As I hope you know if you’ve read my previous thoughts on political matters I am no radical. I want things done according to Hoyle, as close to the rules as possible. I do not like political histrionics, exaggerations, or one sided obvious distortions. So I rarely take up anything approaching an extreme decision without(I hope)careful thought and some reflections. I have had that now and I have concluded that, if possible–no, no, make that feasible–
Donald Trump likely should be taken out of office one way or another.

This almost final decision came only after his behavior this week in first, issuing a threatening, hysterical and altogether ridiculous rant on social media Tuesday night. This is the one which he used to threaten the Iranians with being blown out of the modern world and 4000 years of civilization being destroyed. I was appalled that a President of the US would have such twisted thoughts about an entire civilization and, if he did, that he would be stupid or thoughtless or reality challenged enough or just plain screwy enough to put it on Social media where it could be seen by nearly everyone.

So I believe its time for the anti-Trump people in Washington to start planning their moves. They may or may not need them, but better to be ready. I am against Impeachment. As we all know this would first require a majority vote by the House of Representatives. The GOP margin there has almost shrunk away and is now very small. It might be possible to pull a few Republican members across the aisle on this issue. But it’s a not a sure thing and likely would be useless in the end anyway. Having impeached him, The Democrats would then need 2/3 of the Senate to vote for conviction to get him out of office.

The first requirement–impeachment–would be difficult but could be doable, particularly if Trump continues to say and/or do these kinds of ludicrous things. But the second, that 2/3 of the Senate vote for conviction, would be nearly impossible. Even if all of the 49 Democrats(or Democratic leaning independents hello– Bernie and Angus) in the Senate voted for it(and most, maybe all of them, I think, would) they would still need 18 Republicans to get the required 2/3. And who do you think the 18 might be? Without going into names or particular situations, I’ll say that if I made a list and thought hard I could find maybe a half dozen with whom there would be some chance. But they might not all agree, and even if they did you’d still be, uh, well, about a dozen votes short. And I’m by no means sure we could get the half dozen already mentioned. And we might lose a Democrat or two, though I hope that wouldn’t be the case.

In any event, conviction on an impeachment looks next door to impossible. And if there’s one thing Trump’s opponents do not need it’s to lose on a third attempt at this. It would make the party look foolish and might diminish Democratic enthusiasms enough to affect the election. But don’t give up on this entirely. There’s still the 25th. I think it would likely fail too if tried right now, but it’s not as certain a loser as impeachment would be and it could be tried again without its backers looking like hopeless nutcases, particularly if Trump wanders further off the path of mainstream behavior and most particularly if he shows worse signs of unbalance. I think this is not beyond being a reasonable possibility.

OK, let’s do a quick review of the 25th Amendment. The first two sections are obvious enough to ignore for the moment. Section Three gets things started. It says that if the President thinks he is incapable of discharging the duties of his office he should communicate this, in writing, to the Speaker of the House and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate. Having done this, the Vice-President assumes the powers of the Presidency. . The President may at anytime communicate, again by writing, with the Speaker and the President Pro Temp and he will immediately resume his powers. OK, that’s the easy part–when no one disagrees with what’s going on.

Section Four, though fairly easy to understand, is the hard part of what to do in a really bad situation–when there’s a dispute. It states that if the VP and a majority of the cabinet think the President is incapable of doing the job, they will communicate this information to the same, people, the Speaker and the President Pro Temp. “Immediately” the VP takes over Presidential powers, in other words become Acting President. The President may at any time communicate to the Speaker and the President Pro Temp and inform them that he is now able to do the job and upon so doing he resumes full power-UNLESS(there had to be an “unless”)the same people, the VP and a majority of cabinet members inform the Speaker and Pro Temp that they disagree that the President is now competent.

In that case Congress gets back into the act. If 2/3 of each House votes to keep the VP in power he remains. If this does NOT happen, the President resumes his power. Obviously, this amendment was drawn up by people who were concerned about mainly two things–1) making sure a capable person sits in the Oval office and makes the big Presidential decisions 2) Preventing an overly ambitious and unscrupulous VP from exploiting a situation so as to obtain power for himself and his cronies when there is no legitimate reason to do so.

I think this is a good amendment, much needed and very relevant today. Its very existence might curb some kinds of Presidential excesses. There is one great weakness I see, but it would be difficult and perhaps unwise to fix.

That is that Section Four, though quite specific on time frames for actions, does not comment on people failing with the 25th and wanting to try again. It seems to me there should be some limit on this, though I’m not sure what that limit should be. Obviously you don’t want a tug of war between the President and his opponents renewable to the point is happens much of the time. This, like multiple impeachments, would be disruptive and distracting and might prevent serious action from taking place. So there should be, in my opinion, some kind of limit on how soon this attempt at legal overthrow of a government could be repeated. It seems to me that about a month would be a fairly reasonable idea, but I would be willing to listen to other situations and to compromise with other (hopefully)reasonable people.

As I write this, the Vance-led talks in Pakistan have ended(not to say they collapsed)and Trump, who said yesterday he didn’t care what the outcome was, is now demanding, among other things, that the US have at least partial control of the Strait of Hormuz.

With Trump’s changeability this could be different by this evening(Sunday the 12th)and a whole new set of questions raised. It is partly because of that that I am willing to go so far as to consider use of the 25th. But I am glad it is in place. We don’t know how impossible Trump may become, so those who would stop something desperate need a tool such as this at hand, to be used as a threat or, if sadly necessary, to be put into action. I don’t want to see that today. But the time could be coming. I’m willing to be patient for the moment. There may be those who aren’t.

Tue 4/14–It is now almost a full two days since I finished the above article–In the time since then we have seen a confusing situation in the Gulf of Hormuz and on other matters. It now appears that there will be further negotiations. I hope they succeed. But I am sending out my previous thoughts because of the way things change today, and with this Administration, change can come very quickly and without much explanation. Also, all Americans should understand the 25th Amendment so as to know what is going on should there be serious takl of invoking it.