[uspol] [history nerd incoming]

Dear Repubs who want to talk about whether it's constitutional to hold an impeachment trial for a departed-from-office president: Let me stop you right there.

The answer to this one is not going to be in the Constitution.

'Exiting president incites riot two weeks before leaving office' is not the kind of problem the Founding Fathers could have (or should've had to, really) predicted.

If you went back in time and asked them what to do they'd say 'oh, come on, no one would try that.'

/gets comfortable ala jon stewart gif

And if you said 'no really seriously, he did try it, what do we do?' They would say:

'Obviously get rid of him, why did you let someone so unfit for office into the office in the first place, this is literally what we gave you the Electoral College for.'

Because from the ca. 1790 perspective, the Electoral College's duty in 2016 would've been to overrule the voting public and NOT LET SOMEONE CLEARLY UNFIT FOR THE OFFICE INTO THE OFFICE.

(Obviously from the modern perspective, we have determined that the Electoral College doesn't... really work as intended, and we don't want to make a habit of overruling the voting public... any more than the EC's existence already does.)

Mostly, this is such an unprecedented situation we're gonna have to figure out the answer for ourselves. I say 'figure out' like the answer isn't 'obviously convict him for INCITING A RIOT.'

Considering there are somehow people to whom that is not obvious.

and not holding the trial... just sets the precedent that you can do whatever you want as long as you can get out of office before they come after you

That's the precedent some of them want to set...

But only if you're a Republican, of course.

yeah

Also, he was still in office when he was impeached

yuuuup.

Not to mention we've impeached people in other positions after they've left office.