As I read so many posts today celebrating the victory of Barack Obama in the presidential race I worried that I might appear to be a disheartened McCain supporter because of my lack of enthusiasm for the outcome of the race. First of all, I am neither disheartened nor a McCain supporter. Secondly, my lack of enthusiasm stems from the fact that I fully expected the results of the presidential race to look much like they did yesterday. On the other hand, I consider today to be a very good day to talk about our political process and specifically our role as citizens now that the voting is over.
Yesterday, before any results were in, DownsizeDC.org declared a state of permanent preparedness for impeachment. They argued that we should be ever watchful of our leaders and be prepared to impeach them as soon as they give grounds for impeachment. (To be fair, they indicated that neither candidate had yet given such grounds.) They stated that they considered it a mistake that they had not previsouly supported impeachment for our current president. Overcoming my initial rejection of this stance I realized that there was some logic behind their position – especially regarding elected officials at the federal level. I would like to approach the issue from the opposite direction. Now that the votes have been cast and our representatives chosen, it is the duty and responsibility of every citizen to support their elected officials and encourage them to live up to the best of their potential. Slate illustrates that idea with Six Ways Obama Can Show He’ll Be a Different Kind of President.
We need to start with the hope that our leaders live up to the best vision of themselves that they presented – that would mean hoping that Obama lives up to his lofty rhetoric concerning bipartisanship and transparency. Perhaps more importantly we should be supporting our local representatives. Now is not the time for all of us who have been talking about candidates and issues through the election to sit back and leave those who have been elected alone to do their jobs. We need to reach out to them, whether we supported or opposed them, and offer our support. We must be willing to meet with them, share our ideas, and encourage them in the difficult tasks that they will face.
We must start with the assumption that each of them is a patriot who wants what’s best for their fellow citizens – even if we don’t see eye to eye on what the best looks like.
When you win a national election by 5+% over your opponent and have both houses of congress significantly controlled by your party, you don’t engage in bipartisanship. You’re more involved in battling the various forces within your own party that all now have a chance to get their particular issue addressed for the first time in years.
What you can expect is that Obama will want a second term badly enough to do some moderate things that appear bipartisan in order to keep the electorate favoring him.
I strongly disagree with the impeachment-ists. Impeachment wreaks havoc on the nation. In general, matters should be left to the voters at each election. Impeachment should be reserved for extraordinary violations and not mere policy disagreements.
Otherwise, we will end up with never ending impeachment cycles that will destabilize the country and the economy worse than anything we have previously seen. It would lead to becoming like a third-world banana republic.
Let the voters decide at election time unless some violation has been egregious enough for the vast majority of Americans to agree that a bona fide violation has rendered the individual unfit to serve.
That assumes that Obama will be the same kind of politician that we have had for the last few decades. I can’t promise that he won’t be just another politician, but if he is serious about engaging in a different kind of politics he will be more worried about getting things done that he views as important than he will about which party (or part of the party) is in line with his goals.
I believe that all the really important things that Obama has talked about (transparency, government waste, and partisan rancor) are non-partisan issues. If he is serious about those issues he will reach out to everyone on both sides of Congress who is willing to tackle those issues.
Right now we need to hope for the best – otherwise we can rest assured that we won’t be getting it.
As for permanent preparedness for impeachment, I don’t agree that we should be looking for excuses to impeach but I do agree that we should be watchful and not close our eyes to abuses that take place. I agree that we should not be afraid to use the impeachment process when it is justified simply because the process itself can be abused as a partisan tool.
I fear that some people’s bar of justification for impeachment is impossibly low. I believe the bar should be high enough to produce strong clarity on the matter in the minds of most Americans. Anything less will in effect be little more than unjustified sniping.
I agree. I believe the bar should be set at “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”