Tag: elections

Don’t Rage, Engage: Cool It On Trump Impeachment Talk For Right Now

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

The more I think about it, the more I realize that all the energy people like me are spending on how we’re going to impeach Donald Trump is just wasted time and energy. For the time being, it’s just not going to happen.

There just isn’t anything that Trump could do at this point that would lead to his immediate impeachment. Nothing. Nothing at all. Whatever you can come up with, that would not do it. The Vichy Republicans are so callow, so Vichy that even if Trump really did strangle someone on 5th Avenue, nothing would come of it. There is some doubt as to if you can actually try a sitting president for criminal offenses at all.

The issue is, impeachment is a political process. And, really, that’s the only way to address any sort of malfeasance on the part of the president. So, there’s just nothing we can do right now. We are going to just suffer Trumplandia. We’re just going to have to deal with whatever horrible thing Trumplandia manages to produce between now and fall 2018.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, if you consider yourself a member of The Resistance, stay energized and vigilant, but for the time being spend the energy you would exert on outrage and planning your impeachment parties on staying engaged not only politically but in your efforts to cross the political divide.

Now, roughly a year from now, things will be different. The issue will be The Resistance will have to be just as pumped when it comes to voting as Trumplandia is. Trumplandia won in 2016, in part because they were just so hysterical about eight years of Obama that they were willing to eat at any of the bullshit that a demagogue like Trump managed to feed them.

I guess one way to look at this is — the base may have to make its own leaders. It may come down to the base deciding if we ever get rid of Trump at all. It’s possible that there will be no “Blue Wave” in 2018 and Trump will not only survive but prosper. That’s a real possibility. Let that sink in.

Regardless, we have about a year before things will look up. Given that the current news cycle is about 5 minutes, that’s a long, long, long, long time to have to bide our time. And that doesn’t even begin to address Trump trying to wag the dog or new Russian interference.

It could be that we might have Trumplandia for eight or 12 years. Remember, Reagan / Bush lasted for 12 years and the Democratic Party made a lot of mistakes a long the way. It all came down to fate, luck and the historical quirk of Bill Clinton.

Something similar may happen again. It’s kind of scary at this point, but better to realize the gravity of the situation instead of burning ourselves out.

Fanciful Constitutional Fixes To A Hacked Election

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

We have no idea right now, for sure, if the Russians successfully hacked the American election through the Internet. We just don’t know. And we probably never will. But, for the sake of argument, what would be the proper reaction to this revelation.

Well, first of all, you can talk about how there should be reforms until you’re blue in the face, but the Vichy Republicans, because both control the government and benefited from the hacking, it’s not like they have any reason to effectively fix the problem.

But let’s suppose something happened and they finally cracked, they finally were absolutely forced to do something, what could they — and we — do? Because we’re dealing with some really serious stuff — Constitutional stuff — fixing the problem would be doubly difficult.

Really, the fixes I can think of are Constitutional in nature.

The one big fix I could see maybe being done is passing a Constitutional amendment making the process of electing a president a Federal issue. This will never happen, of course, but it’s something to think about. But only by removing the electing of the president from 50 individual states can we make it less likely that someone could attack the weaknesses of the weakest one.

But, like I said, this will never happen. There just isn’t the political will for such a huge change to the way we elect presidents. If I had the power, though, I would also get rid of the Electoral College as well. It’s a horrible method of electing a president in modern times and it needs to go. But that, too, will never happen.

One thing people really need to chill out about is the notion of “nullifying” the 2016 election. To call such a proposal a delusional daydream is giving it too much credit. We just have to wait until 2018 to have an effective “do over.” That’s the way the system works and it’s just too bad that the Vichy Republicans are so callow and prostrate before King Trump that the system isn’t working right now.

The whole thing is enough to make one a little sad.