Fifty House Democrats led by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) have sponsored a bill that would form a commission to assess President Donald Trump's mental fitness for office, pursuant to the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Congress has the power to create a commission to exercise the power to remove a mentally unfit president from office. The biggest worry is that this would inevitably be politicized. I say, let it happen! Let it be political. Let’s have an openly political “mental health commission” that will rule that being a member of the opposite political party is a mental illness. Hell, let it become a formality. It will simply be expected that the president will be removed from office after a change in Congressional control. Whenever a change in control of Congress happens, the new Congressional leadership will stuff it with political ideologues. And they’ll inevitably rule a president of the opposing party to be mentally unfit. Eventually it just becomes a formality, no one even considers it unusual. We just expect the presidency to be able to flip every two years. And we giggle that it has to be done by formally declaring the previous guy to be crazy. I think this would be a good idea.
Why? Because this would effectively transform the US into a Parliamentary democracy. A simple majority in both houses of Congress would be enough to install a new president. They effectively become a Prime Minister at that point. Parliamentary democracies have proven much more resilient to strong-man dictatorial takeover. It’s not as perfect a solution as amending the constitution to formally remove the office of president entirely, but it would be a decent hack to do something similar. And going to a Parliamentary system isn’t a magic cure-all, but it does have quite a bit of merit. As a plus, we would have the bonus of being “that nation that regularly declares its former leaders legally crazy.” And you know what? I think that works well with America’s energy.
Unfortunately, they can only create that commission if the president signs it, or they have a veto-proof majority, or they send it to JD while Trump has executed Section 3 of the 25th.
I thought the benefits of parliamentary systems come from the fact that that they’re more proportional. They have a balance of power going on in the fact that you can win a seat from being popular in your district, but you can also win from being popular in your party, which gives a chance to minority parties that are spread thin across the country.
Winning a district directly gives you those “maverick” politicians that don’t fit into the major parties but they reflect the unique local politics. But those people can be corruptly beholden to their local industries. Winning off the party list results in members who represent their parties.
as an aussie that has a parliamentary system, and in that system has had a period where we frequently ousted the PM, it’s not that great of an idea
you want governments to be able to plan for the long term. really, even 4y is not great for long term planning because it kinda implies you need to show results before the term is up
we had a bunch of policy flip-flops during that period, which is very inefficient
i guess it doesn’t really matter if you get 2y no matter what: there’s no more after your 2y, but i think that’d lead to leaders doing a bunch of the “fuck it” last term stuff because they have no reason to make a good impression for their potential reelection
But, to my knowledge, Australia has never faced the prospect of dictatorial takeover.
When an absolute monarchy works well, it can really work well. Give absolute authority to the rare person that is just, kind, determined, and with a vision? They can work miracles. But a good king is an exception rather than the rule. And the loss of freedom exists regardless of how good the king.
Having a president, does, as you note, have certain practical benefits. But giving one person independent elected authority and control of the military and bureaucracy has proven time and time again to be a recipe for authoritarian takeover. It can still happen in a parliamentary system, but it’s a lot harder when the guy controlling the army can be dismissed with a simple majority vote.
that was certainly in the back of my head the whole time… policy flip flop and lack of long term planning in modern politics is pretty much the norm anyway… but i think to encode that into a kind of standard way of operating is perhaps not a good thing… adding an extra layer that’s hard to undo before fixing the core problem is how the US got to where it is now
I totally get where you’re coming from. It’s hard for me not to view the US (being a recovering seppo myself) as an empire doomed to walk the path of all empires. I still really love the idea of a country based on rule of law by the consent of the governed and all that jazz. But, at some point I stopped believing the US government is even able to reform itself adequately in its current form. Too much of that apparatus is of no interest to anyone who could have a positive impact. The sheer un-coolness of local politics means only the deeply uncool get involved. To say nothing of the bad campaign finance laws!
I wish I knew enough about Australian politics to make a worthwhile comparison. For what it’s worth, I think the main thing that makes a government unfit to be reformed is sheer size - your government could never be so large as the US one, so at least there I’m hopeful for positive change towards more stability. Just don’t let them build empires!
Congress has the power to create a commission to exercise the power to remove a mentally unfit president from office. The biggest worry is that this would inevitably be politicized. I say, let it happen! Let it be political. Let’s have an openly political “mental health commission” that will rule that being a member of the opposite political party is a mental illness. Hell, let it become a formality. It will simply be expected that the president will be removed from office after a change in Congressional control. Whenever a change in control of Congress happens, the new Congressional leadership will stuff it with political ideologues. And they’ll inevitably rule a president of the opposing party to be mentally unfit. Eventually it just becomes a formality, no one even considers it unusual. We just expect the presidency to be able to flip every two years. And we giggle that it has to be done by formally declaring the previous guy to be crazy. I think this would be a good idea.
Why? Because this would effectively transform the US into a Parliamentary democracy. A simple majority in both houses of Congress would be enough to install a new president. They effectively become a Prime Minister at that point. Parliamentary democracies have proven much more resilient to strong-man dictatorial takeover. It’s not as perfect a solution as amending the constitution to formally remove the office of president entirely, but it would be a decent hack to do something similar. And going to a Parliamentary system isn’t a magic cure-all, but it does have quite a bit of merit. As a plus, we would have the bonus of being “that nation that regularly declares its former leaders legally crazy.” And you know what? I think that works well with America’s energy.
Unfortunately, they can only create that commission if the president signs it, or they have a veto-proof majority, or they send it to JD while Trump has executed Section 3 of the 25th.
I thought the benefits of parliamentary systems come from the fact that that they’re more proportional. They have a balance of power going on in the fact that you can win a seat from being popular in your district, but you can also win from being popular in your party, which gives a chance to minority parties that are spread thin across the country.
Winning a district directly gives you those “maverick” politicians that don’t fit into the major parties but they reflect the unique local politics. But those people can be corruptly beholden to their local industries. Winning off the party list results in members who represent their parties.
Not bad in theory but fix gerrymandering and apportionment first
Deliciously written and insightful. Thank you!
as an aussie that has a parliamentary system, and in that system has had a period where we frequently ousted the PM, it’s not that great of an idea
you want governments to be able to plan for the long term. really, even 4y is not great for long term planning because it kinda implies you need to show results before the term is up
we had a bunch of policy flip-flops during that period, which is very inefficient
i guess it doesn’t really matter if you get 2y no matter what: there’s no more after your 2y, but i think that’d lead to leaders doing a bunch of the “fuck it” last term stuff because they have no reason to make a good impression for their potential reelection
But, to my knowledge, Australia has never faced the prospect of dictatorial takeover.
When an absolute monarchy works well, it can really work well. Give absolute authority to the rare person that is just, kind, determined, and with a vision? They can work miracles. But a good king is an exception rather than the rule. And the loss of freedom exists regardless of how good the king.
Having a president, does, as you note, have certain practical benefits. But giving one person independent elected authority and control of the military and bureaucracy has proven time and time again to be a recipe for authoritarian takeover. It can still happen in a parliamentary system, but it’s a lot harder when the guy controlling the army can be dismissed with a simple majority vote.
I think the US has failed to plan for the long term enough that it no longer has to 🫠
that was certainly in the back of my head the whole time… policy flip flop and lack of long term planning in modern politics is pretty much the norm anyway… but i think to encode that into a kind of standard way of operating is perhaps not a good thing… adding an extra layer that’s hard to undo before fixing the core problem is how the US got to where it is now
I totally get where you’re coming from. It’s hard for me not to view the US (being a recovering seppo myself) as an empire doomed to walk the path of all empires. I still really love the idea of a country based on rule of law by the consent of the governed and all that jazz. But, at some point I stopped believing the US government is even able to reform itself adequately in its current form. Too much of that apparatus is of no interest to anyone who could have a positive impact. The sheer un-coolness of local politics means only the deeply uncool get involved. To say nothing of the bad campaign finance laws!
I wish I knew enough about Australian politics to make a worthwhile comparison. For what it’s worth, I think the main thing that makes a government unfit to be reformed is sheer size - your government could never be so large as the US one, so at least there I’m hopeful for positive change towards more stability. Just don’t let them build empires!