And Politics

To my mind, politics has become a very messed up business, especially in the United States. Now, Canada and the United Kingdom are not immune to some silliness every so often, but the process by which the Prime Minister can be removed is so much easier to enact. Basically, the party which the Prime Minister belongs can say they’ve had enough of their leader and force his (or her) to resign. Then they choose another leader from within their ranks, and he (or she) automatically becomes the Prime Minister. The opposition parties have the same process, and when the electorate gets tired of having the country run by one party, they choose a different party at election time (which is about every four years). And, sometimes, when the choice isn’t clear, they’ll elect a minority government. It keeps everyone on their toes (and honest, if I’m being honest).

Americans don’t have it so easy. They have to basically go through an election every two years, with the presidential election every four years. What usually happens is that one party has control of the Presidency, the Congress and the Senate for at least two years and then that control is diluted or overturned during the Midterms. Then the country cannot run at all, unless compromises are negotiated.

So, in effect, a minority government situation. At least, the President can only serve for two terms (or more, if the situation is dire, such as during World War II, when FDR was elected to four terms). The only other measure to remove a president is impeachment. Effectively, this would remove him from office and bar any further political involvement. However, it doesn’t seem to work against some presidents and they even tried to impeach Trump twice, but to no avail. I suspect some Republicans regret voting against impeaching him, but they know their base would have removed them at their next primary season. Only Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger were ‘brave’ enough to stand up to the Republican Party by taking part in the January 6th Select Committee. It’s like political suicide, though.

This quote from “Bridgerton” is apt (even if you add ‘politics’…)