Official LRC Kamala Harris for President Thread

Real Obvi wrote:

agip wrote:

federalist 68 spells out Hamilton's view of the EC. To serve as a filter to elect as president only people fit to serve.

"Such men would be "most likely to have the information and discernment" to make a good choice and to avoid the election of anyone "not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications."

of course the EC was also partly a gift to the South to get them to approve the constitution.

Link:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_No._6...

1) Bolded text seems disingenuous. The Primary purpose of the EC was to get the slave states and small states to sign on. Your notion that this was some sort of minor function in the creation of the EC system is absurd. It was THE purpose of the EC.

2) Federalist 68 basically shows that ONE person thought that one nice feature of the EC would be to help weed out any Trump-To-Be. That is a very different statement than saying that all (or the majority) of the framers of the Constitution thought that this feature was the (or one of the) primary drivers for the creation of the EC.

The EC was created to get the slave states and small states on board. It was not designed or implemented in order to keep future Trumps out.

Jeff Wigand wrote:

Nnonequals wrote:

We've touched on this topic before, and while I hesitate to delve into too much - knowing SO LITTLE about the founders or the law - I'll repeat what I've said before: As smart as they were, it looks like they just weren't smart enough (in this case). If they KNEW that Trump was coming, why didn't they do more to stop it? Two specific thoughts on that, the first one perhaps more solid than the second:

1) If they KNEW so much of what men are capable of, why did they set up an impeachment system where same-party control of EITHER chamber or Congress could stop the very worst of presidents from being impeached?

2) Could the constitution not have been written in such a way to have made SCOTUS' recent decision regarding presidential immunity much, much less likely?

3) I guess it's since been rendered moot by #2, but also, how about writing the constitution in such a way that we weren't constrained by a "Justice Department (freakin'!) MEMO" saying the the president is basically above the law while in office?

The framers of the early American government could not have envisioned a completely shameless candidate succeeding at such a level. When the extent of Nixon’s corruption was laid out, 85 members of the Senate indicated that they would vote to convict. But Trump’s hold on his core of supporters is so great that only 57 voted to convict him after he incited a riot to illegally hold onto the presidency. It should have been 100 to zero, but enough Republicans cared more about getting re-elected by true believers than doing the right thing.

His escape from justice shows that we may never hit the bottom in this country and empowered him that no matter what his crimes as President, that no modern Senate would ever have 67 votes to convict him.

Nnonequals wrote:

Jeff Wigand wrote:

The framers of the early American government could not have envisioned a completely shameless candidate succeeding at such a level. When the extent of Nixon’s corruption was laid out, 85 members of the Senate indicated that they would vote to convict. But Trump’s hold on his core of supporters is so great that only 57 voted to convict him after he incited a riot to illegally hold onto the presidency. It should have been 100 to zero, but enough Republicans cared more about getting re-elected by true believers than doing the right thing.

His escape from justice shows that we may never hit the bottom in this country and empowered him that no matter what his crimes as President, that no modern Senate would ever have 67 votes to convict him.

A few thoughts:

1) If we think of "completely shameless" with regard to modern era presidents, that makes sense. As in, the Founders could imagine a Nixon (some shame), but not a Trump (no shame). But I'm thinking that plenty of kings looked basically every bit as bad as Trump (and worse), so shouldn't they have been able to imagine a Trump? 100% shameless? Let the peasants die (because it serves your purposes); pretend that a pandemic isn't happening (because it will make you look bad).

2) In Nixon's time, the president's party showed principle (not that long ago). What makes this time different? Three options jump to mind:

1) Something in the water. Nah.

2) A rather quick, I think, and very significant devolution of politics/culture? Seems too short a period for that, but perhaps.

3) Most likely? Trump did what Nixon could not/did not: Galvanize a critical mass of die-hard supporters that all party members would be afraid of. Today, AND back in Nixon's day. Is that "simply" it? If Nixon had Trump's mob, those senators wouldn't have been principled, either?