Trump Kicking and Screaming Transition Thread

We have impeachment.

Takes too damn long, costs too damn much, distracts too many politicians from other things they should be doing, and doesn't always work.

Yeah, can't they sometimes come out of nowhere?

I'm so sorry that removing a sitting president is too inconvenient for you.

It’s been a while and @K. will probably come in and contradict me but that is how I remember the German system working.

Like us their upper chamber (Bundesrat) is supposed to represent the interests of the states (Lander). The ministers are appointed by the state government and each state delegation has to vote as a bloc (not a given as most state governments are coalitions so the ministers are likely from different parties). If all can’t agree they have to abstain, which is basically a no vote as all legislation put before the Bundesrat has to have an absolute majority to pass.

However, the Bundesrat doesn’t get a say in all legislation. They only get to weigh in on legislation that deals with the citizens’ relationship with the states, the states’ relationship with each other or the states’ relationship with the federal government.

Also, the apportionment is a compromise between flat and proportional. Each state gets between three and six ministers depending on population.

Now let @K. come and prove how long ago college was for me.

That's different.

Impeachment requires an overwhelming majority, it's very different to a vote of no confidence.

In a parliamentary system like Canada/UK/Australia, the PM and their government is basically whoever has the ability to get the basic functionality of government passed through parliament. Their power derives from that confidence of parliament, not any innate powers of the office.

Not sorrier than I am that you'll live and die in the 18th century.

More like "never" works.

Gray Davis is a fluke, who might not have gotten a recall vote at all if not for the Enron scandal that he had little to nothing to do with and what has to be the nastiest campaign from his re-election run the year before that I'd ever seen in my life, even now. Add to it the novelty candidates and Bobs your uncle.

But that's an exceedingly rare instance in our politics.

Aw, jeez, fuggin' Gray Davis. Forgot about that mofo. There's a gaggle of Trumpanistas (who live in North Carolina, et al.) congratulating themselves because "Donald J. Trump garnered more GOP votes in California in 2020 than ever before!!!!!"

Um, kiddies, the Blue-Haired Reagan Lubbers are dying off, and nobody really pays attention to the desert meth-heads, but BIDEN STILL WON CALIFORNIA!!! Mmkay?

1) The arrogance of this paragraph negates any validity of calling others out for being "smug". You should know better.

2) The fact that you have to so completely distort the position of others (from "make some serious changes in the constitution" to "burn the whole thing down and start over") in order to make your point indicates that you don't really have a point, or aren't able to make it, if you address what people are actually saying. You should know better.

3) A couple of centuries ago or so, almost every nation in Europe was some kind of monarchy with no real representation of the people in the way their governments worked. Over the course of the last couple of centuries, almost every nation in Europe has radically modified its entire approach to government, and that has resulted in a major "betterment of the masses". So your whole premise is demonstrably, factually wrong, as even a superficial look at history would tell you. You should know better.

I often like your points of view, but you disapppoint me with this kind of rhetoric. You can and should do much better.

Who are these straw people you are talking about?

I have never seen anyone here or anywhere argue that the Constitution as a whole is "hopelessly flawed" or "in need of complete overhaul."

The argument here (and as far as I have seen, anywhere) is mainly confined to the Electoral College being an unfair relic that stems from slavery.

You seem to at root agree with the notion that the Electoral College is an outgrowth of slavery. Maybe I'm wrong.

You're 100% correct. I had to look up two details to check, so you have provided me with a civics lesson on my own government, cheers for that. I was also reminded that the delegates from the Länder governments actually have to be cabinet members of that Land themselves, which is kind of interesting.

Posting this without reading the next 2 pages:

Zombie: *silence*
oldfella: *silence*
Paladin: "It's completely within Trump's legal rights to fire any agency head that he wants to, and I will studiously avoid commenting on whether I think this was good or justified, even though I clearly approve."

How'd I do?

2/3, Paladin was also *silence* apart from agreeing with Lanzman's lectures.

Sadly @Paladin isn't engaging which is quite a shame. Not for purposes, but really we are getting to the stage now that we should be able to discuss some of these issues that Trump is pulling. Given that @Paladin has always shown his enthusiasm for law and order, proper process, honour etc, we really can't be far away from Trump supporters who have similar opinions, turning their back on Trump.......

In fairness, I'm the strawman.

I've said exactly that on many occasions.

Not, however, here in this context.

The process of impeachment is quite different from a VONC.

We could discuss the relative merits elsewhere and I suspect in many ways we'd agree but the point remains.

One is, to all intents and purposes, an internal matter for the majority party and can be initiated on much lesser criteria. The PM benefits from far, far fewer legal and procedural protections than a POTUS both in terms of their conduct and their position.

You can't in real terms oust a POTUS simply for doing a bad job, whereas that is exactly how a lot of PMs leave office.

Quite an effective protection against dictatorship and/or base ineptitude (so they say...), but it comes at the cost of reducing continuity.

Fair point.

Sorry bud, my derision was aimed at the site, not you. It seems strange to keep asking about the purpose of an institution operating today but every answer instantly jumps back centuries to the wishes of someone who was no better, more foresighted, more benign or wiser than you or I.

It's like asking me about the purpose of the HoL today and my justifying it because of the difference between Lords Temporal and Lords Spiritual. Ancient history does not suffice.(Ironically, the HoL is the origin of your Senate, you inherited the whole shebang from us, but that's another matter)

My asking about the purpose of the Senate was due to @Lanzman seemingly differentiating between "the people" and "the states".

I was being rhetorical in an attempt to draw attention to the false dichotomy. All branches of government should exist to serve the people in one form or another. If they don't then you truly do have "big government".

Surely you jest. The media is finally open to running stories about how Republican politicians have coddled Trump the last four years. The more important story is how Trump supporters have coddled him the whole time.

No worries, however what I got out of it, and I could be totally wrong, is that the US being both a Federal Republic and a Representative Democracy, the Senate acts as a firewall between the two. It acts as a check against the Fedgov on the one hand and the rule of the majority on the other. The "...represents the state" part made more sense when the Senators were selected by state legislatures than it does now.

I'll just leave the following, from James Madison, here...

"The man who is possessed of wealth, who lolls on his sofa or rolls in his carriage, cannot judge of the wants or feelings of the day laborer. The government we mean to erect is intended to last for ages. The landed interest, at present, is prevalent; but in process of time, when we approximate to the states and kingdoms of Europe; when the number of landholders shall be comparatively small, through the various means of trade and manufactures, will not the landed interest be overbalanced in future elections, and unless wisely provided against, what will become of your government? In England, at this day, if elections were open to all classes of people, the property of the landed proprietors would be insecure. An agrarian law would soon take place. If these observations be just, our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation. Landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority. The senate, therefore, ought to be this body; and to answer these purposes, they ought to have permanency and stability. Various have been the propositions; but my opinion is, the longer they continue in office, the better will these views be answered.”

THANK YOU. Geez, glad someone here gets it . . . as I mentioned, you have to think of the states as sovereign countries in their own right, which is basically what they were when the Constitution was being written. They are no longer that, of course, being components of a federal republic now, but the underlying structure remains (mostly) the same.

I may be having trouble parsing the language, but it seems Madison is saying the Senate is set up to protect the rich from the majority.

In which case it's time to burn it down. Where's @Amaris?

Which still doesn't answer the question of what purpose the Electoral College serves in the modern world which could possibly offset it's drawbacks.

This isn't a trick question, it isn't a "gotcha", it's a serious and pressing concern which cannot be addressed by reference to tradition.

Even the city council of San Diego has gone blue for the first time in memory and that Amar Campa-Najjar guy got close to winning the rural 50th district here.

The attack ads Darrell Issa ran against him were some true bangers "hEs a sOcIaLisT wooooooOoooooooo spooky!" God, if only our side was as far left as they make them put to be

I wasn't trying to address whether or not there is a purpose for the Electoral College.

But okay. I guess without the EC, people in Wyoming, or the Dakotas, or even the Carolinas might not feel there's a point to bother voting in presidential elections. I don't know how much of a role regionalism plays in other countries, but it plays a major one here.

Seems to be again a case of disenfranchising the many to benefit the few.

Surely those geographical lines could be re drawn to make the whole affair much more equitable without resorting to overtly sanctioned inequalities?

People in Wyoming may feel their Presidential vote is pointless, but for far more people in city centres that is literally true.

It forces national candidates to campaign in places other than a handful of cities. It balances large and small states to a degree, making the entire country feel that they're electing a President rather than leaving the decision up to California. Balance. Checks and balances.

Whereas it seems to me that without the EC, they would be even more motivated to vote, at least in states like Wyoming and the Dakotas, because their vote would make just as much difference as anyone else's. As it is, when you know ahead of time which way your state is going to swing, why bother voting?

In France, the president is elected by majority vote of the entire citizenry. Participation is higher in some places than in others, but it is not a "cities vs countryside" thing. Something like about 15 million French people live in communities (cities, towns, townships, etc are all grouped together here as "communities"; every square centimeter of the country is part of a community, kind of like in Massachusetts) of 10,000 people or less. Their vote is enough to swing almost any election. Participation in elections here is higher than in the States.