The 25th Amendment: It’s Time For Trump To Leave The Presidency
President Donald Trump walks to Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House, Thursday, Aug. 3, 2017, in Washington. Trump is en route to Huntington, W.Va. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
On Wednesday afternoon, The New York Times published an anonymous op-ed from an author only identified as “a senior official in the Trump administration” who claimed that they were part of a group of individuals who are determined to thwart the President’s “agenda and his worst inclinations.”
Yes, you read that right.
There is apparently an informal group of members of the Trump administration who recognize the danger the President poses to this country and have taken it upon themselves to minimize his effectiveness privately and secretly. This group is so aware of the cancer that is Donald Trump that they’ve gone as far as to discuss invoking the 25th Amendment, yet decided against it for fear of the constitutional crisis which would be sure to follow.
As the essay reads: “Given the instability many witnessed, there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for removing the president. But no one wanted to precipitate a constitutional crisis. So we will do what we can to steer the administration in the right direction until — one way or another — it’s over.”
Well, I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but the days of hoping to avoid a crisis of democracy-challenging proportions are long gone. While there may be some “cold comfort,” as the op-ed describes it, in knowing that members of the Trump administration do have enough sense in their heads to realize that the President is about as sharp as a (racist, xenophobic, misogynistic) marble – there is little else to find positive throughout this article. It’s a testament to how truly up sh*t creek we are in this moment of our history.
(A reminder that Republicans are currently trying to force a Supreme Court confirmation for Brett Kavanaugh – a man who was nominated by a President who is an unindicted co-conspirator in federal crimes and whose own staff believe him unfit to lead this country).
This essay succinctly removes the veil for any Americans who were still able to shut their eyes to the crisis that is the Trump presidency. We have arrived at an unprecedented moment in history where members of a presidential administration have decided to thwart the agenda of the man they are supposed to serve because said agenda is so ruthlessly detrimental to the future of this country. While this is a clear increase to the warning levels Americans are currently living under, it’s also a reminder that post-Trump America will have years of work ahead of us in order to restructure our institutions.
For these so-called “resistors” within the White House have decided that the President’s actions are dangerous enough that they must be thwarted privately, yet they have failed to invoke the constitutionally enumerated processes designed for such a moment in time – even though they themselves have admitted it was of valid discussion. Yes, it would be damn near impossible to get two-thirds of Congress to vote to remove him, but the transparency it would provide is vastly superior to secret politicking and anonymous op-eds. And while I must agree that unprecedented times call for unprecedented measures, I fear that platitudes for cowardly forms of so-called resistance simply enable the nearly treasonous actions of an unfit president.
There are political actors who have institutional power in this situation, power beyond quiet resistance. If the state of our country is truly as dire as it seems, I would implore them to use it.
