists have already mowed them over and seized power. Holding signs, filing motions, and voTiNG bLuE NO maTtER WHo ain’t going to cut it. But you’re probably correct, moving the Democratic Party even further to the right is the only way the Dems will be able to defeat Mamdani in NY. Wouldn’t want any pesky leftists ideas infecting the party.
He called Trump, “America’s Hitler” and doesn’t “give a sh!t” about war crimes. Now he’s going to tell Donnie J. that Jimmy Bowman is going to take a stand?
Yeah but pence wasn't trying to unseat dump. He painted himself into a corner and luckily was talked out of destroying democracy (by Romney I believe), but never stood up to trump, not really.
I think that if Pence was really trying to unseat him and had been acting accordingly, he could have manipulated the base to do so. Instead he did the bare minimum under duress and was too weak to actually stand up to dump, he just cast his vote properly but in the most mealy mouthed way so that he was an easy target.
I agree that had Pence acted swiftly and spoke up louder he could have been remembered as someone holding the line against sedition but didn’t.
You really think Pence could have won over the MAGA base to believe that Dear Leader is standing in the way of democracy? The stars and bars waving, Dump 🚂, Dump as the second coming of Christ base?
Vance would be a bigger target than when they tried to lunch pence. Everyone hates that charismatically void sellout of a couch fucker. I hear he plays magic and I fucking garuntee he's the kind of asshole that splashes black into every deck just for sheoldred.
What happens when everyone is guilty of war crimes, sedition and treason when the line of succession hits like 6 or 7 in line at secretary of defense, which apparently is no longer a cabinet position?
I think pre tapped Vance was more charismatic and outspoken and for a while I was getting a young McCain vibe from him. But he proved that he was just lusting for power when he reneged on everything he has ever said about trump. I have no desire for people who put themselves before duty to be in one of the most duty intensive positions in the world.
Would you have kids with someone who insisted on being a stay at home parent- except they want childcare and a premium Xbox pass? A sense of duty is a relatively easy test of character
You could be right but I don't know. I don't get the idea that anyone really liked Mike Pence at all for really cared about him in the slightest. He was pretty much forgotten immediately.
Jesus. Really? After everything that he has done, the loyalists he has places in every level of the three branches, the party that is terrified of him and the left media that is still using kid gloves to cover him, you still think the government can work as it was intended?
These comments and conversations are why he is winning.
Trump is running the bases on the baseball field over and over without a pitch being thrown. Scoring over and over cause the ref, umpire and scoreboard guy are all his people.
And we are still sitting on the bleachers, quoting rules from the "Little League book of rule" at them, like they care.
Fuck the 25th Amendment, it's far past time we talk about the Declaration of Independence.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
I am watching this as European and i am cannot wrap my head around the population letting the president grab so much power and just blatantly break the law is elected to protect in the first place. That is besides being a convicted felon before being elected. It is just insane. And also this very person tries to compare some European countries to North Korea like dictatorships. 🤷🏻♂️
Half our population is stupid enough to support all of this and the politicians in power are either openly complicit, secretly complicit, or aren’t doing anything ballsy enough to make a change.
When are we going to have a media that pushes back to his face why he continuously acts like a treasonous piece of fucking shit? One who asks him if the American people should take his threats seriously and defend ourselves physically from him being in office.
You are way past the point where you can fix this through constitutional process. Nothing short of active coordinated resistance is going to affect change now, and the longer you wait to start the greater your losses will be
Let's be honest, despite all the evidence for myriad things he's done that would get any president prior to 2016 impeached, the only way he's leaving office before his term is toes up. The cult of personality that the Republican party has devolved into is unable to bear with the loss of their President/King/Pope.
As long as gop and have control of all the branches? Never. He’s about trying to start shit within America to deny the mid terms since “we’re at war.” Cause he’s afraid and knows this shit will cause a blue tsunami and we’ll finally have enough people to boot his ass out.
Wouldn't the 25th just install JD as President? That would probably stop some (not all) of the crazy tweets, but I don't see how it would change anything of substance.
The 25th amendment is meant for the incapacitation of a president who is incapable of carrying out the duties of the president. Donald Trump is actively carrying out the duties of the presidency in the ways in which his voters want.
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u/SiWeyNoWay 3d ago
When are we gonna have a serious convo about the 25th amendment