Could it Happen Here?

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has been officially charged with charges in three corruption cases involving bribery, fraud and breach of trust, which, given his inability to form a government and the likelihood of another vote this year, is not great news for him. I don't pretend to understand much about Israeli politics, but this event reminds me so much of something....it just makes me ask questions, is all.

Like, bribery, fraud and breach of trust--those are pretty bad, right? So, if a leader basically seemed to be engaged in bribes, whether of other governments, or just, like, accepted them, like maybe other world leaders or international businesses gave Trump shit-tons of money in expectation of favors, that would be pretty bad, right? Like if it turned out that Saudi Arabia was renting tons of Trump property for no good reason or just wiring money to the US, and then Trump made decisions about ignoring an obvious murder or just let them have their way regarding military attacks on Yemen or whatever--that would look really like corruption. Or if they leaned on Qatar with a blockade and then Qatar bailed out Trump's son-in-law on a property that was hemorrhaging money--that would be bad, right? 

Because those aren't "champagne and cigars" kinds of bribes. It just seems to me like, if Netanyahu could get indicted over there for something like this, well? Maybe charging a sitting president here wouldn't be such a bad idea. 

Of course, I think (and I don't pretend to understand Israeli politics, once again) that Netanyahu should step down because the government situation is already fraught and he will be very occupied in his self-defense.  After all, once former US President Nixon realized that his presidency would be consumed by scandal, that's exactly what he did, despite his absolute landslide 1972 re-election. 

Of course, Nixon called the whole thing a "witch hunt" at first, and Nixon mega-fan Pat Buchanan actually did write about how an impeachment attempt was a coup d'état. (I love Rachel Maddow, but I will never love how Uncle Pat was a fixture for a while on her show. That 1992 "culture war" speech of his struck me as a war on me when I first heard it, and it did her as well. I guess you could say I have always been in favor of deplatforming Nazis (and Nazi-symps), not parading them as if they were tame. They are never tame.) 

Ditto Trump and Netanyahu. But, in a democracy, we accept that all elected people have term limits, right? We expect them to be held to standards that demonstrate they are working in the public trust--not for their own benefit? It is not a coup when the system of government stands, and the laws and customs remain in place, because governments are made of laws--and human beings are fallible, and no one singular person is essential. 

Anyway, I'd like very much if we did away with the idea that the sitting president is immune to indictment in the event of serious charges of misconduct. Barring that, it would just be great if Trump fans would stop barking about how accusing Trump of things he apparently did and even inquiring about his impeachment is somehow a coup. The Founders put impeachment in the Constitution as a lawful means of dealing with an unlawful public servant. It is not a coup.