Columns

JOHNS | Blame Big Government and Democrats’ Radicalism for High Political Stakes

By |

Editor’s Note: This piece is part of a new dueling columns feature. In our very first feature, Michael Johns ’20 and Giancarlo Valdetaro ’21 debate, “How have the stakes of American politics risen so high?” Read the counterpart column here. In his State of the Union address last week, President Trump extended an invitation to members of Congress to set aside their differences and begin to work collaboratively — not on their respective Republican or Democratic agendas, but on “the agenda of the American people.”

“Many of us,” he argued, “campaigned on the same core promises: to defend American jobs and demand fair trade for American workers; to rebuild and revitalize our Nation’s infrastructure; to reduce the price of healthcare and prescription drugs; to create an immigration system that is safe, lawful, modern and secure; and to pursue a foreign policy that puts America’s interests first.”

It is an important message, and yet one that sadly is poised to be ignored. Congress, for at least a decade now, has been entrenched in bitter, dysfunctional partisanship where success or failure is measured solely by political victory. In pursuit of this end, the well-being of the nation has too often become little more than a tertiary concern.

Columns

CHANG | The Unintended Consequences of Impeachment

By |

I get it. You want Trump out of office. You find him despicable, a security threat, the embodiment of racism and most of all unfit for the presidency. But even in light of last week’s political firestorm that found two members of the president’s staff guilty on criminal charges, we should put faith in democracy and wait before passing judgement. Presidents can be impeached and removed for “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors,” according to Article II, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution.