politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
If there's one "good" thing to come out of Trump's political career is that he was able to expose a lot of the weaknesses that our government and our Constitution have when it comes to enforcement of the Constitution, while simultaneously being too stupid to be able to do too much damage in the process. Things could be far, far worse if Trump had the poltical acumen of someone like Mitch McConnell.
What he's shown is that we need to answer a lot of the questions that have been raised during his term. The Constitution says that someone who aides in insurrection or gives aid and comfort to those that do are disqualified from being President. Ok, but who defines "insurrection"? What is "aid and comfort"? Who's responsible for declaring who is and isn't disqualified? How is it enforced? And how can the answers to these questions not be turned around and used against us by the opposing party?
That's the most on-topic example, but there are tons of examples just in the Constitution alone. How are these things defined? Who's responsible for enforcement? What are the penalties for breaking these laws?
The answer to all of these questions is often little more than a shrug. And we do need to get these answers before Trump 2.0 comes along and exploits these unanswered questions to actually accomplish what Trump and his stooges were trying to accomplish on January 6th.
The bad part is that even when Democrats controlled both houses, there was virtually zero appetite to even discuss how to start answering these questions. And in the absence of congressional action, we'll have to rely on the Supreme Court to be able to make an objective, unbiased ruling for future leaders to follow. And there's no reason to believe that the Supreme Court won't make an honest, objective ruling, right? We've got this.....we've got this.......
I hope.
In the case of the one recent person bounced out on 14th Amendment grounds... it was based on a conviction first. Even that conviction wasn't grounds for immediate removal, that required a legal challenge.
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/cowboys-trump-fanatic-lawsuit-wins-sets-big-precedent-rcna46946
In both houses of Congress, majorities (232–197 in the House and 57-43 in the Senate) found Trump to be liable for the insurrection:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_impeachment_of_Donald_Trump
That's the indictment, the conviction needed to happen in the Senate and that didn't happen.
It's the equivalent of Jack Smith indicting Trump on 4 felony counts, if the jury fails to convict, it doesn't mean anything.