This week we have crossed the Rubicon. Trump’s continued presence in The Oval Office no longer simply risks the continued existence of the United States as a democracy, but risks the lives of 50 million South Koreans ( plus the 28,500 American troops stationed there), 25 million North Koreans and the 162, 742 American citizens of Guam, at a bare minimum. Every day, Trump emerges from his lair in Bedminster and barks some bellicose gibberish that ratchets up the chaos. When his beleaguered Secretary of State tries to reassure Americans that we can sleep at night unworried by the threat of imminent nuclear war, faux adjutant and real Nazi, Sebastian Gorka, contemptuously suggests that it is foolish to think that Tillerson can speak on military matters. It begs the question, how is it reasonable to listen instead to the opinion of a white supremacist with a chest full of fake medals?
We are living a waking nightmare. Our Commander In Chief is an incurious bully who delights in escalating the hostility between nations. Trump speaks as if he is an omnipotent being who alone has the power to rain down “fire and fury” on a half -starved autocracy halfway around the world. He revels in apocalyptic brinksmanship, heedless of the lives at stake, acting as though nuclear warheads are his personal toys to deploy. The time for equivocation is long past. THIS IS NOT NORMAL!!!
We need to openly question Trump’s fitness for office in 25th amendment terms and we need our media to do the same. Yesterday, former Republican Senator Gordon Humphrey said out loud that Trump was “impaired by a seriously sick psyche,” and must be replaced as soon as possible. Humphrey said emphatically that Congress must use its powers under the 25th Amendment to the Constitution to remove Trump from office. The 25th Amendment, passed in the wake of President Kennedy’s assassination, provides a process to respond to Presidential disabilities. Section 4 of the amendment states that “whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their declaration 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.”
Can any dispassionate observer seriously doubt that Trump is manifestly unable to discharge the duties of the office of President? If Congressional Republicans could pause in their crusade to defenestrate the country on behalf of their wealthy overlords, they would be forced to admit that a president who is completely ignorant of history or geopolitical realities, who casually threatens nuclear war using 70’s Charles Bronson movie clichés, like “locked and loaded,” cannot be trusted with the singular power to launch a nuclear strike. A bill has been introduced in the House called “The Oversight Commission on Presidential Capacity Act,” to convene a body contemplated by Section 4 of the 25th Amendment to formally assess Trump’s mental fitness for office. Unless you enjoy life as an extra in our 21st Century version of “Dr. Strangelove,” call your representative and demand that they support it.