A Compelling Argument that the 25th Amendment Is Useless.

[NNadir]

The Orange Pedophile clearly has dementia, but the 25th Amendment is clearly incapable of addressing this very sick individual. I buy this argument from Newsweek:

Removing Trump Via the 25th Amendment Is Virtually Impossible. Should Dems Push for It Anyway?

Excerpts:

President Donald Trump has recently exhibited behavior that in anyone else—let alone someone his age—would cause an emergency call to a doctor.

Claiming he invented the word “groceries.” Repeatedly bragging about acing cognitive tests when no one was asking. Falling asleep—on camera, in public meetings, multiple times—including right after denying that he falls asleep in meetings (then saying that it was him “blinking” ... in related news, Ronald Reagan is currently enjoying an “extended nap”). Endless, repeated, nonsensical rambles about snakes and magnets. Wandering off while meeting the Japanese prime minister.

Dozens of leading psychiatrists have already identified “unmistakable” signs of dementia in Trump, but any reasonable person who isn’t in the grip of MAGA fever (not a DSM-5 condition but probably should be) can see what’s happening.

Then, in the past two weeks, a truly alarming turn. “Unlike normal aging, which is characterized by forgetting names or words, Trump repeatedly shows something very different: confusion about reality," retired Harvard Medical School professor Dr. Lance Dodes once told Newsweek in 2024.

No kidding, doc...

...Sure, in theory, it’s doable: The vice president and a majority of the Cabinet just write a letter to the president pro tempore of the Senate and the speaker of the House of Representatives with their declaration that the “president is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”

In practice, no way. For one thing, the president can simply write his own letter saying “I’m fine” (or in Trump’s case “I’ve got the greatest mental health of anyone EVER and also I’m the Duke of Antarctica!”). The Cabinet can write a second letter back saying “no you’re not” but before they get there, Trump can just fire them all. And even if he forgets to do that—which let’s face it, could happen—the removal question gets kicked to the House and Senate where it needs a two-thirds vote in both to pass...

What was once the most powerful nation on Earth, not just militarily, but in other major areas, including its once preeminent scientific prowess, is collapsing and being destroyed for one of the most unbelievable causes: A sick, stupid, ugly, racist man riding mysteriously into the highest office in the land.

We're screwed.

[Fiendish Thingy]

1. It's not that removal via the 25th is so difficult

It’s that congress is so cowardly.

Republicans forced Nixon out, but 50 years later, most are too afraid, or too tribally loyal to remove someone far less competent and much more dangerous.

The consequences of the midterms may change all that. (No, they won’t be cancelled)

Although the required threshold for removal, either by the 25th or impeachment may never be reached, I do think we will see more republicans, both elected and rank and file, turn against Trump before his term is up.

PS- Newsweek is a RW rag, and not a recommended source for news or opinion.

[NNadir]

2. I have a good friend who attends public science meetings with me who offered, over a year ago, an extremely...

...pessimistic prediction that the United States would fall and the Orange Pedophile would be the cause.

I was dismissive of the argument; saying the Orange Pedophile would never return to power.

I have apologized to him for being dismissive.

You are entitled to your optimism of course, but as an old man, living in a collapsing world, I have lost any semblance of it.

This morning we had Federal Agents storm an office responsible for the integrity of elections in order to satisfy a senile nutcase who now wants to try President Obama for treason.

I no longer share the optimism anymore that fair elections will be held in this country. Soothsaying is generally noted for being as useless as the 25th amendment is in this case.

PS: I'm a grown up, and I really, really, really, really don't need to be lectured about the integrity of news sources. I have lived and preached critical thinking for many years and waded through loads of bullshit both in my professional and private life. While one should consider the source (and I'm not at all familiar with Newsweek anymore) the posted article, which notes that the Orange Pedophile has dementia, hardly a right wing talking point, makes an argument that I can accept. The 25th amendment is useless in this case.

It doesn't matter if the article were written by the ghost of Rush Limbaugh, the point is well made.

The source has no bearing on whether or not the argument is well thought out and presents a viable case. I do believe that that boy Vance may actually be worse, but either way, the United States is collapsing from Constitutional dysfunction.

[Fiendish Thingy]

6. I'm an old man with opinions too

Newsweek gave space to John Eastman (yes, that John Eastman) for a column claiming Harris was ineligible to be VP because her parents were immigrants. The magazine frequently has articles with the “Dems in disarray” framing, but of course none critical about republicans.

The article you posted was barely coherent enough to be suitable for a rant on DU, let alone meet journalistic standards for national publications.

But, of course, that’s just my opinion.

What isn’t my opinion, but is a measureable fact, is that Dems have been over performing in special elections for over a year, and the trend does not look like it will stop before November.

There will be plenty of ratfuckery and shenanigans in the lead up to the midterms by desperate republicans, but I do not believe they will successfully overpower all the dedicated public officials working to ensure the integrity of elections, despite what happened in Georgia yesterday.

[NNadir]

15. And your point is what?

That a source publishing something by John Eastman means that now publishes the argument that the Orange Pedophile has dementia but will not be removed by the 25th amendment means he will be removed by it?

Again, you're entitled to your optimism, but I regret, I am incapable of sharing it.

As for the history of Newsweek, I couldn't care less about its general tenor; this article strikes me as one making a viable argument that strikes me as distressingly realistic.

[EdmondDantes_]

9. Why is Newsweek a right wing source?

Nothing seems to validate that from the bias checker search I just did.

[Fiendish Thingy]

12. Bias checkers can themselves be biased

Newsweek gave John Eastman (yes, that John Eastman) space for a column that claimed Harris was ineligible to be VP because her parents were immigrants. This was just a couple of weeks before the 2020 election.

Newsweek often frames stories slanted against Dems, using “Dems in disarray” framing. They sanewash Trump’s ravings (I’m guessing a bias checker wouldn’t screen for omissions of reporting obvious cognitive decline).

[onenote]

14. Yes, but the situation in 1974 was markedly different than the situation today

Nixon was forced out only because a number of repubs did the right thing. But it didn't require that many republicans to do so.
In the House, the Democrats had a roughly 50 vote advantage over the Republicans, making the adoption of articles of impeachment a slam dunk, with or without repub support. Even so, two articles failed to get majority Democratic support and none of them got majority republican support. In the Senate, the Democrats had 56 or 57 seats. Today, we have ten fewer seats, making the bar for convicting the president significantly higher.

Put another way -- if the respective shares of the House and Senate in 1974 were what they are today, Nixon probably would have stayed in office.

[Wounded Bear]

3. The entire US Constitution depends on people doing the right thing...

Problem is, too many people put their own self interest above the collective good, a condition seemingly engrained into the American DNA from the start. We need more people with a sense of empathy for others and altruism toward societal needs in government.

[unblock]

5. In this case they corrupted the constitutional offices

with people more loyal to the right wing power structure than to the constitution. They abuse and misuse their constitutional powers to serve the interests of a different power structure.

If they all just do what the president says by decree, and use their constitutional powers merely to prevent opposition, then the constitutional becomes a worthless piece of paper at best.

At worst, it becomes something that actually prevents us from defending it.

[NNadir]

16. Well yes. The US Constitution was written by people imbued with the philosophical values of the "enlightenment..."

...albeit weighed by the value that only White Men mattered among the "enlightened," an artifact disturbingly resurrected in modern times, although apparently it has been perverted into practice that the entire country is supposed to believe that only a white man painted orange matters.

I think that the once brilliant scheme of checks and balances, now reduced to absurdity by the rise of a kind of collective madness in a single political party, was designed to contain the worst impulses of people.

This said, a political system that posits that human beings will always respond to the genetics of being social animals with emphasis on the collective good is surely a naive system that will ultimately fail. On this basis it is surprising that the American democracy survived as long as it did before collapsing as it now doing.

I suspect that there is an element of "too many rats in the cage" that's driving this collapse into desperate fascism not just here, but around the world, since the Earth is well beyond its carrying capacity physically, with the planetary stasis in which humanity evolved and developed is clearly degrading rapidly. It's a subtle point, but is also one that I have come to credit.

[misanthrope]

18. Two factors I believe have contaminated Constitutional balance most of all

The first is the advent of massive wealth on a scale never seen in human history. Yes, we had Gilded Age robber barons who amassed riches and skirted beyond the law. The Progressive Era at least attempted to rein in those malefactors.

The second was telecommunications. When Madison Avenue discovered the previously unknown power visual telecommunications held for influencing the human psyche, they struck gold. They were able to amplify the most selfish of human instincts and reconfigured our cultural norms to an extent that unfettered consumption and materialism was equated with our most idealistic foundational values. It was a seen as "un-American" to throttle egoistic avarice. Intellect and self-determination fell even further behind in its race with consumption as a governing force.

That same greed leaked into our Fourth Estate and ruined it. That had an effect on society as well.

When we made the jump to pocket computers, Americans no longer had to unplug from the propaganda to go about their daily business. Not only could they stay engaged, but the inevitable isolation from their immediate communities had an impact.

[NNadir]

19. I generally agree. There is an Orwellian aspect to it, not exactly the system he predicted, but close.

[misanthrope]

21. Don't forget Huxley

Our soma is on the web.

[unblock]

4. It was really just designed for genuine incapacitation

Like a coma or severe stroke situation where the president really can function.

But it was really designed to make sure it would never be used as a soft coup, a way the vice president to usurp the office. So the bar was meant to be really high.

Note that purely as a matter of math, removal by impeachment is actually easier. Impeachment only requires majority in the house and 2/3rds in the senate for removal; the 25th amendment requires 2/3rds in both houses in addition to involvement if the vice president and cabinet.

Arguably, being manifestly unable to perform the duties of office constitutes a "high crime and misdemeanor" (neglect of office, if nothing else).

So yeah, I suppose the power to remove via the 25th doesn't really add anything. I suppose it lets the president be removed without a "trial" or any implication of wrongdoing.

[NNadir]

13. Yes, I understand the point and fully agree. The problem is that the US Constitution, now declared...

...Unconstitutional by the right wing thug John Roberts and his coterie of Supreme fascists, cannot function anymore in the modern world, particularly one in which the human life span has extended into regions where one can be still alive and not really intellectually alive anymore.

I used to laugh at France, which went through four "republics" before landing in a fifth.

Our Constitution sort of falls into the space of the title of an old blues song, "You've been a good ole' wagon, but daddy you done broke down."

Of course, we do not have anyone of the caliber of James Madison or Alexander Hamilton, or the prestige of a Washington to give us a viable "Second Republic."

For Christmas on 2024, my son gave me the interesting book Fears of a Setting Sun about the Founders disillusionment with the Government they created with the Constitutional Convention. I really do need to read it; I just haven't gotten to it. Without having read it I do know that one of the fears arose from the rise of political parties, which are, in fact, the source of the current crisis, as well as the mechanism of mass media morphing into mass propaganda, as well as the unrestricted power of money. The Republican party is now a mob of vicious criminal minds of bad intent.

There will be a tragic fall; suggesting to me that I really should read another book on my shelves that I actually should read:

The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century

Subtitle:

How only violence and catastrophes have consistently reduced inequality throughout world history.

As for our Constitution:

It's been a good old wagon, but it's a wagon, not a bullet train or a jet.

[Shrek]

7. The 25th amendment wasn't really meant for this

It was passed in the wake of the Kennedy assassination to cover cases where the President is in a coma or is otherwise clearly unable to discharge the duties of the office.

If the President is erratic or otherwise acting like a crazy person -- well, that's a subjective judgment. There will always be enough people who say "no he's not, he's fine."

[onenote]

11. Correct. The standard is objective: is the president able to exercise the powers and duties of the office

While half or more of the country is of the view that Trump's decision making and behavior is irrational, a substantial portion of the country does not see it that way. The test was intended to be objective -- is he able to discharge the powers and duties of the office, not a judgment on how the president is doing so. Indeed, the problem we have is that he is exercising the powers and duties of the office -- he is signing legislation, making appointments and nominations, conducting foreign policy etc etc -- if he was unable to do so, we wouldn't have him making all these terrible decisions

To the extent he is carrying out his duties and powers in an unconstitutional fashion -- and he is -- that is what impeachment, a lower bar than the 25th amendment -- is intended to address

[MineralMan]

8. The 25th Amendment Was Never Designed to Remove an Unpopular President

That's not the purpose of the Amendment. So, it will not be a tool for a hostile removal of Trump.

That simply won't work. You just have to read it to know that. Without the cooperation of the VP and cabinet, it will never get started.

[PBC_Democrat]

10. Section 4 of the 25th Amendment was never intended ...

to be used to remove an unpopular, or even misbehaving, president.

It was enacted after the assassination of JFK as lawmakers pondered what would have happened if he had not been declared deceased. A president in a coma would have been a nation legislative nightmare. All of the powers reserved for the president would be on hold - they would NOT have automatically fallen to the VP.

If the Democrats in congress believe that they can sway public opinion enough to pressure Republicans to vote for impeachment then they should pursue it, I doubt that it would be successful.

Personally, I think we're better off with Trump than we would be with Vance. My fear is a President Vance who comes across as normal and reunites the Republican party in time to run as a successful incumbent president.

[sarisataka]

17. So what is the solution?

What should the process be to remove an incompetent President that cannot be easily weaponized to remove a President who is simply unliked by the opposition?

The processes for removal are difficult to prevent them from being used frivolously. It is not the fault of the Constitution if Congress (Republicans) refuses to do its duty and remove an incompetent criminal president

[NNadir]

20. While I can state the problem, I cannot offer a corrective. I would support a rewritten Constitution but there...

...surely no individuals on the horizon competent to do as much, nor would their be popular collective will to agree. Our polarization is destroying us.

It is the case, by analogy, that a doctor may be able to diagnose cancer, but be unable to cure it.

It may require an apocalypse of the type Germany experienced in the 1940's in order to return to sanity.

[sarisataka]

25. That is a good analogy

And to continue it, congress is the insurance company who is refusing to approve the lifesaving treatment

[FakeNoose]

22. The problem with the 25th Amendment is that it must be initiated by the Vice President

The VP calls the "secret" meeting of the Cabinet, where they discuss and vote on it. If the VP never calls the meeting, then it's not going to happen. But what if the VP is in on it? What if there's some kind of secret agreement going on that the VP will never call a meeting to discuss 25A? This is what we're facing here.

The Amendment was written before we had cellphones and 24-hour news cycles. It's impossible for secret meetings to take place in Washington, too many eyes and ears, too many leakers. Too many people have kissed the ring on bended knees.

[NNadir]

23. If the United States survives intact, something I suspect is highly uncertain, we may wish to consider a system...

...of a parliamentary nature, that is removal by a "no confidence" motion.

As the Orange Pedophile has appeared, the need for a new mechanism of rapid correction, in a rapidly changing world, is glaringly clear.

[leftstreet]

24. +1 Impeachment has become a joke

Trump's been impeached like 50 times, but no one would remove him

A mechanism like No Confidence has always seemed a no-brainer to me

[viva la]

26. I think JD Vance is sufficiently ambitious to be feeling out cabinet sentiment about this....

But he's also sufficiently craven that he'll never go through with it.

[NNadir]

27. He's a big problem, evil but passably sane. I can only refer to my Christmas fantasy I posted herein:

Is President Jeffries in 2027 More Probable Than the Universe that Exists?

[viva la]

28. I'll ask for that in my letter to Santa!