A secret ballot presumes the existence of a conscience. These are senators, not kindergarten teachers, their souls were sold long ago.
Who benefits from a secret ballot? Not democrats, they want the votes on record. Not the GOP, they’ll pick party over decency and Trump is now the party. Not the American people, we deserve accountability and transparency, and this is all political theater anyhow.
Well the theory is that chickenshit Republican Senators who realize that Trump did in fact incite the insurrection would be free to vote their conscience (ie to convict) without being afraid of alienating their Trump-loving voters.
No way it happens in the real world, but a very interesting rule would be that the ballot will be secret provided at least 67 senators vote the same way. While Democrats would prefer that the ballots are revealed, the better outcome of the vote might be preferable than having individual choices identifiable.
I “liked” the post, but on further thought… if the idea is to make it “safe” for GOP Senators to vote to convict without fear of reprisal from voters or party leadership then I don’t think setting a threshold accomplishes that. There would still be the fear that only 51-66 would vote to convict and the 1-16 Republicans will be stripped of committee assignments / lose re-election.
So no, I don’t think I like that after all.
Maybe make it so that the vote is secret for 20 years and then will be “declassified”. Make the Senators more concerned about their legacies than their committee assignments.
I think it’s extremely important that this trial take place. Many people in the center like me are watching. We don’t make up a huge portion of the voting population and we aren’t helping anyone win primaries, but we damn sure win national and statewide elections. The Republicans are condemning themselves to a local party with no national voice right now IMO. This is setting the stage for a long run by Democrats at a national level.
Or the creation of a new party. It’s happened a few times before in US politics. This is just the sort of tension that led to it previously. There’s a decent chance it could happen now.
Eh, the times it’s happened in the past, certainly most recently with the creation of the Republican Party, it was over an issue not a person.
I would love for the parties to realign at some point. I’m not sure if this will be the catalyst for a major shakeup. I hope I’m wrong though.
There is an issue, in a broad sense. It’s populism vs. conservatism.
Are there any elected conservatives left?
Romney…Cheney …maybe 10 others in total. If you are correct on the issue, then that is resolved. No more issue.
But, again, that presupposes the existence of a conscience. Senators ought to have the integrity to do the right thing even if it results in the end of their political career. If they’re picking country over party in secret but not in public, they shouldn’t be representing the people at all. Force them to go on record. Their careers may survive it, but history won’t forget it.
History always takes so long to arrive
Is it more important to you that a bunch of Senators who no one will remember in 30 years time go down in the history books as being spineless cowards who paved the way to Trump’s re-election in 2024 or is it more important to convict Trump and prevent him from running in 2024?
There’s a saying in Congress: don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Trump is not getting convicted no matter how you slice it. You think there are 17 decent republicans on the senate who would vote to convict via secret ballot? I do not.
Trump is not going away. Trump is not the problem, simply the vessel. If he’s banned from office, one of his idiot children will pick up the torch.
Yes, I would rather have every senator’s vote on record. Trumpism is here to stay, and barring Trump from office does not fix America or American politics. It does nothing except allows Republicans to continue to not answer for their role in all this.
I have a feeling that most of the republican senators don’t want Trump to be able to run again, but they don’t want to be seen as the ones that stopped him. Secret ballots waters that down a bit, but it still puts a black mark on the existing senators in the eyes of the trump voters.
So - do secret ballots - then drop them in a hat. Draw out some number of them (15, 21, whatever), and those ballots determine the verdict. Now they can declare their real opinion, and when the conviction comes in they can blame it on bad luck.
I have obviously not completely thought this through. Just playing with ideas.
I’m not particularly concerned about his biological children. It’s his ideological* children (Hawley, Greene, etc), that I worry about.
*I don’t actually think Trump has an ideology. He’s a useful idiot to those with their ideology though.
Yes, of course.
I’m honestly not sure. I think there are probably some who would vote to convict on a secret ballot who would not do so on a public ballot. Yes, that’s abhorrent. But how do we arrive at the best outcome?
We’re probably at at least 6 Republicans for conviction already, maybe more. Would a secret ballot get 10 or 11 more on board? I dunno. But I’d rather try the route that has the best chance for conviction.
It doesn’t fix every problem: nothing will accomplish that tall order.
But I think it’s a huge step in saying “there exists a line and that was over it”. It discourages others from picking up where Trump left off, I think.