Yesterday I wrote a post suggesting among other things that while Donald Trump is clearly unravelling, we can't count on Bob Mueller to save us.
And managed to depress the hell out of MYSELF.
Because Trump is clearly both crazy and dangerous...
And this isn't a good sign either...
But today I'm feeling a lot better.
For if we can't arrest him, and we can't impeach him.
Even before Donald Trump became president, people were wondering how long it would be before his behavior became so atrocious or erratic or corrupt that he’d be driven from office. In many ways, Trump has proven to be even worse than we feared. Not only has he not grown and matured, if anything he has become even more infantile and cretinous.
But let’s have some straight talk: A Trump impeachment is only a remote possibility, and promoting it now doesn’t do anyone any good.
There's always the 25th Amendment.
According to the 25th Amendment, if the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet declare to Congress “that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.”
For it's not as if there isn't enough evidence to drag him away on a stretcher or in a straitjacket...
His own aides treat him like an unruly toddler who has to be tricked and manipulated into not causing too much damage, an effort that often requires them to go to unusual lengths.
Other reports quote his own aides and associates describing him as “unstable” and “unraveling,” and explain how aides deal with his impulsive demands by pretending they’ll act on them until, they hope, he forgets what he asked for.
And if that isn't enough there is always this.
Which is either delusions of grandeur, or full blown psychosis.There’s nothing I can add to this pic.twitter.com/QJW3ukhXUG— Stephen Fry (@stephenfry) October 13, 2017
But of course, although I don't doubt that Mike Pence is ready and willing to step in at any time...
The problem is there wouldn't be much left of the Republican party.
Here’s the reality Republicans will have to grapple with: If Trump is removed, either through impeachment or the 25th Amendment, it will be a political calamity that will haunt them for years, even decades. Even if some measure of normalcy and order is restored under President Pence — who from my point of view as a liberal would be an awful president, but who at least would be unlikely to start a war because somebody insulted him on Twitter — the GOP would almost certainly suffer terrible electoral defeats in the short term and profound damage to its reputation in the long term.
So we can't count on them, and we're just going to have to remove him ourselves the hard way, with a ballot in 2020.
If Mueller or Batman don't put him away first...
But I still can't help thinking, how much easier it would have been if Trump had accepted a role in this movie...
For then he never would have been a "real" president.
And wouldn't this have been a better ending?
Wait, did someone say Ann Coulter played the Vice President?
Gawd. It's almost the weekend isn't it?
Good, I need it.
Have a great one everybody...
Here's what the United States would look like under a Pence presidency:
ReplyDeletehttp://viableopposition.blogspot.ca/2017/09/impeaching-trump-and-america-under.html
President Pence would do little to undo the political polarization that America has experienced over the past two decades since his voting record suggests that he leans rather heavily to the right side of the political spectrum.
It's a "heads they win, tails we lose" situation. Not only would Pence do nothing to undo American polarization (which appears to be more or less entrenched and permanent), the fact that he's not an incompetent, uncontrollable distraction would mean the Republicans actually get to govern -- and pass their Stepford Wives, Handmaid's Tale agenda. Not to mention the further entrenchment of privatization and the dark-money takeover by the Kochs, Mercers and so on.
DeleteThe media would breathe a sigh of relief that finally, someone in the White House is "presidential" again, not threatening to lock up or beat up journalists, or grab anyone in their bleeding whatevers, or lobbing paper towels at hurricane flood victims. Also, Pence rarely tweets, so at last, it'd be all quiet on the digital front.
But as you said, Pence is one of those far-right theocrats to be afraid of -- he's further to the right even than Dubya. He's Milquetoast Harper with Scheer's agenda. Except I don't even think Harper was such a weirdo that he called Laureen "Mother." Pence isn't just a domestic threat to separation of church and state; he's a Dominionist who'd be perfectly happy to amp up the war machine in the Middle East to bring about the "end times." All the while, extracting resources for the rich and slaughtering the godless heathen infidels who get in the way of the most powerful mercenary forces of the shining turd on a hill.
The U.S. is a failed experiment on the verge of a soft-fascist coup and/or an outright civil war. The jobs situation is not improving, and is in fact only getting worse because the U.S. is scientifically ignorant, hostile to government investment in infrastructure and people, and therefore has absolutely no answers to what's going to happen when the robots do finally "take all our jobs." People get bigly restless and look for a scapegoat when they can't pay the bills and don't have a job to take up their time. Coal isn't coming back, but we won't invest in renewables because that would give Rexxon and his buddies a sad. We treat education like a commodity and a football training camp, and teachers and professors like fifth-column subversives who deserve to be punished with poverty for promoting the life of the mind.
Canadians should be glad they have a geeky teacher in charge instead of a deranged TV star who "loves the poorly educated" or a Norman Bates-esque rural fundamentalist who clearly believes that the Bible supersedes the Constitution. Canada is pretty polarized too though, but if Justin stays in office long enough to keep steering the ship, at least you guys will stay on the right side of history from the north side of the Orange Curtain. We Yanks have to spend at least the next three years falling behind, leading from the rear -- and looking down the field at his end zone.
It's easier to remove the President through impeachment than through the 25th Amendment.
ReplyDeleteYou've only set out the first part of the procedure under the 25th Amendment. After the cabinet coup that puts the VP in power, the President resumes his power simply by informing Congress that he's able to preform his duties. The only way that can be challenged is with another cabinet coup that informs Congress that the President remains incapable. At that point, only a two-thirds vote by BOTH the House and the Senate removes the President. Note that the 25th can only be used to remove a President who lacks the capacity to perform his duties. To establish that for a mental disability, you'd need expert evidence. While many experts agree that Trump displays signs of narcissistic personality disorder, the guy who introduced NPD into the DSM says he doesn't have it. Finally, the SCOTUS hasn't ruled on the 25th Amendment so it's possible for a president to tie things up in the courts until it does.
By contrast, impeachment under Article 2 requires only a simple majority of the House and a two-thirds majority of the Senate to remove the President. It can be done for anything Congress deems to be a "high crime and misdemeanour." And the SCOTUS has already ruled that federal courts can't review decisions to impeach. Impeachment is the way to go.
The 25th would be the perfect sword to dangle over Trump's head when he goes off half-cocked which is usually full-time.
ReplyDeleteMuch like a parent hates to play the blackmail game with their kids, it usually settles down an unruly child. How amusing it is to picture Pence disciplining Trump, "Donald, give us back the nuclear codes and you can keep your job, tata! Now go to your room!"
If it doesn't work then pull the plug on the big f__king moron.
JD
Dotard can't even count to 25. He's already crapped all over every amendment except the sacrosanct Second. Which is exactly the Republican agenda -- a sadistic and insane manifesto in and of itself. Erase everything in the Constitution except guns, the "right" to have religion poke in other people's lives, and the right to declare guns a religion that pokes into other people's skulls. Replace it with something that would make the Puritans shudder and Hitler raise an eyebrow. Don't say "Arbeit Macht Frei," it's a foreign language! Say "God helps those who help themselves." This message brought to you by "Americans for Prosperity" and George Orwell spinning in his grave.
DeleteTrump's behavior may be erratic, but unfortunately, it's not possible to declare a 5150 (California legal code for involuntary mental-health sectioning) on an entire political party. Besides, we've had presidents who've done far worse -- beating your wife, raping slaves, genociding Indians, inviting the Klan to the White House -- all of which gets dismissed by the natural governing party with little more than a shrug and a chuckle about presidents and their colorful character. Democrats are always the real "mental patients," what with all their delusions of grandeur about social reform and making billionaires pay tithes. Heck, Jimmy Carter was crazier than the legitimate Alzheimer's patient who followed him, because he had an undiagnosed condition of "national identity disorder." Here he was being all nice and friendly and putting solar paneling on the White House and sunny ways in the national character... what'd he think he was? Some kind of Canadian?
Clearly, there's a pretty high bar you have to clear in America before being declared too sick or especially too crazy to occupy 1600 Penn. FDR hid his polio and then died in office, but made it through an unprecedented (and now, constitutionally impossible) four terms. Kennedy had Addison's disease, but it took a "second amendment solution" to get rid of him and keep his brother away. (Both brothers, if you consider whether Ted's infamous incident in Chappaquiddick was the result of P.T.S.D. and hitting the bottle.) Republicans would 25A Hillary for coughing. If they could have removed Obama under the 25A for having a "hyper-pigmentation skin condition," they would have in a heartbeat. Assuming that he wasn't 2A'ed like Kennedy first.
Were this a sane country, however, if a psychiatric examination was required before running for political office, 100% of the GOP would be listed as sociopaths and disqualified from holding office. Can't have that... "wouldn't be prudent..."
Oct. 5/17: 'The Dangerous Case Of Donald Trump': 27 Psychiatrists Assess
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nhoGIvOKJU
Duty To Warn
http://www.adutytowarn.org/
OCT 14: Find Your Event! Want Trump removed under the 25th Amendment?
On October 14th, meet the mental health experts behind the movement Duty To Warn.
View the documentary engage with a panel of experts and help us send the petition to Congress!
Duty to Warn: The Movie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaFJT-LU8lU
Petitioning President Trump's Cabinet:
ReplyDeleteMental Health Professionals Declare Trump is Mentally Ill And Must Be Removed
https://www.change.org/p/trump-is-mentally-ill-and-must-be-removed
Video Archive: Duty to Warn
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC21Hbot7e5c1fShNnpqc5_w
Mental Health Professionals Warn About Trump
http://www.lancedodes.com/new-york-times-letter
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/13/opinion/mental-health-professionals-warn-about-trump.html
Feb. 22/17: "Duty to warn" on MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell Show
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzXq9v3T_Lo
Trump: A Psychiatrist's View
ReplyDeletehttps://youtube.com/watch?v=HgdTAFACABY
The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-time-cure/201709/the-dangerous-case-donald-trump
The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President (Oct. 3/17)
https://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Case-Donald-Trump-Psychiatrists/dp/1250179459/
Trump: "Once and for all, we will have great healthcare in our country."
ReplyDeleteRepublicans Cheer as Trump Throws Sick Americans Into Turmoil
https://www.thedailybeast.com/republicans-cheer-as-trump-throws-sick-americans-into-turmoil
[snip]
I can’t think of a time a president has gone out of his way, and he really did, to put citizens at direct risk—deliberately and openly causing people to suffer. And for what? To erase from the books a law that bears the name of his hated predecessor. This isn’t close to normal. Other presidents want to undo the work and legacies of predecessors with whom they disagreed, sure. But they haven’t done it like this, playing with the lives of Americans, and with no Plan B to replace what they’re taking away.
[snip]
American ‘Christianity’ Has Failed
https://sojo.net/articles/american-christianity-has-failed
[snip]
The election of President Donald Trump has proven that numerous Christians are more worried about power, influence, and control than the gospel messages of humility, generosity, ministering to others, and love.
Of course there are exceptions, but it should be sobering for Christians to realize that that many who claim to follow the Prince of Peace, the Healer, the Light of the World, supported policies that are bringing darkness and pain to so many people.
These presidential orders, which will refuse help to many of the world’s most vulnerable individuals, are what many Christians voted for. This is the fruit of their political labor, but it’s not the Fruit of the Spirit. In fact, love, joy, peace, happiness, and self-control are notably absent from the current administration.
The gospel of Jesus has been traded in for a narrative of fear.
[snip]