• Tinidril@midwest.social
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    8 months ago

    Removal from office takes a supermajority in the Senate, so maybe disqualification via the 14th does as well. That would presumably depend on Senate rules that currently don’t cover it.

    A simple majority ought to be sufficient, but it also ought to be sufficient for just about everything, but it’s not.

      • Tinidril@midwest.social
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        8 months ago

        14th didn’t say it’s up to Congress either. The Supreme Court said that, and now it’s up to Congress to decide what that looks like. The constitution lets the legislative bodies setup their own rules for how a lot of things function.

          • Tinidril@midwest.social
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            8 months ago

            I’m not sure I even disagree with the idea that it needs to be done at the Federal level. If individual states can do it, then Republicans will start declaring that everything they don’t like is an insurrection (as their rhetoric already does on many issues) and remove Democrats from ballots.

            Whether that means it has to be the legislature and what that looks like are different questions.

            • FreakinSteve@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              So we’re just gonna allow a corrupt party to simply decide what words mean on their own?

              Hold up, George Orwell on line three…

              • Tinidril@midwest.social
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                8 months ago

                This was actually a 9-0 decision. Being a cynic is definitely justified by the state of our government, but you should have some ideas what your being cynical about.

                  • Tinidril@midwest.social
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                    8 months ago

                    Nothing here says that one party gets to define anything. Also, the court did not say that the Senate must agree by a 2/3 majority, only that Congress must decide. The text of the constitution does clearly make section 3 self executing but, unhelpfully, it does not tell us who determines that an insurrection occurred or whether a particular person is guilty of participation.

                    It clouds the issue even further that the previous vote failed in the Senate, but would have passed by a simple majority. It could well be that some who voted in favor of impeachment might have voted otherwise if a simple majority were required. I think a simple majority should be sufficient in this case, but that vote never occurred.

                    Personally, I’m not sure it would be a good thing to remove Trump from the ballot. I think it will be far better for the nation to defeat him at the ballot box. If Trump can actually win, then we are doomed anyways.

                    Trump is uniquely bad as a human being, but he is not uniquely bad as a potential Republican president. There are plenty of Republicans that would be worse, simply because they are competent and, for many milquetoast Americans, far more persuasive.