Daniel’s delivered a really interesting talk on the impeachment of Trump last week. It explored the possibility of Trump being taken out of office and all the different ways in which previous presidents were removed.
There are lots of laws surrounding the area of impeachment but one of the main ones focused on was the 25th amendment. It talked about the possibility of a board of medical professionals being able to remove Trump from office if he was seen mentally unstable to run a country. Now there were some issues with the law and the way it was worded, as it seemed very vague. Knowing basic political science, this is most likely done to allow for a bit of leeway when considering this law, as open interpretations allow for the unpredictable behavior of humans, and is in itself more all-encompassing. However, laws that aren’t strict have their downsides too, the main one being that it is harder to convict someone on a charge so general that we are unsure if the suspect has done anything wrong at all.
This led me to also think about corruption. Corruption within politics is a big issue, and one that can be easily exploited with such power. Hence laws are made to prevent such things. Looking at this law, if a team of medical staff were to come together, who gets to choose the medical staff? Surely with any president there is the ability to corrupt and dissuade professional and medical opinion
Hi Riley, you bring up some interesting points here. From the way I understand it, impeachment is definitely a contentious matter, especially if it were done on the grounds of mental instability. It’s interesting to think about the charge, particularly given the somewhat subjective nature of diagnoses in mental illness, and the stigma we have in our society. It also makes me think of Trump’s comments after the Parkland shooting, about the instability of the shooter, how there were so many signs and people should have done something. One could almost apply that same thread to Trump’s presidency. “He was clearly a problem, so many signs, and yet nobody did anything to stop it.”
Of course, many people did try to stop Trump, just as people likely tried to help the Parkland shooter.