Since the Beginning of Time, Democrats Have Yearned to Destroy the Legitimacy of Democratic Elections
You may be surprised to know that I did not find Prof. Barnett’s twitter thread arguing that people arguing that Trump may have committed impeachable offenses out of a desire to undermine democratic transfers of power entirely convincing:
Ever since 1973, many Dems have longed to replicate their success at removing an elected Republican president. It's their holy grail.
— Randy Barnett (@RandyEBarnett) May 18, 2017
Counterpoint: there are not any influential Democrats whose "holy grail" is impeaching and convicting all Republican presidents https://t.co/7g52v9vjMd
— Scott Lemieux (@LemieuxLGM) May 18, 2017
Can somebody point me to the big Democratic push to impeach any president between Nixon and Trump? I’m having trouble finding the evidence.
To state the obvious, the idea that this was a normal election and Trump is a normal president and anyone suggesting otherwise disrepstc the electoral process is absurd. No important Democrat suggested that Trump wasn’t legally entitled to the office, but the fact that he attained office only because of an undemocratic selection process is a significant fact that does undermine Trump’s legitimacy. People are talking about impeachment not because Trump is a Republican but because he’s doing stuff like telling the director of the FBI to stop investigations and then firing the Director of the FBI to obstruct justice and admitting he was doing it. George H.W. Bush didn’t do this kind of thing, and hence there was no talk of impeaching him. Barnett is trying to preemptively protect Trump and his party from the unique problems his election and tenure in office presents by pretending that Democrats say the same things about every Republican president. Sorry, not only is this dog not going to hunt it’s not going to wake up from its nap.