I appreciate your honesty. Thank you.
Sure politicians are cynical and imperious and want power. That's why they're in politics. That's why our founders, who were experienced in being under the thumb of imperial power, set up government to limit power. There are enumerated powers listed where the government can rule only. All other areas they cannot rule at all. That's left for the States and people to decide.
Also, there are checks and balances in our constitution as well that limits power of government. The president cannot declare war, Congress does, but the president can veto it. The president can make deals with foreign countries, but treaties must be approved by the Senate. The president nominates judges and justices, but it must be affirmed by the Senate. Congress legislates laws, but the president has to approve it or its not law. The Supreme Court reviews legislation and presidential executive orders through lawsuits and can declare them unconstitutional and invalid. Supreme Court judges can be impeached and removed from office. Regarding removal of presidents, it was defined very narrowly: high crimes and misdemeanors. The Constitution reserved ending of presidential terms at election time. They wanted to leave it to the electors of each of the states to decide. It's why no president has ever been found guilty and removed from office. They're not removed for policy decisions. Parliamentary governments remove leaders midstream. That's not an American tradition and our governmental process does not favor that approach.
Alan, you have a kind of text book view of how government works, and most of that is practically untrue. I was a reporter for 25 years and I covered government as every level, from city councils and school boards to the federal government, and have watched ordinances and laws being made. We've been in several wars (Korea, Vietnam, the Middle East) but haven't declared war since World War II. The wars were launched by Presidents with the acquiescence of Congress, but not a declaration by Congress. Contrary to what you suggest, "high crimes and misdemeanors" is not narrow, it is, in fact, exceptionally wide, and allows impeachment on almost any grounds, criminal or not. You could impeach a president for eating cheese on Wednesdays, because impeachment is a political process, not a criminal process, although criminal processes may come later. But, in effect, the House and Senate are left to define high crimes and misdemeanors, and if they decided eating cheese on Wednesday was a high crime, then that's what it is. No American President has been found guilty in an impeachment trial, but one (Nixon) resigned when told that he would be convicted if it came to trial; another conviction failed in the Senate by one vote (Johnson.) Treaties must be approved by the Senate, but the President is in charge of foreign policy, of which treaties are a very minor part, and Trump has felt free to abrogate them. The ongoing disaster in Syria, created by our loony tunes President, involved no treaties or even consultation with Congress. Because he's a raving narcissist, and thinks he knows everything better than anyone, he just went ahead and ordered it up, and nobody knows why...maybe he had an irritating wrinkle in his underwear, but in any case, it's almost universally seen as a disaster, by liberals and conservatives alike. By the way, 12 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan in 2019, probably not many more than if these adventurous young men had been training and driving fast cars in the US. Any casualty is sad, but more than a hundred Americans die in auto accidents EVERY DAY, so our combat deaths are really a pretty minor thing in the whole panoply of tragedies.
I will tell you, that if somebody sliced the pie between liberals and conservatives in the US, I'd be close to the slice, but probably, in most cases, but not always, on the liberal side, especially in matters of racial and gender equality. I think what the Dems are discussing with a wealth tax (ridiculously unworkable) and medicare for all (ditto) are very wrong. And, I would trade Donald Trump for Ronald Reagan in one second, because Reagan may have been senile toward the end of his presidency, but he was surrounded by fairly able people. And though possibly senile, he wasn't nuts. Trump is nuts. I have a hard time taking seriously people who don't see that.
