The Twenty-Fifth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States
Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.
Well, it was long past time, but it’s certainly time now.
In 2016, Republicans were going, “We can’t have the president elected by majority vote! We need the Electoral College, or else the government will be held hostage to an unqualified demagogue and his gullible angry mob!”
Republicans in 2021 formed a gullible angry mob at the behest of an unqualified demagogue and stormed the Capitol building in order to stop fellow Republicans from lawfully contesting the Electoral College slate.
This was, of course, after Donald Trump, who is not the POTUS, but the PLBB (Putin’s Little Bitch Boy), encouraged the masses of people who he told to come out and party with him today on Twitter, telling them “we’ll walk down, and I’ll be there with you… to the Capitol, to cheer on our brave Congressmen and women” and then scurried off to his limo and drove back to his bunker to watch TV and bask in the results of his work. To smile, and laugh, and have a little joke at the expense of all his followers. At Mike Pence. At Mitch McConnell. At all the people who’d ever stood up for him. To watch reporters take pictures of the yahoos in the House and Senate chambers, looting the offices and carrying Confederate flags.
Jefferson Davis, thou art avenged.
Make no mistake, even though there were quite a few Republicans willing to continue the charade of contesting the Electoral slate, Trump put the mob up to this, against his own party’s lawful request to contest the results, because he knew that would fail, and he knew that he would lose his last chance to keep America as the favorite satellite country in Putin’s new Warsaw Pact.
This, like the Trump arm twist of Georgia’s Secretary of State, was the tactic of a mob boss. As in, “I’ve got a mob, I got my boys, you better be nice to me, cause if I don’t get my way, my boys are gonna make things ugly. You don’t want it to get ugly, do ya?”
As I write, the Senate has reconvened, and Georgia Senator Loeffler, one of the opportunists who had jumped on that bandwagon, and just lost her seat probably because of it, took the floor in a subdued voice and withdrew her objection to the slate of Electors. It seems as though most of the people, at least in the Senate, who were going to support this little stunt in order to give Trump and his army of babies a pacifier changed their minds, perhaps because they now see that there’s no way to pacify them, perhaps because, like Loeffler, it’s now too late to save themselves, and others because they now know that if they want to save their political careers, they need to choose between the mob and the rest of the country.
So what was going to be at least a symbolic triumph for the Party of Trump in the Congress (and remember kids: moral victories don’t count) has been completely dashed because of the real Party of Trump that what’s left of the Republican Party was trying to keep a lid on.
Good JOB, Trumpniks.
But what happens now?
Do we just say, “Oh thank goodness, that’s over. Let’s go back to normal”?
FUCK that. The Trumpniks don’t want normal. They want war.
It would be impolite to deny them.
As the TV talking heads point out, Trump is still president for two more weeks, and he can do a lot. Or as Trump would say, A LOT. There is now a movement in Congress, supported by Rep. Ilhan Omar among others, to impeach Trump AGAIN. It’s doubtful that would work, since even if McConnell isn’t able to gum up the works as Senate Majority Leader, you still need 2/3 of the Senate to actually remove an official. I’d still like to see it happen, just so Trump can make the history books yet again, but that’s gonna take at least 14 days, and we don’t have that kind of time.
We do not want Putin’s Little Bitch Boy in charge of the nuclear weapons.
It has also been suggested that we invoke the 25th Amendment. This is a bit more realistic. And I think it’s telling that the recent reports are saying that it was Mike Pence, not Trump, who approved sending the National Guard to DC after the shenanigans. But that’s probably because even now, Trump cares more about the perks of being president (such as, FBI immunity) than actually being one.
Just now (after 9 Eastern) Democrat Steny Hoyer mentioned how he remembered being in the Capitol when the country was assaulted from without, on 9-11. This is an assault from within.
This is the domestic 9-11.
Trump should be IMMEDIATELY removed from office, along with anybody else who wants to continue this stunt, under the terms of the 14th Amendment, which to repeat states: “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”
Not only should Trump be removed from office, the Republican Party should at least have the guts of Facebook and Twitter in even temporarily removing Trump from their platforms. Trump should be expelled from the Republican Party immediately and permanently, or they will have learned nothing, they will not be able to break from this mistake, and the rest of the country should treat them as the party of sedition.
In conclusion, I leave you with the immortal words of Senator Lindsey Graham:
When he’s right, he’s right.