Blog Stage Four: Substantial commentary or criticism #2

On October 16, 2017 John Aravosis wrote an editorial for Americablog entitled, The Case for Impeachment. Founded in 2004 by lawyer, journalist, civil rights advocate and Democratic political consultant John Aravosis, Americablog is blog that focuses on American politics from a liberal perspective. This being said, Mr. Aravosis' intended audience for this editorial is as one might expect educated, liberal and anti-Trump. Most people reading Americablog fall firmly into one if not all of these categories. Even though Mr. Aravosis is not a famous political pundit, he is widely known and respected in Democratic circles. His blog helped expose Jeff Gannon in 2005 and helped make cell phone privacy an issue after obtaining General Wesley Clark's call records in 2006. These exposes added greatly to his and his blog's credibility. Mr. Aravosis' argument is simple, President Trump should be impeached. He claims that, "it is too dangerous for Donald Trump to remain in office. The time has come to publicly call for his removal". As evidence for this claim he uses the situation in Puerto Rico that continues to grow more dire weeks after Hurricane Irma struck the island. The President's efforts to incite a war with North Korea and Iran are also cited as evidence, as are his continued attempts to undercut the Affordable Care Act. The logic behind Mr. Aravosis' argument is simple and accurate. Mr. Aravosis does not have to "trump" up false charges against the President to make his argument. President Trump has given him all the ammunition he needs to logically and effectively make the argument that the President should be removed "via impeachment or the 25th Amendment".
I agree with Mr. Aravosis that President Trump should be removed before he "causes serious damage to our people and our democracy". I would even go a step further in saying that the 45th President of the United States of America has already done irreparable damage to our country in less than one year in office. He has damaged the country's reputation abroad and the reputation and prestige of the office he holds at home. In my opinion the most compelling case for the impeachment of Donald Trump is one that Mr. Aravosis barely mentions. The President's "refusal to divest from his business interests has placed him in direct violation of the US Constitution's Foreign Emoluments Clause and with the Federal STOCK Act". The President himself has even made comments that would suggest that he is running afoul of the Emoluments Clause. It appears that the only reason impeachment proceedings against the President have not commenced is because a Republican controlled Congress does not want to. That being said it appears that even the Republican members of Congress are becoming increasingly anxious about the unpredictable and reckless behavior of the president. If this behavior continues, would his own party's members of Congress eventually be forced to turn against him and try to impeach him? The question is how long would this take and how much more damage would President Trump be able to do in the meantime.

On Friday October 6th, the acclaimed writer David Brooks wrote an opinion piece for The New York Times entitled Guns and the Soul of America . In this piece Mr. Brooks makes the case that gun ownership in the United States of America symbolizes something much greater than the simple owning of a firearm. Mr. Brooks writes about the schism that has developed between pro-gun advocates and anti-gun factions; a schism that has bled over into numerous other aspects of our increasingly divided country. In his closing, Mr. Brooks argues that to progress as a nation we must find a way to move forward together and to do so we must include guns in the conversation.

David Brooks wrote this piece for The New York Times newspaper opinion section. This means that Mr. Brooks' intended audience is rather small and homogeneous. Most readers of The Times are white, college educated, and self identify as liberal or very liberal. The Times' readers usually hail from wealthy zip codes on the nation's coasts and a few wealthy places in between. This affluent, educated, liberal populous is Mr. Brooks' audience and he knows it. Mr. Brooks does his best to persuade these readers, most of whom are fiercely anti-gun, that to move forward for the good of our nation they will need to make some concessions to our nation's gun owners.

The credibility of the author is beyond reproach. Even though Mr. Brooks writes for the left leaning New York Times, he is considered a conservative author and a political and cultural commentator. To add to his credibility, Mr. Brooks is well known and well respected across the American political landscape.

The basic argument made is that to move forward from the country's current fractured condition, both sides must make concessions. Mr. Brooks claims that to do so, "we need another grand synthesis that can move us beyond the current divide, a synthesis that is neither redneck nor hipster but draws from both worlds to create a new social vision". As evidence for this he points to one of the greatest American presidents ever, Theodore Roosevelt. President Roosevelt was able to transcend the fight between agrarian populists and genteel Victorian aristocrats by inventing a new American nationalism. In doing so, President Roosevelt was able to draw from both cultures and replace them with a more unified and inclusive culture. Mr. Brooks uses the logic that bringing a divided population together has been done successfully in our country's past and thus can be done successfully again. As is almost always the case with David Brooks' writings, this piece is well thought out, well researched and well written.

I for one completely agree with Mr. Brooks and his opinion that to move forward as a country we must come together. To do so each side must make some concessions. The partisan name calling and vilifying of our fellow Americans must be replaced with honest attempts at tolerance and understanding. That is obviously much easier said than done but we owe it to ourselves and our fellow countrymen and women to try. 



https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/06/opinion/guns-soul-of-america.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fopinion-columnists