Yesterday, for what should have been the third time in my life, nixon included, a sitting president has been impeached. Although only two presidents were actually impeached, nixon resigning from office to avoid the impeachment investigation, all three count towards the total for me. I will say that the Bill Clinton impeachment was not about a betrayal of country. The nixon impeachment was about the Watergate break in of the democratic headquarters by the (creepy) band of republican operatives to steal information related to nixon's reelection. The trump betrayal was about using power and money to coerce a foreign power to dig up dirt on a political rival for trump's personal reelection campaign.
Both nixon and trump used the high office of our presidency to attack political rivals as a weapon in the complete disregard to our constitutional protections and safeguards. The office of the presidency is our most cherished public office position and for both nixon and trump to have weaponized it to gain an advantage for themselves personally dishonors them not our office of president. That is what the impeachment process was devised for, to protect our democracy from an out of control executive branch leader.
So now both nixon and trump are stained with the disgrace of having sold their loyalty to themselves and selected others; and not to our democratic republic. This is the distinction going forward, that there is nothing wrong with our form of government just the people who occasionally occupy positions of leadership within it. There are no wholesale changes coming to how our government operates but there will be some tweaking of it to make sure that a sitting president must always answer constitutionally for any violation that is a nefarious action. There is no immunity to charges when the act rises to the level of impeachment. No obstruction is to be allowed when an equal branch of government is doing its constitutional duty.
Both nixon and trump used the high office of our presidency to attack political rivals as a weapon in the complete disregard to our constitutional protections and safeguards. The office of the presidency is our most cherished public office position and for both nixon and trump to have weaponized it to gain an advantage for themselves personally dishonors them not our office of president. That is what the impeachment process was devised for, to protect our democracy from an out of control executive branch leader.
So now both nixon and trump are stained with the disgrace of having sold their loyalty to themselves and selected others; and not to our democratic republic. This is the distinction going forward, that there is nothing wrong with our form of government just the people who occasionally occupy positions of leadership within it. There are no wholesale changes coming to how our government operates but there will be some tweaking of it to make sure that a sitting president must always answer constitutionally for any violation that is a nefarious action. There is no immunity to charges when the act rises to the level of impeachment. No obstruction is to be allowed when an equal branch of government is doing its constitutional duty.
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