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Have our methods become unsound?

On March 18, 2019

At 5:02 pm

In General

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Let us consider how various prominent conservative figures are viewing the president’s current mental state:

George Conwayplainly voiced his concern over President Donald Trump‘s mental state on Twitter this weekend.
The conservative lawyer and husband of White House counselor Kellyanne Conwaytweeted: “His condition is getting worse” in reference to Trump after the president fired off several posts over the weekend. In a series of tweets, Trump attacked the media, criticized and called for an investigation into Saturday Night Live, and went after late Sen. John McCain. The president also went on another anti-immigrant rant following attacks on two mosques in New Zealand on Friday, a response that led many people to again rebuke Trump for sympathizing with a white nationalist.
Conway also retweeted conservative commentator Bill Kristol, who similarly stated he believes Trump has become mentally unstable and cautioned Republicans against ignoring the president’s erratic behavior.
“Fellow Republicans, read today’s tweets and retweets. Don’t avert your eyes. Averting your eyes is refusing to come to grips with Trump’s mental condition and psychological state. It’s avoiding reality,” Kristol wrote.

Even Chris Cillizza, craven courtier to the Best People, is a useful source for curating this madness, so undeniable has it become:

It’s not just the sheer quantity of Trump tweets and retweets that are so mind-boggling. It’s what he said in them. Here’s a brief summary:
The Federal Communications Commission or Federal Election Commission should investigate whether “Saturday Night Live” and late-night talk shows are in collusion with Democrats and/or Russia because they attack him so consistently.
Attacked late Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, for allegedly sending the FBI the Steele dossier before the election — and working with Democrats to do so. (Also, Trump called McCain — who, it’s worth noting, is dead — “last in his class” at the US Naval Academy.)
Urged Fox News Channel to reinstate host Jeanine Pirro after she was suspended for questioning the patriotism of Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, who is Muslim.
Urged FNC to stand up for host Tucker Carlson, who has seen some advertisers pull out of his show following the release of a series of caustic and offensive remarks he made on a radio show between 2006 and 2011.
Accused General Motors of having “let our country down” in the wake of the news that the company was relocating four American factories.
Attacked FNC anchor Shep Smith and two other weekend anchors at Fox, alleging they had “been trained by CNN prior to their ratings collapse.”
Alleged that Democrats tried to “steal a presidential election,” calling it “the biggest scandal in the history of our country.”
Retweeted Jack Posobiec, who among other things, is a leading promoter of the Pizzagate and Seth Rich conspiracy theories.
All of this — and lots, lots more — in the space of a single day.

The Constitution of the United States has become a dysfunctional document in many profound ways, but, thanks in no small part to the late Birch Bayh, it does feature an emergency eject button: Section 4 of the 25th amendment.

Section 4 was designed to deal with, among other things, the president of the United States losing his marbles, although I realize that’s not a term in the DSM-V. The great advantage of Section 4 relative to impeachment is that it allows the president to be removed immediately, instead of giving him a chance to nuke Mexico and sell California to Saudi Arabia while impeachment proceedings wend through the legislature.

Yes I’m perfectly well aware that there’s zero chance of using the amendment at the present moment, just as there’s zero chance of removing Trump via impeachment. But that could change literally later today, or for that matter any day, because the man is crazier than Col. Kurtz.

It’s a long, long way until January 20, 2021, and of course there’s no guarantee that Trump will surrender power after he loses a rigged election thrown by the Deep State and the Fake News. Yes, he’s a coward, who has always flinched from real confrontation. But he’s now also mad as a hatter, and getting worse, so predicting what he’s going to do 22 months or 22 days or 22 hours from now is a risky proposition.

It’s bad, and it’s getting worse. Whether the system, and the people who run it, can do what’s necessary to save what’s left of it is a very open question. Dismissing out of hand any method for terminating Trump’s presidency is a mistake — one which we can hardly afford to make.