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Yglesias's point fails in another regard. The Speaker is a constitutional officer, the second in line for the presidency, and the first legislative officer so in line.

By Yglesias's logic, as little as a bit more than one-quarter of the House (a bare majority of the majority party) could pick the Speaker, the person who could be President.

Bad idea. For any veneer of legitimacy, such a person has to command a majority of the entire House.

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It does seem remiss to look to a technical institutional fix when the elephant in the room is character. Trump’s grand deficiency is Caligula’s is Joe McCarthy’s is Matt Gaetz’s. None thinks virtue let alone practices it.

So what brings an end to Trump, mini-Trumps & their enablers is accountability? All eyes on the indictments, all efforts on flushing out the facts.

For instance, the NY indictment so many Dems bemoaned beautifully establishes that Trump, at heart, is after all a petty crook and man-child congenitally in need of attention and affirmation.

DT has no serious political interests, focused only on opportunistically mining every rich vein and lots of media time for preening and desperately fending off accountability.

So also little Matt G., who suffers from a bad case of Florida gubernatorial fever. He sees home state FL as the spot to build a resume for a future presidential bid, but little Matt is at best a C league pol, better suited for a small, indifferent Congressional district.

Time and sunlight - the sure cure for our precious Republic. Keep up the great journalistic work.

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