This would have been closer to the norm prior to the 17th amendment, when state legislators chose their Senators.
I think that the problem with impeachment today is that we have devolved from co-equal branches of government to unequal parties. It's no longer about the Congress against the President, or the House against the Senate; it's about Democrats vs. Republicans in every branch of government, with Democrats and the MSM having their thumbs on the scale of justice.
Senate loyalties are to the party, not the state, mostly due to the need to raise campaign funding every six years.
One would hope that a stronger allegience to the state by Senators MIGHT be enough to make impeachment and conviction more likely than it appears to be today, if only because Senators might fear for their jobs more likely if state legislatures appointed them.
-PJ
Fundamentally, the problem is thatthe MSMwire service journalism, augmented by broadcasting has become dominant. Wire service journalism (primarily the AP, but if not them, someone else would do the same thing) aspired to objectivity, which - in the context of the fractious partisan nature of pre-AP reporting - seemed like an unimpeachable idea. But “the devil is in the details” - and people never fully reckoned with the possibility that journalists might come actually to believe in their own objectivity.The trouble with a journalism which believes in its own objectivity is the same as the trouble with a faction which believes in its own wisdom. Once you know you are objective (or wise), you automatically stop doing the work of attempting to be objective (or wise). The classical problem of the Sophists (literally, “wise guys”) of ancient Greece brought forth the the classical responders, the “Philosophers” (“lovers of wisdom), who eschewed personal attacks and demanded that the subject of debate be restricted to facts and logic. The “objective” journalists of today must similarly be confronted with the fact that when they fail to consider the possibility that where they stand is influenced by where they sit, they automatically degrade into the rankest, most self-interested, partisanship.
The result is that journalists promote criticism over performance - and it is only natural that a political party would align itself unreservedly with the PR power which is journalism.
Fundamentally, the problem is thatthe MSMwire service journalism, augmented by broadcasting has become dominant as a de facto monopolistic entity. Wire service journalism (primarily the AP, but if not them, someone else would do the same thing) aspired to objectivity, which - in the context of the fractious partisan nature of pre-AP reporting - seemed like an unimpeachable idea. But “the devil is in the details” - and people never fully reckoned with the possibility and implications of journalists coming actually to believe in their own objectivity.The trouble with a journalism which believes in its own objectivity is the same as the trouble with a faction which believes in its own wisdom. Once you know you are objective (or wise), you automatically stop doing the work of actually trying to be objective (or wise). The classical problem of the Sophists (literally, “wise guys”) of ancient Greece brought forth the the classical responders, the “Philosophers” (“lovers of wisdom), who eschewed personal attacks and demanded that the subject of debate be restricted to facts and logic. The “objective” journalists of today must similarly be confronted with the fact that when they fail to consider the possibility that where they stand is influenced by where they sit, they automatically degrade into the rankest, most self-interested, partisanship.
The result is that journalists promote criticism over performance - and it is only natural that a political party would align itself unreservedly with the PR power which is journalism.
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