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The Boot, the President, and 9/11
A thought experiment:
What if the President (not Donald Trump, just anybody) appeared in public with a boot on his head.
Just one day, there’s a press conference in the White House Rose Garden, and for some reason, the President shows up wearing a boot on his head. It would cause talk, to be sure. (Side note, the only person who would probably think that’s perfectly normal is @jamesofengland.)
But America is a pretty chill place, so people let it slide. And then he starts wearing that boot on his head in cabinet meetings. Then every day. (I imagine he might remove it when he boards Marine One, but then again, maybe not.) And soon the boot-on-the-head is a normal thing for him. There’s even word that he sits by himself, in the residence, with the boot on his head.
That’s still a problem, right?
Generally speaking, a normal, stable, sane adult does not wear a boot on their head in public, except on special occasions. If you had a friend, or a coworker, or saw a guy on the street with a boot on his head, you would have serious questions about that person’s mental stability.
That’s kind of worse when it’s the President, right? In theory, the President makes important decisions. He has the authority to launch nuclear strikes. If a guy’s wearing a boot on his head, maybe that’s not the best job for him to have.
But it’s okay because he has staff and people around him who keep his craziness under control. Sure, he can’t really make good decisions, and he yells and screams and stuff behind closed doors, and his public statements are rambling and erratic, and … yeah, the boot, but the staff has things under control.
There are whispers among staff inside the White House about invoking the 25th Amendment, and possibly removing him from office, because it’s probably not a great idea to have a President who wears a boot on his head. But not wanting to provoke a constitutional crisis, they instead for a “two-track” presidency. The staff, through their diligent efforts, are able to mitigate the fact that the President wears a boot on his head. They steal papers off his desk. They hide things from him. They ignore his decisions. Because if they don’t do these things, the guy with the boot on his head will probably make a mess.
But then one of those staffers writes an anonymous op-ed in the New York Times explaining all the stuff they’re doing to mitigate the fact that the President wears a boot on his head and so now everybody knows about it. We all already knew about the boot. There have been press stories, and expose books, and secret recordings, and all those times where the President has gone out in public with the boot on his head.
The President denies it all, of course, and rages at the unknown staffer, but things continue.
I need to pause here and point something out: It’s a problem if the President wears a boot on his head, right?
Now, some people here may shrug it off and say “Well, there’s 4% GDP growth, the boot thing must be working.”
Yeah, but the President wears a boot on his head. You know something isn’t right there.
“Yes, but unemployment is low.”
Yeah, but the President wears a boot on his head.
“I care about his policies, not the boot on his head.”
Yeah, but the President wears a boot on his head.
“Yes, but he was lawfully elected.”
Yeah, but the President wears a boot on his head.
“Can you point to a plausible immediate danger from allowing this man with the boot on his head to continue serving as President?”
And I have to throw up my hands, because, no, I can’t. The staff is mitigating a lot of the damage the guy with the boot on his head might do. But here’s the thing, having a President with a boot on his head might work just fine.
You know, unless there’s a crisis.
When there’s another 9/11, the guy with the boot on his head ain’t the guy you want in charge. The President of the United States needs to be able to handle a major crisis if it happens. That’s his job. And he cannot discharge the duties of his office if he walks around with a boot on his head.
It doesn’t matter that 20 percent of people pretend the boot doesn’t exist. It doesn’t matter if there’s 4% GDP growth. It doesn’t matter if black unemployment is at it’s lowest level since whenever. The boot is still a problem because it shows the guy isn’t stable. When and if the bean dip hits the fan, you want a guy who doesn’t use a boot for a freakin’ hat.
And that’s the thing, you might be able to limp along while things are smooth with the boot guy as President, but if there’s a major crisis, things are going to go south very quickly. If he wears a boot on his head, he clearly isn’t up to the job.
Now, 9/11’s are pretty rare. Maybe there won’t be a major crisis. Maybe there will just be hurricane responses for him to bungle. But that doesn’t mean the boot isn’t still a problem. So if there’s a means to remove a President who wears a boot on his head from office, we should take it, because a guy like that is really unfit to be President.
Published in General
Fred. Stop it. Go to your nearest inpatient psych facility or even an inner city homeless shelter and engage in conversation with some of the people you find there. You have crossed the line from provocative to provocateur. You sound like a Libertarian version of Milo Y….(I won’t torture everyone with an attempt to spell the last name).
The clip posted of Trump belittling the reporter is evidence of Trump being an ass (remember he used this particular attack on others). It doesn’t make him insane or unfit. He’s crude. His speech is inelegant. We get it. You know what I hate? The chameleon-like candidates who adopt fake accents for their audience. Obama did it. Joe Biden did it and Hillary did it (admittedly poorly). My goodness all three of them said things as offensive as Trump did in the above clip. Did I miss the post about the boot on Obama’s or Biden’s or Hillary’s head?
Might it be it lacks the necessary Trump arse kissing? I challenge you to point out a single trump critical piece in the last 6 months on the main feed that didn’t get this type of trolling activity.
Marci, everything you just said is absolutely correct. But we should ask ourselves whether we really want Ricochet to be as hyperbolic and extreme as the rest of the Internet.
Calling for the President to be removed from office because he is exactly the man he has been for the past forty years, exactly the man the electorate knew him to be, and exactly the man we elected — calling for his removal without presenting any more evidence than that, yes, he is exactly that rude, vulgar, disagreeable, rambling, dishonest, mercurial man whom we elected, is the same kind of hyperbole we can find everywhere else. I don’t think it reflects well on us, nor does it enhance the quality of the national conversation. Let the left carry their own water. We should set a higher standard.
In my opinion.
What’s discouraging isn’t a post from someone who isn’t properly center-right. I wasn’t center-right at all when I joined (thanks, guys!). But it’s more fun to discuss things —even difficult and divisive things—when there’s more of a sense of real engagement and a willingness to take one’s conversational partners and their points of view seriously rather than just looking for a predictable rise from those with whom one disagrees.
Which isn’t to say that Fred should do anything different, only that I’m getting less and less interested in reading him, which is too bad since I like him.
You mean of the ones in which you didn’t participate?
From the Ricochet CoC:
When Contributors violate the Code of Conduct in this way, it is particularly frustrating.
Either / or. Fred gets grief because of his pov. At least man up to it.
Very nicely put.
Fred deserves the grief he gets for his silly opinions. The grief he gets has nothing to do with trolling, but has everything to do with challenging his silly opinions. Unless all criticism of Fred’s opinions constitutes trolling.
But speaking of boots…
Donald Trump has had a boot on his head for 40 years. He’s worn it on television, worn it to wrestling matches, worn it through multiple marriages, endless business deals, and countless public events. He wrote The Art of the Boot to celebrate the boot on his head. He wore that boot all the way through the campaign: he tweeted pictures of himself wearing it, he talked about the boot on his head, his supporters applauded the boot on his head, his detractors lamented the boot on his head. The boot on his head is his trademark, his brand.
The electorate looked at all that and elected the man — and his boot.
And now, boot firmly on head, he’s doing a pretty good job.
One man’s crazy is another man’s fashion statement.
The boot is a macguffin–something to move the plot along so hopefully we won’t notice we’ve seen the same movie by the same auteur on any number of occasions here.
The key in Dial M for Murder was a better macguffin. What if the President wore a key on his head?
My issue with it — and I have a pretty big issue with it — isn’t anything to do with talking about whatever problems we may have with the president, but rather with posting extreme left-wing talking points to the Ricochet Main Feed. And, in my opinion, calling for Trump’s forcible removal based on a vague and anonymous opinion piece in the New York Times is an extreme left-wing talking point.
I’ll never object to Fred posting such stuff internally. It doesn’t belong on the Main Feed where the world can see it, in my opinion. Goodness knows there are enough flaky sites out there without turning Ricochet into another one.
What if he had a McMuffin on his head?
Or is that too arch a suggestion?
Oh good, now we have puns. What have we become?
I prefer to see it as saving the thread.
Why do you guys believe in government so much? In effect, all of you love nonpublic goods. How does that make your life better? Do you believe in government actuarial science? Do you think the Fed can guess the right interest-rate? Aren’t we just talking about how much we are going to steal from each other with government? Trump is a symptom of a sick system. Be grateful.
Government Is How We Steal From Each Other™
“Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.” – H. L. Mencken
#MAGA
#WoodrowWilsonsucks
#PaulKrugmansucks
#LBJsucks
#TheFedCantGUESStheRightInterestRate
#MulticulturalismSucks
#TheMediaAreAllStatists
#CanWeWinAwarSometimes
This post doesn’t deserve a serious reply, but I’m going to do it anyway.
Fred, Gary and those like-minded: Just how far down this road to a soft coup do you think you can go before those who voted for Trump, however reluctantly, decide the Republic is dead. That no matter how we vote, however clearly we state that the Federal government must change, must back off, that we will be ignored by the DC claque; that our representatives will be ignored, undermined and finally overthrown to keep power in their hands.
And how much further after that point will the guns come out, because the only way to stop tyranny at that point is to preempt it?
I can’t evan contemplate such a thing.
What does Jefferson mean when he says the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants?
Clearly he could do it…he won anyway.
Gary Kasporov loves government
No, but the criticism that his posts aren’t worthy of main feed are.
There are many right wing critics who consider Trump unfit.
The institutions have held, although it seems to me likely that Trumps constant attacks on law enforcement, and the justice department have done harm. But saying that we muddled through with trump so no need to be concerned, assumes that he won’t be put to a more severe test.
What about a McRib? Then John Yoo could deliver a legal opinion on the matter.
Funnin’ with punnin’ the McMuffin Macguffin.
The McMuffin McMullin MacGuffin.
Look, this is the second run at the same idea you’ve made in the last day or so. You’ve made two variants of an argument most of us who comment, at least, think is fatally flawed (and in my case, tendentious). We didn’t run from it, but engaged with it and you. A lot of us, it appears, don’t think your argument is substantive, and have written why in great detail. Some of us have also said that these posts aren’t good enough for the Main Feed, and in my estimation, they aren’t. I’m sure that stings, especially the untoward personal insults, which are uncivil and wrong. But because a lot of us don’t think much of your argument, and believe you should earn a spot on the Main Feed by generating sufficient likes first does not mean we are safe-space-loving snowflakes. Given how many Main Feed posts you’ve had where folks were happy to go hammer and tongs with you (and each other) about controversial subjects, you might want to consider that maybe the problem here is not with us.
The starting point to insure strong disagreement with a multitude of members who support the Administration program is to suggest that we need to be reviewing Constitutional remedies to deal with an impaired President. The use of that term reflects an assumption made by propagandists, is a non-starter, and results in disaster threads for Ricochet.