Chekhov's gun. In case you have forgotten, the basic notion here is that if there is a gun introduced into the scenery, it must be used as a plot point by the end of the story. Otherwise, you are cheating the audience. Of course, the best uses of Chekhov's gun are surprising uses. Introduce a plot point and use it in a way that nobody would expect, and that's good writing. Use it in the obvious way, and that's lazy, mechanical writing. Use it not at all, and that's either cheating, or just very bad writing.
I hate seeing unused Chekhov's guns in writing, and if you care about narrative structure, so do you. An airtight plot won't have that kind of thing. A work of fiction is a sort of contract between writer and audience, and violations of the Chekhov's gun principle violate that implicit contract. They also just... suck. Bad writer! No cigarette! Or, maybe lots of cigarettes, if you know what I mean... Enjoy your cancer in exchange for giving us bad writing! (Was that badly written? Shit... Haha! I don't smoke, so your curses won't work on me!)
Scene-- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. James Madison enters the room with a swagger, and drops a flintlock on a table in front of the rest of the Constitutional Convention.
Madison, as played by Samuel L. Jackson: OK, Motherfuckers! Y'all see that flintlock right there?! We need that shit in the motherfuckin' Constitution! We ain't havin' no motherfuckin' tyrants in this country! Some motherfuckin' president steps out of line, and Congress is gonna have to pull that flintlock and say, "and I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know we are Congress when we lay our vengeance upon you!"
[The rest of the delegation pulls out their flintlocks, points them at each other in the style of a Hong Kong crime movie that would later be ripped off by Quentin Tarantino, and they all try to shoot each other, but it doesn't work because flintlocks are notoriously unreliable. Humor ensues. Cue "Yakety Sax."]
Anyway, where was I? Oh, right. Bad writing. See? Bad writing is easy. You know what's hard? Good writing. If a plot element is introduced, it should be used. Preferably in an intelligent way, at an appropriate time. And maybe this has something to do with impeachment.
So, impeachment. That was kind of a segue, right?
There has been chatter this week. Pelosi really, really tried to take it off the table. Why? Because she's smart. Here's what happens if the Democrats impeach Trump. The Senate fails to convict. You need 2/3 to convict. There is zero chance of that, no matter what is in the Mueller report, which in all likelihood, no one will ever see, except Barr. Trump would probably keep the conviction votes under 50%, but there is zero chance of the 2/3 supermajority necessary. What happens if the Democrats go through with this, then? A failed impeachment is the political equivalent of vindication. Trump rides that to a 2020 victory. Pelosi knows this.
There have been two midterm elections in modern history in which the president's party picked up seats in Congress. One was 2002, when Bush 43's approval rating was still riding high after 9/11. The other was 1998, when the GOP went through with a stupid, futile impeachment that had zero chance of removing Clinton from office.
So, we've got this constitutional provision that looks like it shouldn't or can't be used.
Hey, Anton! Little help here? I think this play is badly written. Wanna come do a re-write? Please? Then again, I think this one was already written by the Russians, so maybe I should reconsider that request.
So, no subtlety here. Impeachment is a sort of Chekhov's gun. It's there, but can't be used. In narrative terms, that would be bad writing, just like everything else about reality today. The underlying political question, though, is what function the impeachment clause of the Constitution serves if it cannot be used now? For Trump?
The threshold for conviction in the Senate is 2/3. That means you'll never convict without either the opposition party holding 2/3 of the Senate (ain't gonna happen) or bipartisan support. The GOP will never, under any circumstances, permit the removal of Republican president, no matter what. This is a real issue for the concept of checks and balances, and I've been commenting on this repeatedly. Trump is about as corrupt as a politician can get. If this isn't a case for impeachment, what is? For the GOP, nothing, and that's the point. It is a constitutional provision that can never be invoked, against a Republican, anyway. That makes it meaningless. It's the political equivalent of Chekhov's gun. A constitutional cheat.
It wasn't originally, and Nixon was forced out to avoid the embarrassment of a successful impeachment. What turned it into a cheat was the Republican response to Nixon, as I keep writing. The 2/3 supermajority requirement in the Senate exists so that presidents are not just impeached every time Congress flips to the opposing party. A supermajority requirement makes some logical sense. The problem is that a corrupt party can decide to tolerate any level of corruption, and the system breaks down. If you hand enforcement powers to people who have incentive not to enforce the law, you have a problem. Or rather, we do.
And it isn't just a problem of bad writing, although that's annoying too.