Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Is It Time to Invoke the 25th Amendment?
We live in extraordinary times. Wednesday’s anonymous op-ed from a senior Trump administration official describing a resistance inside the White House to thwart the President is one of the most extraordinary things I have ever read. It is hard for me to imagine such a thing being written or published during any other presidency in my lifetime.
The piece describes a President Trump who is so unstable and unfit to govern, both in terms of his erratic behavior, and what the author describes as his “amorality.” Such a thing might be outlandish if there weren’t ample public evidence of both. I suspect Trump’s reaction to this op-ed will provide further demonstrations in the near future.
Usually the normal mechanisms of our political system keep obviously unfit people out of office, but they failed spectacularly in 2016. I suppose it’s a good thing that Trump’s own staff are limiting his destruction, but it is far from optimal, and things should not continue as they are.
You know, if grandpa is driving so poorly that he’s going to drive the car you’re riding in off a cliff, it’s probably prudent to grab the wheel and steer away from from the edge of the road. But ideally he shouldn’t be driving.
Fortunately, there is a mechanism to remove a president clearly unable to do the job: the 25th Amendment. Section 4 sets up a clear system by which an incapable president can be lawfully removed from office. If there are so many members of the president’s administration who see that he is incapable of doing the job, they should remove him from office.
The system works like this: The Vice-President and a majority of the Cabinet send a letter to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House saying the President is unable to discharge his office. The President has a chance to respond. If he does, the Veep and a majority of the Cabinet must confirm their initial declaration. At which point the VP becomes acting President, and then Congress has 21 days to confirm the declaration by a 2/3 vote.
Obviously, this would be extraordinary. Section 4 has never been invoked, partially because the 25th Amendment was only ratified 52 years ago, and partially because we’ve never had someone so wholly unfit as President before.
I’m sure there’s examples of staff preventing presidential actions in every presidency. I can think of a tale from the Watergate period, when Nixon was drinking heavily, and Henry Kissinger told the head of SAC that if he ever got a call from Nixon in the middle of the night telling him to launch an attack on Russia, that he should ignore it. But that example (if it’s true) is an outlier.
The New York Times op-ed mentions that “there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment” because of “instability many witnessed.” But it was decided against, because no one wanted to create a constitutional crisis.
The greater harm, the greater crisis, would be in allowing this situation to continue. There is a clear mechanism for removing a president who cannot do the job. Grabbing the wheel away from Trump so he doesn’t drive us off a cliff is not sufficient. He should be removed from the drivers seat.
Published in General
Buffalo Rube: Say kids, what time is it?
Kids: It’s Trump
ImpeachmentRemoval Time!It’s Trump
ImpeachmentRemoval Time.It’s Trump
ImpeachmentRemoval Time.Deep State and Never Trumpers too
Say Trump
ImpeachRemove to you.Let’s give a rousing cheer,
Cause Trump
ImpeachmentRemoval’s here,It’s time to start the show,
So kids let’s go!
Gary: Do you know many off the internet that share your view on that?
Fred has reached the end of the internet? Congrats.
BUT… The internet is not America. Twitter is not real life. I don’t particularly care to run this country on the basis of the outrage mob on the web, or for that matter, the outrage mob in the newsrooms of New York and Washington.
Until “Anonymous” identifies himself there is no reason to do anything. We brought one presidency to its knees on a pissed off FBI agent who wanted anonymity, let’s not do that Willy-nilly again.
It’s time we started seriously debating the pros and cons of a more parliamentary system.
We could amend the US Constitution so that removing a President from office would require only a simple majority of the House and a simple majority of the Senate. Congress would not need to establish that the President committed a crime, but could use it’s power simply because a majority believed the President was moving the nation in the wrong direction or not faithfully executing the laws of the land.
So, the next time a president says that he can’t wait until Congress acts, as Obama did, the President would be risking impeachment and removal. The next time a President committed American troops to armed conflict without the support of Congress, the President would be risking impeachment and removal.
This change in the Constitution would provide a better check against Presidential usurpation of power. Sure, it could be used against Trump, but it could be used against any President.
Now, even if my idea for a Constitutional Amendment were adopted, Trump still would likely not be removed from office unless the Democrats won both the House and the Senate and also believed that letting Nancy Pelosi ascend from Speaker of the House to the Presidency (after removing both Trump and Pence) was preferable to simply waiting until the 2020 election.
Agreed. In lieu of that strict editorial standard, we count on the good judgement of contributors, etc., to use their posting ability wisely.
I do think that it would be a courtesy, to Ricochet and its members, to refrain from putting stuff on the Main Feed that is obviously going to generate a disproportionately negative response — a response that will probably cast Ricochet in a bad light on the larger web — and yet that is neither sufficiently substantive nor in other respects worthy.
In this case, the original post cites an unsubstantiated anonymous opinion piece, published on a biased and hostile editorial page, that makes vague, unverifiable claims about the President — and then, without offering any kind of argument or attempt at perspective, suggests removing that President on no stronger basis than that anonymous opinion piece.
Since your intention was undoubtedly not to troll — that is, not merely to illicit a negative response — can you tell me what you believe the most plausible immediate dangers are to allowing the man we elected to continue serving as President? Anything that would justify the extraordinary act of invoking the 25th Amendment, an act which would surely strain the political fabric of our country and almost certainly lead to violence?
Moderator Note:
1. You missed the SSM wars, this is but a shadow of those times, a ghostly echo. 2. I think the record is in the 30s.Though I’ve only been a Ricochet member for a year or so, I think Fred Cole’s post set at least two records:
(1) Likes to Replies ratio. As of now, it is a 1 to 112 ratio. That might be a record, like DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak, that will be hard to beat.
(2) Greatest number of comments that have disappeared into the ether (“redacted). Right now I think the number is 7, though I’m not going back through all 112 to check that figure.
Well done, Fred. You da man!
This post being on the Main Feed might also cause some to want to join us to combat such silliness.
We might also win allies with our witty and pithy comments.
At any rate, the high rate of comments in such a short time indicates that people want to talk about this, and where better than here?
The op-ed has no supporting evidence within it. It is, however, supported by vast swaths of other reports from inside and out, not all of them anonymous, plus Trump’s public statements and actions. All you need to do is watch a rally to realize the reports of incoherent, repetitive, rambling are grounded in reality.
I disagree with your reading and interpretation here. Here’s what’s operative:
You cannot bypass the Vice President.
Your interpretation would indeed lead to a constitutional crisis, because the “meaning” of the applicable clauses in this section would then in turn get hung up in courts, dragging out well beyond 2020.
Link
This is like “The Death Of Stalin” LOL
I don’t know. But I really don’t care. The truth is a majority all by itself.
Has he? Or have those accomplishments occurred in spite of Trump?
Where better? In the Member Feed, which is where I think this belongs. I’d like to see Ricochet thrive, and I don’t think this post is representative of Ricochet’s membership, representative of the center-right position, or sufficiently thoughtful to warrant putting forth as an example of the kinds of conversations that go on here.
It’s an outlier, as are so many of Fred’s anti-Trump pieces. I don’t mind outliers, think them healthy even, but I don’t think it’s a good thing to lead with our most divisive and discordant pieces. It just seems bad for business.
Nobody that I know in real life ( pro or anti Trump) is talking about this. I am starting to think I spend too much time online
Given nuclear weapons, this would make a great deal of sense. However, I would want a super-majority, say 60%?
No. It would require the VP and half the cabinet to step forward and do what needs to be done.
I call on them to do so.
The time to invoke the 25th Amendment would be done when those who would need to invoke think it correct.
Not some anonymous op-ed that confirms suppositions and indulges in fantasy.
This whole conversation makes light of true mental illness in my opinion. It’s especially hypocritical that the kind of people who put forward this nonsense pretend to be Native American, dress up as TV characters as mature discourse and have imaginary friends named T-Bone.
If Donald Trump nominated a block of cheese riding a pink unicorn that sang Jim Croce songs to be the new Secretary of Energy, I’d consider that mental illness. Saying things I’m offended about makes him obnoxious and we’ve had obnoxious Presidents.
I can’t wait for the first media organization to take that position, officially.
After all, look how bad the economy stayed for eight years in spite of Obama. Now the economy is doing well in spite of Trump! Boy talk about a contrary economy.
I think I got it. There is no editorial policy that controls what’s suitable to publish, but an editor looks at all submissions to make sure they’re suitable to publish.
What will this psychiatrist say?
Basically, Obama off the TelePrompTer.
You see what you want to see because you don’t like him. There is a visceral reaction there that taints everything it touches.
Confirmation bias?
The reason why I like a simple majority instead of 60% or the current 67% is that control of both chambers of Congress could potentially change who is President. I think this would make members of Congress more accountable and the President less capable of doing whatever he wants, including not enforcing current laws he disagrees with.
A 60% threshold would essentially mean that the President would never have to take removal from office seriously because of partisan politics. With a 50% plus 1 requirement, partisan politics would be sufficient to remove a president.
In the current situation, the GOP could decide to replace Trump with Pence. But they would have to accept the political blowback.
There are three likes, so it is a 1:43 ratio. Counting Fred as a like reduces it to 1:32 ratio.
That is not appropriate to say to anyone whether you agree with them or not.
I’d try to get the unicorn a gig on late night teevee.
I disagree with this 100%.
First, it’s essentially a heckler’s veto, which I reject on general principle. “Oh we can’t put this up, it’ll make people cry,” seems like a terrible standard. It’s highly subjective and would be impossible to do fairly.
Second, the point of Ricochet is to have debate and discussion. Your suggestion works against that. It might shut off something that would be interesting.
Third, what reflects well on Ricochet is when people come and find an interesting diversity of discussion. Otherwise Ricochet is just part of the regular right-wing echo chamber. The thing that casts Ricochet in a negative light is when commenters take “I disagree” as an excuse to act poorly. Fortunately that’s only a tiny, tiny percentage of members.
I think I had others, but they slipped away for a moment. But this suggestion of yours might make an interesting post.
I must confess, I am not an expert in parsing the constitution. Formerlawprof, is Jim right?
Just to put things in historical perspective, no president has been removed from office by either the impeachment process or the 25th Amendment. Only Nixon’s resignation comes close because Nixon feared that he would lose the vote in the Senate.
So, in all reality, Fred’s post is interesting in terms of analyzing how well Trump is doing his job. But the only thing that could cause Trump to leave the Oval Office is defeat at the ballot box in 2020. Given the insanity that exists within the Democrat party these days, it doesn’t look good for the Donks right now.
The current economic recovery started under Obama. I know it’s inconvenient and unpopular to say, but that’s how it is.