My submission for the Tweet du jour:

[intheflow]

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Text for whoever needs it:

The most American thing I can think of is that 57 people voted to convict and 43 voted to acquit, and the 43 people won

We can teach kids that the Declaration of Independence states all men are created equal, that our constitution guarantees equal treatment, but the reality is that "some people count more than others" was built into this country and until we exorcise it this will keep happening.

[MLAA]

1. If I were a judge on the tweet of the day I'd give it to you hands down 🙂

Margaret Owen nailed it.

[malaise]

2. Great tweet

Get thee to the greatest page for visibility

[StarfishSaver]

5. This

[PatSeg]

15. I agree

It shouldn't be easy to impeach a president. I also agree about the ones who claimed to have "voted their conscience". That is a vote that is stuck to them now and can't be undone.

[BobTheSubgenius]

18. Good point!

It's also worth bearing in mind that this literally does cut both ways. It would be as awfully low a threshold if the GOP had a simple majority and wanted to pare the Democratic contingent in Congress to the bone.

And...belatedly.....welcome to DU!

[dutch777]

4. An excellent and all too true point! Thanks for sharing!

As long as one presidential vote in Iowa potentially carries more weight than one in California given the Electoral College and that similarly small states have two Senate votes in a chamber with a 60 vote margin needed to move beyond a filibuster, the deck is stacked and the will of all the people all too often stymied. It is one thing to protect the interests of minorities in the interest of civil rights and it is quite another to thwart the interests of democracy.

[StarfishSaver]

6. I get the point, but we'll be happy for this supermajority requirement the next time

a Republican Congress tries to remove a Democratic president.

[PCIntern]

7. Well, that is exactly correct

And make no mistake, these Republicans like Lying Lindsay are going to attempt revenge as soon as they effectively can.

[niyad]

8. Lying lindsey has already threatened VP Harris.

[OldBaldy1701E]

26. Which I hope they will remember

in the midst of all this talk about 'bipartisanship'. Those rethugs are not, and will never be anything but shallow, backstabbing leeches who would sell their own mother if there was profit to it, and to even consider them anything else but is to invite disaster.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

32. I expect as soon as they get the chance, they'll impeach Obama,

and won't stop there. Rs are souless monsters with no respect for justice.

[burrowowl]

9. K&R

[broiles]

10. Trump lost the popular vote in 2016 and 2020 and

in the 2021 impeachment trial. What a loser!

[broiles]

11. Trump lost the popular vote in ,2016 and 2020 and

in the 2021 impeachment trial. What a loser!

[RussellCattle]

12. Let's not forget Tom Delay and his ambition to create a "permanent Republican majority" through.....

.....gerrymandering and voter suppression.

[rickyhall]

13. The Constitution is not the problem, 43 cowards are.

[GOPistheEnemy]

16. Correct, ALL 43 ignored their oath of office and put themselves before country

they have no honor and have shamed their country and office.

[Poiuyt]

23. I'm not sure all 43 were cowards.

I think a good percentage of them want to destroy democracy and install a fascist leader.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

33. Thank you. They may be cowards, but that's not the explanation

for them voting for fascism when what the want is fascism.

I felt the same way about all the jokes insinuating that poor Melania was unhappily stuck with Trump.

When she married him, he was the same sociopathic creep he is now. She's not been held captive against her will. She lives the lavish, tacky, gold-plated lifestyle she demands.

She's a RWer, a Birther, and a Trumper through & through. No excuses & no pity for her.

[intheflow]

28. The Constitution is not infallible.

The framers were in the midst of a war with England and created a document that

a) assumed no free man (i.e., a man free from the divine right of kings) would favor a tyrant;
b) only men of "honor" would be elected to Congress by a free electorate;
c) all the MEN making these decisions were white landowners who created a document that both protected their wealth/power/status/privilege and was flexible enough for evolving interpretation and revision.

IOW, there is no fail-safe for the majority under the Constitution when foxes are in the hen house. Literally, we are held hostage by voting cycles and we have to change procedural rules (which again, assumes only honorable people are elected to Congress).

There is also no professional penalty for lying to the detriment of the nation. Censure is toothless. It is an imperfect system created by imperfect men and it can be changed. Abolish the electoral college, and go with straight majority rule. The judicial system is designed to protect minority rights under majority rule. (In theory, though that, too, is made ineffective by racist authoritarian abusers. But that's a rant for another thread.)

So it wasn't individuals that failed us here, it's the systems we have in place. That's not to say that the 43 aren't responsible for their actions, but that their actions only succeeded because of the system.

[xxqqqzme]

29. Beyond 'in the midst'

The Treaty of Paris was signed, on September 3rd, 1783, by representatives of King George III including David Hartley and Richard Oswald and the United States including Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and John Jay, officially ending the American Revolution.

The Constitution of the United States of America was:
"Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth In witness whereof We have hereunto subscribed our Names,

George Washington - President
and deputy from Virginia

[intheflow]

35. Way to pick up on a technicality!

They were basking in their victory, then, while they wrote it over the next five years (because it didn't just materialize on the day it was ratified). They still wrote assuming only wealthy white men like themselves would ever be elected.

[tblue37]

14. K&R for visibility. nt

[bucolic_frolic]

17. The Framers thought patriots and men of property should rule

They didn't count on capitalism, scoundrels, and political parties. They had a virgin landscape. That will never happen again.

[Joinfortmill]

19. No kidding

[tiptonic]

20. Never very

I was never very good in math but the nuns, did teach me to add and subtract. I'm pretty sure 57, is still a larger number than 43. Just wondering.

[Mr. Ected]

21. What bothers me is hearing that "Trump was acquitted by a vote of 57-43"

Without fully explaining that the 57 votes were for conviction, not acquittal.

There's a lot of malbrained right-wingers who will think that 57 voted to acquit.

[mdbl]

25. Agreed. It should read "43 Republicans think insurrections is OK"

[Blue Owl]

22. Yup, I'll tell the kids that crime pays as long as you're a Republican

[OldBaldy1701E]

27. And it always has. (n/t)

[Cha]

24. Yeah, that's such BULLSHIT!!! Rt TY!

[DeeNice]

30. Thank you for posting the text.

And I strongly encourage others to do so as well.

[TimeToGo]

31. Well, look

Of course, we wanted the extra 10 or so needed to convict. And the majority was in favor of that. But requiring a 2/3 vote for impeachment is not a bad thing. It's a good thing.

The problem is that the other party is made of people who don't care about our country. That is bad thing.

[ThatJustHappened]

34. Yep

It's a Tweet du Crock

2/3rds is important because it indicates broad overwhelming support for a highly-significant/near-drastic measure. Like amending the Constitution.

Simple majority is 1st standard deviation.

2/3rds is 2nd standard deviation.

[Nitram]

36. So no one understands why the constitution sometimes require a two-thirds or three quarters

majority? I can see we have a dire need for a better education in our schools about civics and the constitution. I suggest we dispense with education bout each state's history and concentrate one our national history first - the good and the bad.