Has it always been that way and will get worked out or is the US determined to destroy its institutions?
Well, let's analyze each of your questions in turn.
> Since I came to the US there is this constant push for impeaching the sitting president
When did you come to the USA?
There was a constant push to impeach Obama. There was a constant push to impeach Bush. The was a constant push to impeach Clinton.
Clinton was elected in 1993, so there are a lot of adult Americans who were born in the USA and who can also say that "since I came to the US (aka was born), there has been this constant push for impeaching the sitting president".
> extreme gerrymandering
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering#Etymology
> and all the other nonsense
Congress seems to be more dysfunctional now than it was in the 80's and 90's. But there have been worse eras, too. At least the congressmen who've been shot lately weren't shot by other congressmen in duels, for example... :-\
Is this considered normal? If so, why? It's like results of an election aren't final. A candidate wins yet people try to have him kicked out. :/
I don't know if it is considered normal, but it is normal.
> A candidate wins yet people try to have him kicked out.
Impeachment is in the constitution for a reason. Winning an election is not a sufficient condition for maintaining a public office. So on face, there's nothing actually wrong with trying to use a constitutional tool to kick out an elected official.
That said,
> If so, why?
You're kind of asking for a retrial of very polarizing figures from recent political history, a dangerous topic on hn, and I suppose that's the reason for the downvotes. I'm trying, here, to give an honest and historically accurate answer.
Obama and Bush impeachment advocates were mostly unjustifiable partisans, in the sense that there were never serious, constitutionally plausible, and widely-believed-to-be-true justifications for impeachment. That's probably why neither person was ever actually impeached. Consider this "the system working mostly as intended"
Clinton was justifiable, at least at one point in time, although we could fairly ask whether the same accusations would result in an impeachment today. Again, consider this "the system working as intended"
Trump is an open case, and these things are hard to judge without the benefit of hindsight. But there are at least serious, plausible accusations of impeachable conduct. We'll see if those accusations are true, I guess.
However, you'll note that in all of these cases except for Clinton, it was a minority of elected representatives from the opposition party calling for an actual impeachment.
The vast majority of opposition representatives did always call for investigations. But that's a checks-and-balances system working as intended IMO.
Doesn't the fact that there has been a push to get all the presidents kicked out mean there's something really wrong?
Not especially, given that the “push” in the activist base hasn't procedurally gone very far in most cases. You'd find very few democracies where some members of the opposition (especially in the electorate) don't claim that any given leader’s behavior is unacceptable and should result in removal.
I mean, I think something did go wrong—Ford’s pardon of Nixon which was essentially justified by the argument that prosecuting a President would be too much for the nation to deal with—which has encouraged subsequent President's to view violating legal and Constitutional constraints on the power of the Presidency as safe because they are, in a sense, “too big to fail”.
But I while I think that has manifested in an increase in Presidential limit-pushing at least from Reagan on, I don't think that impeachment discussions are particularly a system if a deep political dysfunction.
OTOH, the Clinton impeachment that actually occurred (and ultimately resulted in a Senate acquittal) was on a completely different basis.
Instead of impeaching Trump maybe the Democrats should start standing for something and try to get elected. This seems a much more straightforward way.
I think you're right, in a sense. She had a 52-point plan on her website which outlined her position on any number of issues. At heart, she's a policy wonk. Leslie Knope for president. If she had been a bit more simplistic, it would likely have spoken to voters a bit more (ala Bernie Sanders -- Economic fairness! Medicare for all! Free college!)
Impeachment looms larger in the public's imagination than it does in Congress's. It's normal for people wo want an elected official they dislike to go away, but let's be honest: it's mostly rhetoric and not action. Nixon and Clinton lost the public's confidence to a degree that forced the issue, but most people understand that it's not likely to happen even if they wish it would.
> If so, why? It's like results of an election aren't final.
This is essentially the point. Election results aren't final. We don't elect a king, or a dictator, for four years. We elect a President, who serves at our leisure, but whose power is checked by Congress, who also serve at our leisure. If Congress loses faith in a President - which is what impeachment implies - one would hope that they decide to exercise that option.
Electoral punishment for gaming the system to extreme levels, and even for misconduct that has no benefit for a party or candidates image or efficacy (blatant corruption, Roy Moore-type behavior [edit, 1]) has proven to be non-existent. The more various candidates and officials push, the farther it's clear they can go without punishment. Things are getting worse because they keep trying to push farther, and succeeding.
This is largely because of wedge issues—especially abortion, but also guns to a lesser extent. The problem won't go away unless we modify our election system to permit more than two viable parties at a time, so that, say, an anti-abortion party can go way off the rails and its saner voters can defect to another anti-abortion party, without losing anti-abortion voting power in legislative bodies (as, say, a protest vote would), and so on for every other issue. Proportional representation or something along those lines would help a lot. Most any effective change like this would also eliminate or greatly reduce the power of gerrymandering.
[1] Nearly non-existent—he did lose, after all, but narrowly.
I would prefer duels or fistfights overt the current state to be honest :-). Those tend to end after a while whereas the current state can go on forever.
Civil wars tend to end but I'd prefer the current state of affairs over a full-blown war, to be honest.
[1] https://legacy.voteview.com/political_polarization_2015.htm
After WWII (or, really, FDR's first campaign) the party system entered a long realignment along what became the modern American left/right axis which was basically completed in the early 1990s. Which is why polarization increased throughout the post-WWII period, but also why it was turbocharged from the Clinton era on.
Institutionally things are starting to break down because of a combination of poor design and poor implementation.
But there are so very many people who will argue that the current system is a feature not a bug.
The Democrats were unhappy with Reagan and Bush Sr. The Republicans were deeply unhappy with Clinton. The Democrats were on the border of being deranged by Bush Jr. The Republicans were deranged with Obama. Now the Democrats are absolutely insane about Trump.
(I'll give you that Trump makes it easier than any of his predecessors. Still, this has been growing since 1980, on both sides.)
Notice how people don't defend republican decisions, they just immediately go "BUT BOTH SIDES". When your only defense is whataboutism, maybe you need to stop and think for a bit.
They're really not the same.
They're really not the same.
> Wake Up America! See article: "Israeli Science: Obama Birth Certificate is a Fake"
and
> He doesn't have a birth certificate, or if he does, there's something on that certificate that is very bad for him. Now, somebody told me -- and I have no idea if this is bad for him or not, but perhaps it would be -- that where it says 'religion,' it might have 'Muslim.' And if you're a Muslim, you don't change your religion, by the way.
and
> Perfect Obama's dad born in Africa, Mitt Romney's dad born in Mexico.Any pure breeds left? #CNNDebate
Surely we can agree that nasty, terrible people like that have no place in our political discourse?
Who stole a supreme court seat?
Who started winning presidencies without the popular vote and ramming extremely unpopular legislation through with reconciliation?