the presidential impeachment power has been of rather limited value ever since 1804.
we look to congress's power to impeach and remove a president as a hugely powerful tool to hold the executive branch to the will of the people, to right all manner of wrongs, or even to reverse the effects of a stolen election.
it's easy to understand why people have such an awesome view of the power of presidential impeachment. it's largely the way the founders intended it to be, and it's similar to the way in which a government can be made to collapse in a parliamentary system and a new prime minister emerges, often from a different party.
but here in america, in 1804, the 12th amendment was ratified, which altered the way presidents and vice-presidents were technically elected. prior to that, electors would each cast two votes, without distinguishing between president and vice-president. the winner became president and the runner-up became vice-president.
that meant that the vice-president would often be from a different party from the president.
with such an arrangement, the power of impeachment and removal was indeed a powerful one. it meant a president who strayed too far from the will of congress could be replaced by an opposition leader who would presumable make major policy and personnel changes.
after the 12th amendment, however, electors cast separate votes for president and vice-president, who then ran on the same ticket. as a practical matter, this virtually guarantees that the president and the vice-president would be from the same party.
that now means that impeachment merely remove the one particular individual from the oval office, only to be replaced by someone from the same party, and indeed, someone who was essentially hand-picked by the disgraced ex-president.
this could lead to some minor changes in policy and personnel, of course, but the party is virtually guaranteed to remain the same.
this takes a whole lot of teeth out of the power of impeachment.
the one time in our history it actually was used to remove a president was in the case of nixon, who actually resigned before being impeached, though only because he was told impeachment and removal was inevitable.
there, it seemed to make sense, as nixon's crimes were seen largely as the doings of nixon himself and his inner circle and his "ratf*ckers". so removing him and replacing him with someone of the same party who didn't have the same stink on him (until he pardoned nixon, at least) seemed ok.
looking at the donnie situation, the problem isn't just that he's a criminal and a dangerous person to hold presidential powers. it's that most of us believe the election was fundamentally corrupt. pence may be slightly less deranged than donnie, but his claim to office is every bit as tainted by russian interference as donnie's.
most of us feel that nothing short of replacing him with hillary, or having fresh elections now, would suffice to right the wrong of the 2016 election. but no such remedy exists under the constitution.
this is why many democrats are ambivalent about impeachment. maybe it's the best tool we have for the situation, but it's nothing close to the ideal tool to remedy all the wrongs donnie has done.
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