President Donald Trump
I assume it's still acceptable to have a Trump thread in a Politics forum?
So this is an obvious lie - basically aimed at
It comes from the historical right of the kings of England to pardon convicted criminals.
The revolutionary leaders in the US seemed to not want anyone to have royal powers, but they decided to give this one to the president for... Reasons?
The concept of "all men are created equal" seems to have been forgotten, and the US has gone all-in with the divine right of kings.
The doctrine asserts that a monarch is not accountable to any earthly authority (such as a parliament or the Pope) because their right to rule is derived from divine authority. Thus, the monarch is not subject to the will of the people, of the aristocracy, or of any other estate of the realm.
there’s another check which is impeachment, which is a check on the president’s power.
there’s no one “check” in our system.
But as just pointed out, no president has ever been removed from office, and the only one who probably would have been removed was - you guessed it, pardoned by the next president. And that next president was never elected to the office, and never even elected to be Vice President!
He had never before even served in any presidential administration. He was hand picked by the president, served as VP for less than a year, then he immediately pardoned the person who put him into that position.
We should have learned 50 years ago that Presidents couldn't be trusted with the power of the pardon.
I wouldn't have voted for such a keen genocider, no, but I'm sure you're proud of yourself.
I voted for Kamala because… look at what is happening. Like you have the benefit now of hindsight so now you’re just an irrational person to say that you STILL think Kamala would be just as bad. Complete Gaza Derangement Syndrome.
The last President gave out pre-emptive pardons for family members for crimes they had committed they hadn't been charged for yet. Hard to beat that.
Exactly which crimes were those? Hunter Biden had already been charged with several (victimless) crimes and treated much more harshly than other similar criminals, just because his father was their political enemy.
I voted for Kamala because… look at what is happening. Like you have the benefit now of hindsight so now you’re just an irrational person to say that you STILL think Kamala would be just as bad. Complete Gaza Derangement Syndrome.
I am looking at what's happening around the world...and I don't believe it would be much better if your jailor was president and it could conceivably be worse.
But as just pointed out, no president has ever been removed from office, and the only one who probably would have been removed was - you guessed it, pardoned by the next president. And that next president was never elected to the office, and never even elected to be Vice President!He had never before even served in any presidential administration. He was hand picked by the pre
There’s good and bad in the pardon power, I agree. In any case, I’m sure there’s a constitutional amendment on the horizon somewhere removing the power from the president.
In its short history the US has actually had periods where the Executive assumed as much power as Trump. Eisenhower and Jackson two examples off the top of my head. The really unprecedented thing we are going through, where it is unknown whether the system can survive, is judicial activism to block democratic processes that judges dont agree with.
Eisenhower? He's generally known for there having been nothing that significant done by his administration.
The most important thing I can think of is ending the Korean War, which wasn't much of a partisan issue and approved of by nearly everyone, AFAIK.
Also, what kinds of judicial actions have recently blocked democratic processes? The only serious one I can think of was 25 years ago when the SCOTUS ordered a stop to counting of votes.
There’s good and bad in the pardon power, I agree. In any case, I’m sure there’s a constitutional amendment on the horizon somewhere removing the power from the president.
I don't see any good which is even close to being significant when compared with the worst ever examples (the Ford pardon of Nixon, the Trump blanket pardon of insurrectionists).
I don't see any good which is even close to being significant when compared with the worst ever examples (the Ford pardon of Nixon, the Trump blanket pardon of insurrectionists).
I’m not well-versed on the history of pardons so I myself can’t say that those cases outweigh any good that pardons have done. I understand conceptually the reason for putting it in the hands of the presidency, but obviously the constitution has been amended several times since that power was vested in the office way back at the beginning. It’s not inconceivable that you’re right about how it has played out in history.
Correct, which is yet even more evidence that the USA is finished.
Half of the country does not believe in the rule of law and thinks their OrangeGod can not only do no wrong, but can do whatever he wants.
Trump supporters voted for the end of America, and they’re getting it. Well done. Your parents would be so proud.
Thank you!!
not really comparable to pardoning people who took part in a seditious riot, is it.
Desegregating Arkansas and the interstate highway system immediately come to mind.
I did think of the highways as well, but I don't think that's something that was pushed through by one man while being hated by half the country.
I've never heard of anything particularly controversial happening during his administration. I don't know anything about the desegregation of Arkansas though.
It was a pretty big deal.
There’s good and bad in the pardon power, I agree. In any case, I’m sure there’s a constitutional amendment on the horizon somewhere removing the power from the president.
But then who would pardon the turkey?
There probably has to be a power of pardon, and it can't really be vested anywhere but in the president, so you're going to get some dodgy presidential actions.
The US is about the earliest modern republic, and the founders were finding their way, and the republic was very much meant as an oligarchy of white Christian Protestant gentlemen of property (never mind all men being created equal and equally entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, that was just fine words, because the founders were unrepentant slavers who only rebelled when Lord Mansfield's ruling in Somerset v Stuart suggested that the Crown would some day free the slaves), and the president was set up as an elected king -- elected by gentlemen of property, that is -- and an eighteenth-century king at that, since that was the model the founders were used to. What they didn't copy from the British constitution was the supremacy of Parliament. They didn't want to risk that lack of control and they definitely wanted a more oligarchic set-up. They also seem to have over-estimated the powers that King George III actually had, besides wrongly calling him a tyrant when his character and status didn't bear that description at all.
Not counting France, because there's just no accounting for the French, a number of more recent republics, such as Ireland, India, Israel, Germany and Italy, have adopted ceremonial and diplomatic figurehead non-executive presidencies on the model of the 20th-century British Crown, holding reserve powers that seldom make waves (most Germans, for instance, have no idea who their president is, even though the elections are duly held), but Americans are still stuck with their own parochial notion of 18th-century kingship as the repository of supreme power, and, y'know, you get what you paid for.
