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Audrey Conrad

Professor Frances McCue

Honors 205: What We Know and How We Know It

November 14, 2016

What Happens When a President is Bad at Their Job?

When I was in the 4th grade, I remember getting into a car with my friend after a long day

of playing in the park. On the back of her parents’ car, there was a sticker that said “Impeach

Bush.” I was so confused. At the time, the name of our president was Bush. I understood that

part. I did not understand what impeach meant. Was it about a peach, the kind of fruit? I had no

idea. I went home to my mom and asked her what the word “impeach” meant. This is what my

mom told me.

I. The Kingdom and The United States of America

Imagine that there is a giant Kingdom of animals. In this Kingdom, there is every kind of

animal that you can imagine from every part of the world. There are monkeys, lions, zebras,

giraffes, elephants, crickets, bears, tigers, gorillas, parrots, eagles, horses, pigs, flamingoes…any

kind of animal you can imagine. The Kingdom will let in any kind of animal that wants to enter

the Kingdom. In the Kingdom, there are 50 different types of habitats for the animals to live in.

For example, there is a desert animal habitat, an ocean animal habitat, a forest animal habitat,

and a mountain animal habitat, just to name a few.

The Kingdom is not all that different than the United States of America. In the United

States of America, there are many different kinds of people. These people have very different

backgrounds. Some come from different countries or practice different religions. They are
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members of different races or have different amounts of money. However, despite their

differences, they are all citizens of the United States.

In the animal Kingdom, there is only one leader. How this leader is put into power is

through a process called a democratic election. A democratic election means that every animal in

the entire Kingdom can take part in choosing who their leader is. This is done by each animal

casting a vote to represent their opinion. The winner of the election becomes the leader of all of

the animals. During the most recent election, the animals elected a lion as their leader.

The leader of the United States, who we call the President, is chosen through the same

process, a democratic election, that the animals in the Kingdom use. Like each animal in the

Kingdom, each person in the United States over the age of 18 gets to vote to choose who our

next President will be. The President of the United States is supposed to use their power to

protect the people in their country from threats from different countries as well as from threats

that are within the country.

In each animal habitat, there are also leaders. These leaders have a smaller role than the

Kingdom’s leader, but their role is still important. For each habitat there are two different

leadership groups. These leadership groups are called the House of Representatives, also known

as the House, and The Senate. The number of leaders each habitat can have in the House depends

on how many animals live within that specific habitat. For example, there are a ton of animals

who live in the forest habitat but not as many who live in the desert habitat, so, the forest habitat

will have more House leaders than the desert habitat will. For the Senate leaders, each habitat, no

matter how many animals live there, get two leaders each. The leaders for both the House and

the Senate are chosen through a democratic election, the same way that the leader of the
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Kingdom is chosen. However, instead of every single animal in the Kingdom voting for the one

Kingdom leader, the animals in each individual habitat vote for only their own habitat leaders.

Like the Kingdom’s 50 habitats, the United States has 50 different states that people live

in. Also like in the Kingdom, the United States has a House of Representatives and a Senate.

Together, the House and the Senate make up what we call “Congress.” Each state in the United

States has its own leaders, which we call representatives, that are elected by the people who live

in that state. The United States also uses the same rules that the Kingdom does when it comes to

how many representatives they can elect to be in the House. Each state only gets two

representatives in the Senate as well.

Sometimes, animals in the Kingdom have disagreements about how things are done in the

Kingdom. For example, for a while, forest animals would not let desert animals use the same

things, like restaurants or watering holes, that were supposed to be available to all animals, only

because the desert animals were different than the forest animals were. This disagreement was

settled in the Kingdom’s Court. On the Court, there are 9 animals, who are selected for the Court

by the leader of the Kingdom. The 9 animals each take a side on the argument being presented

and the side of the argument with the most support wins the disagreement.

The United States has a court that is very similar to the Kingdom’s Court. In the United

States, it is called the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court settles the disagreements that people

living within the United States have with each other. The Supreme Court also has 9 people that

listen to the people’s disagreements. These 9 people are called “Justices.” They listen to

disagreements, which we call “Supreme Court Cases,” and each give their own opinion on what

side of the argument they agree with, and the side with the most support wins the Supreme Court

Case.
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In the United States, these three elements, the President, Congress (the House of

Representatives and the Senate), and the Supreme Court are what we call the three branches of

government. The name is fancy, but it is easy to understand. A government is a name for the

organization a country or community uses to run itself. The President makes up the Executive

Branch of our government, Congress makes up the Legislative Branch of our government, and

the Supreme Court makes up the Judicial Branch of our government.

The people who created the United States of America, called our founding fathers,

created a government with the three branches of government so that one branch could not

become more powerful than the other two branches. For example, if the Legislative Branch

passes a law, the Judicial Branch can say that the law cannot be enforced because it doesn’t

uphold the Constitution, which is a document stating the laws and principles that the United

States of America is founded upon. The job of the three branches is to make sure that the

Constitution is upheld, and have the responsibility of editing the Constitution if parts of it

become out of date. The founding fathers decided upon this system because they believed that it

was the best way to make sure that the United States could be as democratic of a country as

possible. This system is called the system of “Checks and Balances.”

II. Impeaching a President

So, how does this help you understand what “impeachment” is, you might ask? Let’s go

back to the Kingdom…

In the Kingdom, the current President is a lion. Imagine that his name is Christopher.

Before trying to become the leader of the Kingdom, Christopher was a very wealthy man, and

made it very clear to all the animals in the Kingdom that he had money and was not afraid to

show it. During the last election, Christopher was endorsed by, or given support by, a number of
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big organizations in the Kingdom. These organizations were Animals for Animal Rights, an

organization that was against using smaller animals like rodents for scientific experiments, and

Ocean Animals Against Climate Change, an organization that tried to help ocean animals who

were struggling with the Earth’s rising temperature that was making the water too hot for some

animals to live in. Before Christopher was even chosen to be the leader, some people thought it

was odd that he had support from these two organizations. This is because Christopher had made

it very clear to the animals in the Kingdom that his favorite meal was rabbit, an animal that is

usually used for lab testing. Christopher had also said that he did not care about the oceans

because he was an animal that lived on land, and he got his drinking water from his local

watering hole. This was problematic to some animals because Animals for Animal Rights was an

organization that supported protecting small animals from predators and because Ocean Animals

Against Climate Change was an organization that supported ocean animals who were getting

very sick from the effects of Climate Change. The fact that Christopher publically dismissed

what these two organizations stood for, but still received their public support, made some

animals suspicious that Christopher was hiding something.

But still, the animals chose Christopher as their next leader of the Kingdom with the hope

that since he was supported by Animals for Animal Rights and Ocean Animals Against Climate

Change, he would help the animals suffering from animal testing and rising ocean temperatures.

However, a few years passed, and he did nothing to help the animals affected by either of those

problems. At first, just the lab animals and ocean animals started to get angry. They were upset

with both the two organizations and with Christopher for not doing anything to make their lives

better and fulfill the promises that they made before Christopher became the leader. The anger

spread to other animals from different habitats too when they realized what was going on.
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Eventually, the entire Kingdom was in an uproar. No matter if the animals roared, howled,

growled, or squeaked, their voices all said the same thing, “Impeach Christopher!”

Let’s take a break from our story for a minute and return to our own homes in the United

States. Impeachment of a President of the United States occurs when the President has been

charged by the House of Representatives of committing a crime. Crimes that are considered to be

“impeachable” are treason, trying to take over the government, bribery, giving or receiving

money or other favors, or other high crimes or misdemeanors, a fancy way of saying bad or

inappropriate behavior. In order for a President to be impeached, the majority of the House needs

to want to impeach the President.

That was a lot of information! Let’s see how the Kingdom decided to respond to the

animals’ desire to impeach Christopher.

Eventually, the animal’s made their rage very clear to their habitat leaders in the House of

Representatives and the House of Representatives decided that it was time to investigate the

matter at hand. The House held a vote, and since many House leaders believed that since

Animals for Animal Rights and Ocean Animals Against Climate Change would not say anything

about all of the uproar against Christopher that was going on, the majority of the House said it

was likely that Christopher had something to do with their silence. Because the majority of the

House said that Christopher should be impeached, they turned his case over to the Senate, who

would further investigate the matter and vote to decide on what the correct punishment should

be.

Back to the United States. If the House does decide that the President should be

impeached, the case moves over to the Senate. It is up to the Senate put the President on trial,

during which the Senate examines why the House of Representatives decided that the President
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should be impeached. After all of the evidence, or facts that prove why or why not the President

should be impeached, is stated in front of the Senate, each member of the Senate votes that either

yes, the President should be impeached and removed from office, or no longer be the President

of the United States, immediately, or no, the President should not be impeached and remain the

President of the United States. In order for a President to be impeached and removed from office,

2/3 of the votes or more need to be a “yes.”

In the Kingdom, the Senate began to dig around in Christopher’s old campaign budgets

and credit card transactions. They found that Christopher had donated large amounts of the

Kingdom’s money to both Animals for Animal Rights and Ocean Animals Against Climate

Change so that they would publically support him as their next leader! Bribery is one of the

charges that a leader in the Kingdom can be impeached for! After this evidence was told to the

entire Senate during Christopher’s trial, over 2/3 of the Senate voted “yes” for impeaching

Christopher and removing him from office. Christopher was no longer the leader of the

Kingdom!

In the United States, after a President is convicted, or found guilty, by the Senate of the

crimes he is said to have committed, the President is officially impeached and is usually removed

from office as a punishment. Impeachment is a long and difficult process. But it is an important

one, and one that we should not take for granted. Impeachment reminds us that Presidents are

people too. Like “normal people,” Presidents are also not perfect. Impeachment is not unheard of

in the United States. There have been a few Presidents who have been impeached for various

crimes and misdemeanors. For example, during the 1970s, President Richard Nixon was placed

on trial for impeached because he refused to provide the Supreme Court with the evidence that

would show that he tried to sabotage, or intentionally harm, his political opponents. When it
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looked like Nixon was going to be impeached and removed from office, he resigned, or quit his

job as the President. Later, during the late 1990s, President Bill Clinton was impeached for

having an inappropriate relationship with a White House intern named Monica Lewinsky.

However, while Clinton was impeached, he was not removed from office and remained the

President until his term ended in 2001.

Basically, sometimes Presidents do the wrong thing. Christopher should not have bribed

Animals for Animal Rights and Ocean Animals Against Climate Change to support him, and

then lied about it to the entire Kingdom. It is important to remember to think for yourselves. It is

so easy to get sucked into believing what everyone else is believing and following whoever

everyone else is following. Every once in a while, look up and observe what you see happening

in the world around you. If something is wrong, it is up to you to help make it right. Do not

believe that because everyone is thinking one way, that has to be the way that you think too. Or

do not go about believing only one person, just because that is what everyone else is doing.

Listen to what those around you are saying, listen to what the President is saying, and decide for

yourselves if you like what is being said, or if some things need to change.