Which goes to the perhaps eternally quixotic nature of trying to keep a democracy or a republic running for any great length of time.
All the more reason Schiff appears heroic to me!
KevinC
6677
I’ve been making that same connection throughout the impeachment proceedings. Schiff is by far my favorite politician in office: smart, effective, and eloquent. I really couldn’t ask for anyone better to run this doomed process.
I already liked him before these proceedings, but my respect for him has multiplied since. He feels like one of the last few true statesmen.
Part of the reason one would get pushback, is because Roman politics are not even remotely like US politics. The Republic was an oligarchy, which the US - despite closing in on it fast - isn’t quite yet. There’s really no basis for a comparison, although a certain strain of historians love to do that kind of thing.
schurem
6680
That’s a great speech. I hope we’ll get to see more of mr Schiff in the future. This world needs him and his ilk.
It’s also incredibly sad. Because they will not convict. America is broken. It was nice while it lasted. You guys really thought you had it* licked, didn’t you?
* ‘It’ standing for politics in general, how to rule fairly, justly and equally a large society
There’s a version of this proceeding where the words of Schiff are pivotal, like the “Have you no sense of decency?” leveled at Joe McCarthy that turned public opinion and ended his career. Unfortunately, all the people whose minds must be changed have their ears permanently closed to anything that he’s saying. This is why this moment in history is far more troubling than Army/McCarthy or Watergate.
Speaking as someone who was raised with a standard helping of George-Washington-Chopping-Down-The-Cherry-Tree republican idealism, and who came of age just as the Berlin Wall was tumbling…
Yeah, some of us really did.
KevinC
6683
It doesn’t help that Fox News frequently mutes / talks over the audio of Schiff’s statements in their coverage. Not only are their ears closed, they wouldn’t even hear it were they open.
In fairness, the founders saw exactly this problem coming, but the apparatus they built to prevent it (the electoral college) ended up facillitating it instead. Womp-womp.
Better than nothing I suppose.
Guap
6686
Not be be macabre, but the Senate took care of Caesar. In the most direct way possible. But even that didn’t stop a civil war and death of the Republic.
schurem
6687
The other bit they built in became a horrible perversion leading to widespread violence and opression, IE the guns thing. Like I said, could have been, should have been, wasn’t.
Banzai
6688
And the need for the senate in order to get the small states to join. Thats a highly non-democratic institution when you consider one person one vote for the whole US, and a big part of how the minority party is holding the majority of power despite the US ostensibly being a democracy.
I guess it shouldnt be surprising that the electoral college and senate - the two least democratic parts of the constitution, are the things killing democracy. Gerrymandering is in there too, but thats not democratic either. Wonder if theres anything to gain for Democrats calling out the gop for fighting against democracy?
Yeah, good point. Basically everything they tried to do to prevent it lead to it. Bummer.
ShivaX
6690
But Joni and Lamar told us he learned his lesson?
It may even have hastened it.
Keeping a republic going is a tightwire act, it seems. Maybe we’re lucky we made it this far.
magnet
6692
They might be the least democratic parts of the constitution today, but the original version had far worse.
Well they built the EC with two purposes that, it turns out, compete with each other. One was to prevent demagogues from taking office by having leading men of each State make a reasoned decision about who should be running the country. The other was to protect the rights of slavers. Turns out that when “reasoned decisions” collide with “racist oppression”, reason does not prevail.
No, because we’re a republic (as in Republicans!) not a democracy (as in Demonrats!). Herp derp, checkmate lib.
Do I need to add the /s? This timeline is so fucked I feel like I need to add an /s.
Not so sure whether it was to prevent demagogues or just “the wrong type of demagogues”. The original systems were essentially biased to protect the rights of the enlightened class against the will of the hoi-polloi - this is all very obvious in the whole system to elect a President, your system for selecting Supreme Court justices, the whole Senate (which did not feature direct election initially, etc - that didn’t happen until 1913). Hamilton and Madison are very clear on this in the Federalist papers, IMO - at least based on the stuff I’ve read (also, they have clearly been proven wrong on so many counts). In either case, this is not actually in conflict with protecting the rights of slavers (who were exactly the kind of “enlightened men” that made up the founding fathers) - quite the contrary, IMO; it was essential to doing so.
