Quote (thundercock @ 2 Feb 2021 19:03)
It's entirely appropriate. The American people want this.
Quote (Thor123422 @ 2 Feb 2021 19:37)
Only reason you think it's inappropriate is because you refuse to take his tiny cheeto out of your mouth
The constiution is clear: the purpose of a vote on conviction during an impeachment trial in the Senate is removal from office. It is also clear that the Senate can only vote to bar the impeached person from federal office after conviction, not before it. Since this vote only requires a simple majority, Democrats have already thought about an approach of banning Trump from federal office (for which they would have the votes with the help of Romney, Murkowski and so on) without formal conviction (for which they dont have the votes). The result was unambiguous: not possible, the constitution requires conviction first.
Hence, the Democrats are pursuing a trial which is fundamentally unable to achieve its constitutional purpose, namely removal from office, in the hopes of getting to a secondary effect which is constitutionally locked behind conviction (ban from future office) or a political goal (exacerbating division within the GOP).