Donald Trump was the worst president in the history of the republic. Continue reading An Impeachment Trial Risks Too Much to Make a Legal Point That Will Be Undermined Anyway by Trump’s Acquittal, by Jeffrey C. Isaac
After the President’s unrepentant comments this morning and the Republican Party’s rapid return to baseline–witness Lindsey “Count Me Out” Graham accompanying Trump on his border visit–the correct course seems clear: Impeach this afternoon and send the article or articles to the Senate this afternoon. The purpose of the 25th Amendment gambit in the interim remains unclear, and it suggests Congress would prefer to outsource its responsibilities to the vice president. Any delay in sending the article(s) to the Senate would suggest political maneuvering. More important, it would suggest subservience of House Democrats to President-Elect Biden’s wishes. An immediate impeachment and … Continue reading What’s the Holdup?
The caricature of Federalist 10 is that Madison aims to fracture majorities to prevent factious rule—what Tocqueville would later call “the tyranny of the majority.” That reading is wrong on several levels, including the fact that Madison never actively fractures anyone. He simply observes that the natural conditions of an extended republic make it difficult for majority factions to form or, if they do, to prevail. In his Preface to Democratic Theory, Robert Dahl spotted what he thought was a fatal flaw: “[N]o modern Madison has shown that the restraints on the effectiveness of majorities imposed by the facts of a pluralistic … Continue reading Federalist 10 and the Search for Common Ground
Should Joe Biden pardon Donald Trump upon taking office? In the face of the growing instability of the American democratic order, Benjamin Kleinerman thinks that doing so would be “would be the most presidential act Biden could take” Continue reading Joe Biden Should Pardon Donald Trump
