This was probably the general thinking before ~~everything went batshit crazy among~~ Republicans realized they could appeal to their voters by going mask-off.

One of the major reasons for the electoral college is because many of the founding fathers thought the people were too stupid to not elect a populist (like Trump) and that Congress should choose the president, but the other side thought it gave Congress too much power. So they compromised with the electoral system.

It's been well known since day 1 that the people could do a very bad job choosing the president. The problem is that the EC has been so watered down at this point that the only purpose it currently serves is to create a situation where we're under the tyranny of the minority. And, ironically, it gave us trump and might do so again.

Criminals shouldn't be barred from running though. In fact, there's precedent for people running for President from prison, and it should be allowed in order to make sure that the state doesn't imprison people from jailing political opponents.

Suspension of the constitution meaning the president can't say Habeus Corpus doesn't apply during a state of crisis or some other similar example.

Lincoln did it, so did Wilson, Bush was too stupid to do it so Cheney got the Patriot act passed to do it for him.

The thing is that, largely, government works because people all just kind of agree that it should. If a president says "I'm suspending the Constitution to deal with an emergency", what happens next? We have a bunch of masked fascists, at high levels in government and in Washington think tanks, who would talk a lot about the unitary executive theory. It would be presented as a done deal, as if there was no question that it was legal. Who would step in to stop it? In the best case scenario, we would have a major constitutional crisis, that would eventually get worked out between the courts, the press, the public, and hopefully some courageous civil servants. In the worst case, it would straight up end our democracy. Somewhere in between lies civil war, and whatever that leads to. If suspension is explicitly forbidden, it gets a lot harder to defend, and makes the best case scenario a lot more likely.

I'm less sure about the value of background checks for presidents. I'm not sure some routine background check would unearth anything that the other side's oppo-research wouldn't. But hey, can't hurt. I'm guessing the intelligence agencies are already digging up everything they can find; making that an official requirement and publicly reported before the election might be really beneficial, not only directly, but also to prevent rogue officials from keeping the dirt to themselves and using it against a sitting president.

That's a pretty low bar.

Fuck the Republicans and their perjury trap and all, but after 25 years can we finally admit that the President getting a blowjob from an 21yo intern is a bad thing?

A manager at any other company or government position would be fired for it because consent is a tricky thing when there's a power imbalance.

Why are we pretending it's all okay with the most powerful person on the planet and a young woman whose entire career and aspirations can be completely made or destroyed my him in an email?

A lot of people admire her for not hiding what happened at all and being unapologetic about it because it wasn't her fault. She was a young intern and he took advantage of her. Only the asshole Republicans still victim-blame her. Meanwhile, she has shown to be an extremely thoughtful woman who has a lot of very good political points to make and they wouldn't let her make them in Vanity Fair if she didn't have any political capital left.

The only issue I see here is that she's basically preaching to the choir.

She handled a bad situation with grace and dignity. Also, it bears repeating that the same people who want to ban books are the ones who are most willing to make sure that blowjobs are mentioned in history books.

I think she has more social capital now than ever before. She’s a well-respected activist working on important issues. Her willingness to speak openly and honestly about her experience, as well as her willingness to joke about it, and frankly to be in the public spotlight at all after what the media did to her, is downright inspiring.

I recommend checking out some interviews she’s done over the last few years. She has a uniquely relatable way of discussing huge societal issues. I’m genuinely impressed any time I hear her talk.

Turns out most of the US government relied on norms, traditions, and basic human decency, but very little of it was actually codified into law. Which in this day and age is like having no rules at all since no one has any shame anymore

Weve never had to worry about it before, there's no precedent

The rules around pardons are incredibly vague. Presidents have typically treated them vary seriously and used them sparingly. Then Trump saw it as an opportunity to make some cash and do favors for his cronies who committed crimes to help him.

The legal consensus is that they can't, but it's never been tested --nor did anyone ever seriously conceive of it as a possibility-- so it's theoretically possible as a matter of law.

This might have been a good time to hit them with some reverse-psychology. Team up with Hillary to lobby FOR self-pardons and watch the GOP house have a stroke.

Just say you don't want Biden to pardon himself for his crimes and let the GOP go wild and vote it in.

There is a 0% chance red states support any positive amendment to the Constitution, so any amendments are immediately dead in the water.

That's actually not the only route to getting a constitutional amendment. If 2/3 of the state legislatures in the country call a constitutional convention they can amend the Constitution independently of the Congress.

Though the likelihood of that is also very slim.

Essentially Trump pardoning himself for all his thousands of crimes.

It's an American thing, kind of like having the power of a ruling king, because President is stronk. Americans love that kind of stupid symbolism.