impeachment was always a difficult line to walk, and it's maybe dismaying that the conservatives in the house, who seem least driven by politics, are the ones with the right answer.

lamar alexander's position is essentially the correct one - the allegations are serious enough to justify an investigation, but it is ultimately not up to the congress to remove the president. the united states is a democracy; trump won an election, and there is another one coming up soon. it is up to the people to remove him from office, not the congress.

the congress had no choice but to launch a hearing, and some kind of censure is appropriate - a non-binding resolution, a moral denunciation, however you want to do it. but, removing him from office? i have some issues with the democratic legitimacy of that...

trump's argument is that the democrats can't beat him at the ballot box, so they're trying to remove him undemocratically, instead. is he right?

as a canadian, what i actually find to be the root of the problem is the system of fixed elections. let me tell you how this would work in canada, in theory, if not in practice....

the comparable idea is to be found in "contempt of parliament", which is essentially what impeachment is. if it were decided that trudeau were in contempt of parliament, the next thing that would happen would be that the opposition would arrange a non-confidence vote. but, if the prime minister were to lose the non-confidence vote, he wouldn't be removed from office, and replaced with...we don't have a vice-pm, and this "deputy pm" is just a vanity title. there is a line of succession. but, that's not what would happen.

when the prime minister loses the confidence of the house, what happens is that there's an early election - and it's left up to voters to determine if he should be removed or not.

so, it's true that trump can't be going around doing what he did; congress has to react, somehow, there's no choice. but, if there's this discomfort in the american body politic about giving congress the authority to remove the executive, i think it's rooted in something worthwhile, and i can't claim i disagree with it.

the democrats should voluntarily stop the process at the point of a censure, and deny their own authority to go further, without a plebiscite.