Tweet

Fabio Rojas

9 Feb, 8 tweets, 2 min read

1/ #Impeachment: a failed Constitutional design. Some basic data shows it doesn't do its job. (retweet w/edits)

2/ The US has had 46 presidents, 49 VPS, 115 Supreme court justices, hundreds of senators and cabinet members and federal judges, and thousands of Representatives. How many impeachments? Keep reading to find out!

Answer: The US House info website lists a paltry 21 impeachements, 8 convictions, and 3 resigned... over 245 years! Impeachment might as well not exist. history.house.gov/Institution/Im…

4/ Impeachments are rare and they usually don't lead to conviction. What's the problem? Pretty simple: it's a lot of work with little pay off and lots of downsides.

5/ What's the upside of impeachment and conviction for legislators? You can get rid of a single bad guy and your base might like you a little more for a single news cycle.

6/ But there are lots of downsides: you spend precious time on impeachment, not your agenda; you burn the impeached person's political network, which is valuable; if you impeach/vote to convict someone in your own party, your base hates you.

7/ This explains pretty easily why impeachment/conviction is so rare in the US system. It's just not worth it for most legislators. The incentives all go the wrong way.

8/ Bottom line: Impeachment might as well not exist. Way less than 1% of high level Federal officials are impeached with only 8 convictions over 200+ years of the Republic.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

More from @fabiorojas

Fabio Rojas

@fabiorojas

10 Feb

1/ Why is "framing" and lit review so contentious in sociology? A thread for #soctwitter and assorted bystanders.

2/ Last week, our department had a very nice panel where faculty answered questions publishing. Panel included current/former editors/deputy editors of ASR, AJS, Contexts, Soc of Ed, SPQ and more. (Yes, our dept is super professional and service oriented).

3/ Most advice was simple and intuitive: keep revising, show your work, read the journal you submit to, take rejection in stride, accept the randomness of reviews, etc. BUT the discussion of framing and lit review was long and complex.

Read 11 tweets

Fabio Rojas

@fabiorojas

9 Feb

1/ #Impreachment: a failed Constitutional design. Some basic data shows it doesn't do its job.

2/ The US has had 46 presidents, 49 VPS, 115 Supreme court justices, hundreds of senators and cabinet members and federal judges, and thousands of Representatives. How many impeachments?

3/ Answer: The US House info website lists a paltry 21 impeachements, 8 convictions, and 3 resigned. history.house.gov/Institution/Im…

Read 9 tweets

Fabio Rojas

@fabiorojas

8 Feb

1/ Do you like the idea of teaching social theory instead of intellectual history? If you do, assign my book and I will do the following things for you... amazon.com/Theory-Working…

2/ A free signed copy, while supplies last

3/ I will give you my syllabus and lecture notes, both undergrad and grad level.

Read 7 tweets

Fabio Rojas

@fabiorojas

11 Jan

1/ Moderate Republicans are the most important people in the world right now. More comments on the #ElectoralCollegelRiot from a political sociologist.

2/ Right now, we have a severe problem: as long as you can gather up a critical number of primary voters, you can do some very horrible things, like incite a riot that gets 2 police officers killed.

3/ So what can be done? Part of the solution is relatively easy: criminal charges. We need a bright line. Free speech is ok, riots should be met with prison sentences every time.

Read 9 tweets

Fabio Rojas

@fabiorojas

6 Jan

1/ Something can be very bad but not a coup. More thoughts on the #ElectoralCollegeRiot from a professor who studies protest.

2/ Some folks are concerned that by calling this a riot, rather than coup, you are implictely dismissing what is happening. Not true. By using hyperbole, you are platforming people who should be marginalized and ignored.

3/ From a social science perspective, the #ElectoralCollegeRiot fits a long term pattern of political riots aimed at harming or intimidating others, such as anti-Black race riots and political urban riots of earlier American history.

Read 9 tweets

Fabio Rojas

@fabiorojas

6 Jan

1/ Comments on pro-Trump protest from a professor who studies protest. Step #1: These protests are more performance, less coup.

2/ Protests vary in their goals and tactics. While pro-Trump/MAGA protests may claim that a conspiracy altered the election, the truth is probably more mundane.

3/ The #ElectoralCollegeRiot likely represents the alt.right's attempt to grab the spotlight one last time before Dem's control the legislature and White House.

Read 10 tweets

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!