My mom taught me to “Stand up for your principles” and also, “Half a loaf is better than no loaf.” Seemingly contradictory advice.
The Rolling Stones taught me, “You can’t always get what you want.”
I am thinking often about this advice in our current political climate as people attack our system of holding a president accountable – impeachment.
This particular presidency began with chants of “lock her up” in regard to a political rival who allowed emails to fall into the wrong hands. Three years later we are in a moment where the very idea of questioning and prosecuting a president is called “a hoax” “a sham” and “a fraud.”
Contradictions abound here as well. Not only is it OK for the president to use his power for personal political gain, but those who question him are vilified and the system itself is attacked for holding leaders accountable. What happens in America when the system is attacked?
Be careful what you wish for. If the impeachment tool becomes too limited, your future president may invite the French to run our Federal Election Commission in an effort to get more objective monitors. Your future president may declare Buddhism as our national credo in order to be a good trading partner with China. Your future president may put his cronies in the government to line their own pockets. Your future Congress may refuse to put spending limits on immigration initiatives.
As my mom also said, “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”
Let’s say I am late to a Jazz game and decide the traffic rules don’t apply to me because I need to be at the game, so I speed and run a few red lights. The ends justify the means.
Unfortunately, I did not get broad agreement among other drivers that the traffic rules should be suspended for me, so I crash into a car of small children in an intersection. Too bad. They shouldn’t have been there. The system of red lights and speed limits is “a hoax” “flawed” and “a witch hunt.” Leave me alone! End traffic lights once and for all!
Let’s say a group of people wants a conservative Supreme Court more than anything, so the culture war can be won and people won’t need to compromise their social values with others. In order to get that Supreme Court, the group is willing to support a Congress that incurs astronomical federal debt and turns a blind eye to abuse of presidential power. The people are willing to support a president that may be breaking the law but “He gets things done.”
That is not even half a loaf. That is giving away the whole bakery!
Of course we depend on a hard-won social agreement among all of us that red lights are valuable and that other norms are critically important for balancing interests. I also thought we agreed that our president was not supposed to use American power to threaten other countries for his personal political gain. Even if you don’t believe he did that, I thought we agreed a president could be impeached and tried when necessary. He may not be convicted, but the process of holding leaders accountable is vital.
What system is left if we throw out the ability to impeach? We may get the Supreme Court we want, but may destroy the other branches of government that would have carried out the court’s mandate. The ends may justify the means, but what means will we be left with to govern?
Lisa Michele Church is a lawyer and community activist. She served in the state cabinet from 2005 to 2010, under both Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. and Gov. Gary Herbert. She works as a corporate attorney.