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Hello and welcome to another edition of the Americano podcast.

I'm sorry it's been a while since the last episode,

but that's because we've been very busy putting together and launching the first edition of the Spectator in America,

the Spectator US Edition.

And I'd like to encourage all Americano listeners to subscribe, which they can do by going to www. spectator.us, forward slash, subscribe. And there,

you can take advantage of one of our offers. I would encourage you to do that. We're all pretty pleased with the magazine and how it's come out.

So back to Americano. I am joined today by Daniel McCarthy, who is a contributing editor of Spectator USA,

as well as the editor of Modern Age. And we're going to be discussing impeachment and the future of the

Republican and Democratic parties. Dan, you wrote an excellent piece for us yesterday in which

you said that impeachment was regime suicide. Can you take us through exactly what you meant by

that? Well, the ironic thing about both the downfall of Richard Nixon

and the Bill Clinton impeachment in 1998 is that arguably both of those experiences, as unpleasant

as they were for the country, they kind of tested America's institutions and America's

institutions passed the test. So Nixon did not have to be impeached. The mere fact that

his support was collapsing and it was clear that an impeachment would happen and that he would

very likely be convicted and removed was enough to motivate him to resign. And following his

resignation, there were actually a series of much more important events involving examinations by the Church Committee and others of how the FBI and CIA and other American intelligence agencies had involved themselves in the political process. So in a way, that was actually more important, I think, in terms of sort of Americans and their understanding of their government than the Nixon resignation. But the Nixon resignation itself was a test that the country passed.

And I think everyone felt like the country had gotten beyond this.

It was over.

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