Apparently 1600 Pennsylvania is getting ready for the second impeachment hearings in ten years. We suspected that an impeachment was in the winds, but there’s really no better confirmation of this than President Bush himself getting antsy and preparing for it.
Like I’ve said before, I hope this goes through. But I also wonder what this portends for American politics. There have been three impeachment hearings in American history-the first one was for Andrew Johnson in the late 1860s, and it was a time when the nation was still deeply polarized after the Civil War. The second one was for Richard Nixon, when we were polarized by Vietnam. The third one was for Bill Clinton, when we were, um, polarized by a cigar. Or something.
My point is that impeachments have become more common in the modern era, and that is because of the increasing number of independent voters, I suspect. Less and less fealty is granted to the main two parties, meaning that the net amount of hostility to any given President is much greater than in previous years.
Is this a watershed? Is this permanent? The only solutions to this “problem” we’ve cooked up in times previous are some major decades-long struggle with a foreign power (Cold War), the emergence of a single powerful party for a few decades (1820s-1850s dominance of the Democrats). “Terrorism” just won’t work as the next Big Bad Threat, and both parties are currently equally despised. I think that, in America’s new political system, we’ll find impeachments a regular feature, as well as at least one more regular party (the Libertarians, I hope). But, when Hell freezes over, the Devil gives free sleigh rides and a Libertarian is sitting in the White House, expect him/her to get impeached over something or another. It’s just the new political reality.
sucker, ʟʟᴄ