Here’s the thing.
In two short weeks, President Donald Trump has managed to sow chaos with ill-thought-out, butt-hunch executive order after executive order.
He’s managed to force the British parliament to debate whether or not he should be allowed a state visit. He’s been feted by Neo-Nazis, he’s insulted world leaders, been denounced by members of his own party and has achieved negative approval ratings in record time.
And that’s the good news.
The bad news is that people around him are starting to think he’s bat-shit crazy.
He obsesses over late-night cable television, issuing executive tweets in lieu of an actual policy direction. Conspiracy theories are given more weight than the intelligence reports he scarcely bothers to read. He happily denigrates individuals and organizations and then denies having done so.
The cheese hasn’t simply slipped off the cracker; it’s been snaffled up by a passing stray dog, regurgitated, left to bake in the sun until golden brown and then reingested.
By a different dog.
A Few Fries Short Of A Happy Meal
There have been crazy leaders before.
Roman emperor Caligula loved his horse so much that he gave it a marble stall, an ivory manger, a jeweled collar and its very own house; according to some reports, he even made it a senator.
Charles VI of France worried that he might be made of glass. He lived in perpetual terror of shattering at an inopportune moment.
Henry VI of England — the grandson of the aforementioned Charles no less –spent long periods of his reign in a catatonic state, an affliction that few of us would mind Trump emulating.
Then there’s America’s last king, George III.
We all know what happened to him.
And although kings are in some ways easier to replace than presidents, still there must be some way of removing an executive that has gone off the deep end?
No?
Impeach Mental Illness
The most obvious, most cited way of removing a president is to have him impeached. The process itself is actually relatively straight forward. The House does the impeaching and the Senate does the trying.
Still, in order to be impeached, you must have done something very naughty indeed. Bill Clinton was impeached for lying to a judge about an affair, not for having had the affair.
The idea of a president perpetually obsessed with his own brittle lack of opacity is upsetting but confusion over the type of carbon you happen to be made of is no crime.
And as such, it’s no cause for impeachment.
The founding Fathers were no doubt aware of the fragility of the human psyche — they were contemporaries of George III after all — but even so, they never got around to implementing a no crazies allowed clause.
But that’s OK. Because such a clause was added later, much later in fact.
In the aftermath of John. F. Kennedy’s assassination the rules of succession were clarified via the 25th amendment.
And there’s this cute little paragraph tucked away in section 4 that might just save is all.
Nine Swine With No Spine
The section itself begins with the lines:
“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 written 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.”
This pronouncement is actually quite staggering in its scope. The president can be replaced at the behest of a majority the principal officers of the executive departments. In other words, if nine cabinet members — of which Mike Pence is one — deem him unfit for duty then all the powers of the executive office are immediately transferred to Pence.
Alternatively, Congress can set up a committee with the specific intention of deciding whether or not the president is unfit for duty.
Whilst Trump could write a letter to the President Pro Tempore — Orin Hatch — and Speaker of the House — Paul Ryan — informing them of how ‘tremendously not incapacitated he is’ such a move might be futile.
The very same bodies that removed him from office could politely disagree with his self-assessment and ask Congress to decide the issue for them.
A two-thirds majority vote in both Houses would be required to make the retirement permanent.
Clear And Presidential Danger
Section four has never been invoked.
The closest it came was on March 30, 1981, when an ad hoc group of close presidential advisers considered — and then rejected — using it in the wake of the attempted assassination of President Reagan.
Still, conventional wisdom states that there is no way a GOP Congress would ever commit such an act. It would, after all, be deemed as treason in the eyes of Trump’s zombie faithful.
Under normal circumstances, conventional wisdom would be correct.
But these aren’t normal circumstances. Over half the country would applaud his removal.
Sure, we don’t want President Pence either but he’s just regular-GOP crazy. He’s not going to invade Mexico or insult the Australian Prime Minister. He’s not going to Nuke the ‘Chai-Knees.’
Or tweet insults at four o’clock in the morning.
Trump has made enemies, many enemies within his own rank and file. Karl Rove has labeled Trump an amateur. The nomination of billionaire Betsy DeVos to head the Department of Education is one vote shy of failing in the Republican-controlled Senate. Trump has belittled senior figures in the Republican party from day one. Many would delight in watching him crash and burn.
At any rate, his two-week run of crazy is hardly the stuff that legal coups are made of.
But if he continues to run things in such a way?
His days are numbered.
Numbered four.
A trip down memory lane? The warning signs were there…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLWaoMCUg0g
Featured image from YouTube video.
