If the "terrified" camp is sufficiently large, their terror can be overridden with a sufficiently large swing in public opinion. They're potentially movable.
The true believers...not sure if anything can move them. If the "on board" camp is (nearly) all Republican legislators, then there is no path to impeachment.
It will be interesting to see how things evolve as the economic impacts of Trump's policies develop. That's probably the most direct path to the level of public opinion shift needed to make impeachment possible.
Assuming there will be a free and fair election in which the Democrats win, it would be a sensible move to repeal the Hague Invasion Act, ratify the Rome Statute and refer all of the 47th's admin's key figures there - that avoids any possible issues with the Supreme Court.
Additionally, it would restore a bit of global confidence in the ICC and America's credibility on the global stage as well... something sorely needed after not even a few months of this administration.
2.Even if it did pass, retroactively referring 47 there doesn't scream "law and order" to me, especially when there are actual laws being broken.
That was the case in 2002, back when the Supreme Court still worked and was reasonably respected, and Congress at least did lip service to follow its duties.
Now, the circumstances have shifted - the Supreme Court is seen as compromised as a result of the Trump appointments plus the corruption scandals surrounding Roberts. Therefore I'm not so sure that the Hague Invasion Act would remain if it were pushed to a vote in a future Democrat-controlled Congress.
> Even if it did pass, retroactively referring 47 there doesn't scream "law and order" to me, especially when there are actual laws being broken.
I agree, the normal course of action should be to put 47th and his goon(er)s through the regular American court system - but I am afraid that the legal system has degraded way too much over the last years from all the political appointments. That's why in Croatia and Serbia we had the ICTY established, there was no trust of fair trials.
Assuming that we continue to elect presidents, you need one to appoint an effective Attorney General (ie not Garland) and use these new king like powers of the executive to smash. The president was convicted of dozens of crimes, but nobody had the balls to throw him in jail.
You have to think about 2025 solutions. The die is cast, it isn’t 1995 anymore. Nobody is clutching their pearls because POTUS made a mess on an intern anymore. It’s a different environment and you’re going to have to have fistfights on the Senate floor if the congress is functioning.
A lot of what the 47th and people in his administration did are already punishable by law - alone the Signal affair or other violations of the Public Records Act.
It would not be a ex post facto prosecution, it would simply be a prosecution by a court of law that is reasonably free from corruption.
It’s all fantasy anyway.
Well, whoever succeeds Trump will have to go for drastic measures to restore global trust in the US. No way around that, the system is fundamentally broken and needs a complete and utter overhaul. If the Democrats have an ounce of interest in self-preservation, they have no alternative than to bring down all the hammers they can on the MAGA part of the GOP.
There is no current checks mor balances, a king runs America and Republicans smile because they are wearing the same color jersey and seem to think their longtime agenda is being implemented, when, no, a mafia is riding their agenda and party to absolute power.
And remember the furious response when Obama put his feet on the Resolute desk?
The absolute gall of the fiend!