by: Michael
by: Michael | February 9, 2020
If you were paying attention to the impeachment trial of Donald Trump you likely had many questions. Not only because both the House Case Managers and the White House Counsel seemed to draw completely different conclusions based on the same evidence, but because of one of the major talking points that came up regularly: what will the outcome of this trial mean for future presidents and our democracy as a whole.
In this fantastic article from Vox, Zack Beauchamp details how our legal system could be effectively eroded by reinterpreting what defined laws actually mean. He uses the recent governmental changes of Hungary as an example to illustrate what could happen in our own democratic system and how we’re seeing signs that we may be headed in that direction.
Imagining our country could fall away from it’s guiding principles of democracy can seem like a catastrophizing train of thought, and we would be wise to temper our predictions of the future, but I think Zack sums it up eloquently:
Republicans will not vote to give Trump dictatorial powers; we will not wake up tomorrow, the day after, or the year after in a police state. The risk, instead, is that the legal procedures necessary for a liberal democracy to work — the fairness of elections, the separation of powers, the protections of minority rights — become hollowed out from the inside, rendered meaningless despite remaining on the books.
