Requires INDEPENDENCE of the judges.

The founders of our country did not – could not – foresee the biggest threat to democracy. Tyrants, enemies foreign and domestic, and more were addressed, if imperfectly, through the carefully crafted system of checks and balances that are the hallmark of our Constitution.

They never saw the parties coming. The factionalism of the day warned of the dangers of divide, but few if any could have imagined that, 250 years on, two OFFICIAL parties would ensure that partisan advantage would be the determining factor in any matter of public import. Accordingly, when the Constitution called for a majority of the House to ‘impeach’ and 2/3rds of the Senate to ‘convict’ an errant President, those framers saw bodies of men (then) who they expected would judge the questions on the merits. That might have worked, EXCEPT it turned out that the people who were judges changed fundamentally from what the framers expected because they had congealed into partisan divides.

When the political parties shortly thereafter come into existence, the concept of partisanship came with it and introduced a MAJOR new element of thinking about and judging Presidents who were seen as misbehaving.

As history since has amply demonstrated, the “judges” in impeachment turned out to be anything but impartial. Mitt Romney in 2019 was the FIRST U.S. Senator to vote to convict a President of his own party. 

Accordingly, we have been unable to impeach and convict even a President who was further off base than any previous incumbent.

THUS, it seems to me obvious that we need to create, or recreate, a sense of independence among the judges of Presidential abuse.

That can only be done one of two ways.

Way ONE: break up the existing parties into at least three, if not four or more — in effect partially reversing the process of partisanship so that multiple parties would have to trade around to get consensus and majorities.

Way TWO: amend the Constitution to create a new NONPARTISAN and suitable group of judges – perhaps a pool of actual judges, whose sound rejection of baseless claims of election fraud may make them the last vestige of independent thought in our system of government. That would not be easy but I am confidant a way could be found.

Partisanship has had a good run – more than 200 years.

But the time has come to deal with its serious problems.