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You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Timely Content Open Thread: The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson

Timely Content Open Thread: The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson

by Anne Laurie|  December 12, 20196:21 pm| 39 Comments

This post is in: Civil Rights, Excellent Links, Impeachment Inquiry, Racial Justice

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Everyone's talking about impeachment and Clinton & Johnson as the only presidents ever impeached. But most people don't know WHY Johnson was impeached.

So let me tell you the story about how not impeaching a racist president is a BIG reason why white supremacy lingers in America

— michaelharriot (@michaelharriot) December 12, 2019

Michael Harriot is the Roots writer who had that much-discussed convo about racism with Pete Buttigieg. I knew the basics of Johnson’s impeachment, but I learned stuff from Harriot’s thread here. Click on the tweet below to read the whole thing with the extraneous headers stripped out:

Hola, please find the unroll here: Thread by @michaelharriot: Everyone's talking about impeachment and Clinton & Johnson as the only presidents ever… https://t.co/x8GiRbbFgT. Share this if you think it's interesting. ?

— Thread Reader App (@threadreaderapp) December 12, 2019

Dems planning to vote against impeaching Trump take note: “no senator who voted to acquit Johnson ever held office again” https://t.co/WaKO8yaimD

— Malcolm Nance (@MalcolmNance) December 12, 2019

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Reader Interactions

39Comments

  1. 1.

    nickgb

    December 12, 2019 at 6:22 pm

    I’ve been working through this book lately, and it’s an amazing tale with so many parallels.
    https://www.amazon.com/Impeachers-Trial-Andrew-Johnson-Nation/dp/0812998367

  2. 2.

    Elizabelle

    December 12, 2019 at 6:24 pm

    Thanks, Annie.  I think we needed a more uplifting thread.

  3. 3.

    debbie

    December 12, 2019 at 6:32 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    I think we needed a more uplifting thread.

    LOL, Andrew Johnson fills that bill?

  4. 4.

    syphonblue

    December 12, 2019 at 6:38 pm

    Well that’d be nice, but definitely not gonna happen this time

  5. 5.

    WaterGirl

    December 12, 2019 at 6:39 pm

    @debbie: It’s all relative!

  6. 6.

    Elizabelle

    December 12, 2019 at 6:43 pm

    @debbie:   I know.  Between the GOP winger-whingers at the Impeachment hearings, and BoJo taking a victory lap.  I will take the 19th century and discussing what is known any day.

    We have to learn from history.  This decade has been terrifying for diving right back into the late 1920s and 30s.

  7. 7.

    debbie

    December 12, 2019 at 6:44 pm

    @Elizabelle:
    Yep. No matter how evolved we think we’ve become, we still repeat the past again and again. ?

  8. 8.

    smintheus

    December 12, 2019 at 6:46 pm

    Johnson and Nixon both deserved many times over to be impeached and removed from office. Both were frothing-at-the-mouth bigots, both were thoroughly lacking in shame or made the slightest attempt to feign contrition when they were caught abusing the powers of their office. Then there’s Trump.

  9. 9.

    patrick II

    December 12, 2019 at 6:47 pm

    I have come to realize over the years that John Wilkes Boothe did even more harm than I understood.

  10. 10.

    Jay Noble

    December 12, 2019 at 6:55 pm

    Had to go check because I haven’t read it since Jr. High, but this guy was one of JFK’s Profiles in Corage.

    “Edmund G. Ross, from Kansas, for voting for acquittal in the Andrew Johnson impeachment trial. As a result of Ross’s vote, along with those of six other Republicans, Democrat Johnson’s presidency was saved, and the stature of the office was preserved.”

    Some narrative they put out there.

  11. 11.

    R-Jud

    December 12, 2019 at 6:56 pm

    There’s a fiction podcast (audio drama, people) called 1865 which begins with the manhunt for John Wilkes Booth and continues through Johnson’s impeachment. I highly recommend it. Download a podcast app and search for it.

  12. 12.

    cmorenc

    December 12, 2019 at 7:00 pm

    A dubious distinction of North Carolina history:

    – NC claims three US Presidents as having been born in North Carolina: Andrew Jackson, Andrew Johnson, and James Polk – there’s actually a statue on the old state capitol grounds honoring the trio.  The first two were two of our very worst Presidents – both virulent racists, and Jackson had a very Trump-like personality, and stabbed in the back his Native American allies who provided critical support to Jackson in the military victories that brought him to prominence with the forced removal of NAs to Oklahoma territory.  No wonder Jackson is Trump’s favorite President.  Polk is more of a coin flip – very effective at annexing territory to the US that formerly belonged to Mexico, for all the better or worse that was involved with his means of doing so.  The potential small saving grace wrt NC’s claim to be Jackson’s birthplace is that his mother was actually en route south when she gave birth, and it’s ambiguous whether the actual birth site was just on the NC side or else on the SC side of the state line.  So maybe he wasn’t ours to begin with, even for 24 hours.  SC is a much better cultural fit to have been Jackson’s birthplace.

  13. 13.

    Baud

    December 12, 2019 at 7:11 pm

    @cmorenc:

     

    So you’re saying John Edwards would have been a step up!

  14. 14.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    December 12, 2019 at 7:18 pm

    And now we get yet another amendment from Gym Jordan.

  15. 15.

    Duane

    December 12, 2019 at 7:19 pm

    This seems relevant to this post and the previous one. White people can be real assholes.

  16. 16.

    bk

    December 12, 2019 at 7:21 pm

    @cmorenc:  Polk is a fellow alum of mine.  A few years before me though

  17. 17.

    Ella in New Mexico

    December 12, 2019 at 7:24 pm

    @smintheus:

    Johnson and Nixon both deserved many times over to be impeached and removed from office. Both were frothing-at-the-mouth bigots, both were thoroughly lacking in shame or made the slightest attempt to feign contrition when they were caught abusing the powers of their office. Then there’s Trump.

    What never ceases to amaze me, though, is Nixon actually did good and admirable things while in office, even while being such a tortured, dark human being. Completely in contrast to these other two jackasses.

  18. 18.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    December 12, 2019 at 7:24 pm

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: So all Gym Jordan’s amendment does is remove calling for impeachment from the articles of impeachment.  Brilliant!

  19. 19.

    Jay

    December 12, 2019 at 7:26 pm

    Huh Cipollone just walked into McConnell’s office— Seung Min Kim (@seungminkim) December 12, 2019

  20. 20.

    David ??Booooooo?? Koch

    December 12, 2019 at 7:30 pm

    @Ella in New Mexico: Cambodia is giving you a side eye

  21. 21.

    chris

    December 12, 2019 at 7:33 pm

    Oh FFS!

    When Boris Johnson realized he might have a problem with Trump, he started building a relationship with Stephen Miller and coaching him on his writing https://t.co/ZVr9mS3Su8— Blake News (@blakehounshell) December 12, 2019

  22. 22.

    Jay

    December 12, 2019 at 7:38 pm

    So let’s get this straight: Peter Navarro is circulating official memos written by his invisible friend/alter-ego/nom-de-plume. Nothing weird going on here at all.

    As you may recall, Comrade Stupid’s trade representative Navarro was discovered by Jared Kushner when he perused Amazon looking for a China hardliner.

    https://mockpaperscissors.com/2019/12/12/the-trade-wars-get-weirder/

  23. 23.

    Kent

    December 12, 2019 at 7:42 pm

    @Ella in New Mexico:

    What never ceases to amaze me, though, is Nixon actually did good and admirable things while in office, even while being such a tortured, dark human being. Completely in contrast to these other two jackasses.

    Well, Nixon did sign a lot of Liberal environmental legislation passed by solid Dem majorities that would likely have still been approved by veto overrides had he opposed them.

    What is on your list of good and admiral things that Nixon did in office?  I guess there was Detente and the ABM treaty.

  24. 24.

    Mike in NC

    December 12, 2019 at 7:43 pm

    @chris:  When we were in London in August, a tour guide stated that there were approximately 300 languages spoken in the city. That’s 299 more than Trump and Miller would approve of.

  25. 25.

    Jay

    December 12, 2019 at 7:44 pm

    @chris:

    On the bright side, we don’t have Andrew Scheer to kick around any more, ( until he joins the Manning Center, the Fraser Institute, and gets a gig with Post Media and the Grope and Flail).

     

    should be fun watching Kenney bail on Alberta for the big time.

  26. 26.

    cmorenc

    December 12, 2019 at 7:44 pm

    @Baud:

    So you’re saying John Edwards would have been a step up!

    Easily over Jackson or Johnson.  The often-revered John F Kennedy was a far more egregious philanderer than John Edwards, who at least picked a documentary filmmaker to have an affair with rather than a mistress (Judith (Campbell) Exner, who simultaneously was also the mistress with a notorious Mafia bosses, Sam Giancana.  So, for that matter, was Bill Clinton, who was an indiscriminate seducer of any attractive willing person who possessed a vagina.

  27. 27.

    chris

    December 12, 2019 at 7:49 pm

    @Mike in NC: I read somewhere that there are 312 languages spoken in the US. Don’t tell those guys.

  28. 28.

    chris

    December 12, 2019 at 7:52 pm

    @Jay: Watching Kenney and Ford fight over the leadership will be must-not-see TV.

  29. 29.

    Kent

    December 12, 2019 at 7:56 pm

    @chris: There are probably 312 native languages alone.

  30. 30.

    Procopius

    December 12, 2019 at 8:05 pm

    Wow. I mean, just wow! Thanks so much for that link. I don’t do Twitter, so the thread reader thingy was helpful. I’m definitely going to start following Michael Harriot. That’s terrific writing. Also, too, did you notice that there are at least ten moderate Democrats who are very likely to vote against impeachment in an attempt to pass themselves off as faux Republicans to their constituents.

  31. 31.

    chris

    December 12, 2019 at 8:05 pm

    @Kent: That wouldn’t surprise me at all but I think the article I read was talking about foreign languages.

  32. 32.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    December 12, 2019 at 8:09 pm

    I turned my TV off an hour ago– Is Louie Goehmert still talking ?

  33. 33.

    Uncle Cosmo

    December 12, 2019 at 8:15 pm

    @cmorenc: You know what they say about South Carolina: Too small for a sovereign nation, too large for an insane asylum…

  34. 34.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    December 12, 2019 at 8:17 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Just wondering how many more amendments that there will be, still talking about an amendment to remove impeachment from the articles of impeachment.

  35. 35.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    December 12, 2019 at 8:26 pm

    Great, now they’re talking about 25th Amendment.

  36. 36.

    Ruckus

    December 12, 2019 at 9:15 pm

    @debbie:

    Everyone starts out knowing no more than how to breathe and have a beating heart. You have to learn all of it, every single thing. And right now a lot of people are being taught history and living by faux not news and every republican office holder. So a massive misinformation project dating back to the civil war. At least. In my youth we got, minimal education aimed at the least qualified so that they didn’t play in the middle of a major street, or feed the lions – by hand. Why? because being better costs money and in a government that means taxes. Exactly the same as what we see today, 50-60 yrs later. Taxes are too high, so we have to screw the majority for the wealthy minority that will take their bullshit and go home. Except they won’t because this is the only game of life.

  37. 37.

    Another Scott

    December 12, 2019 at 9:45 pm

    Thanks for the thread Anne Laurie.  It’s indeed a good read.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  38. 38.

    Alhutch

    December 13, 2019 at 1:45 am

    Anne – just a quick correction.  Michael writes for “The Root”, not ‘Roots’.

  39. 39.

    Quaker in a Basement

    December 13, 2019 at 3:32 am

    Herriot’s thread on the Johnson impeachment is excellent. Don’t miss it!

    (Plus: Civil War = World War Wypipo is icing!)

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