Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair
Donald Trump’s instability and insanity have finally provoked discussion of two possible Constitutional guardrails that would allow for his removal from power: the impeachment power and the 25th Amendment. On a theoretical basis, either guardrail could prove capable of addressing the terrible—even apocalyptic—problem that the nation—and the world—currently face. But on a practical level, neither tool is likely to succeed.
Trump could be the poster child for the Dark Triad, which refers to a cluster of three overlapping yet distinct personality traits linked to manipulative, self-centered, and socially harmful behavior. The triad refers to narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism, which help to explain toxic behavior in personal and professional settings. The symptoms associated with these traits include moral hypocrisy, arrogance, poor impulse control, a lack of empathy, and a lack of accountability. Sadly, unlike his first term, Trump has surrounded himself with loyalists who have no interest in limiting or countering these behaviors.
The more progressive members of the Democratic Party, such as Representatives Jamie Raskin of MD and Al Green of TX, are leading the charge for impeachment or the invocation of the 25th Amendment. Raskin even wrote the White House physician to demand a “comprehensive cognitive assessment” of the president, arguing that “we have indisputably entered the realm of profound medical difficulty and concern.” Trump’s recent remarks on Iran (“a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again”) and the Pope (“Leo should get his act together as Pope…and focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician”) have even led Trump’s former allies—such as Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene—to raise alarms regarding the president’s fitness to serve as commander in chief.
The 25th Amendment will go nowhere. It was ratified in 1967 after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, but the congressional debates at that time indicated that the amendment was concerned primarily with the temporary incapacitation of a president, and not the removal of a president because of his dangerous mental state. In any event, the requirements for removal, even temporary removal, present a very high bar for success. The Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet or “such other body as Congress may by law provide” would be needed for the vice president to “assume the power and duties of the office as Acting President.” This is highly unlikely.
Successful constitutional impeachment is an even more difficult process where the House of Representatives impeaches by simple majority, but the Senate tries the case, requiring a two-thirds majority to convict and remove the president. The House has the sole power to impeach; the Senate has the sole power to convict. The Republican-led bodies and the pathetic fealty of the Republican members ensure that Trump could possibly be impeached, but certainly never convicted. There have been four impeachment of presidents (Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton, and Donald Trump twice), but all received acquittals from the Senate. Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 to avoid an impeachment that probably would have led to conviction.
Ironically, the Constitution has a third process to prevent someone from serving as a president, which would be the 14th Amendment. Under the 14th Amendment, any person who has engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States is disqualified from holding office. In view of Trump’s role in the January 6th insurrection, the legal mechanism of the 14th Amendment should have blocked Trump from running—let alone winning—in 2024.
It is time for the minority members of the Congress to act because the nation and its voters must confront the gravity of the situation that finds an unstable president holding the codes to the nuclear arsenal. Gaining the majority in the House and/or Senate would give Democrats the political leverage to slow down Trump’s destruction of foreign and domestic policies, but there is still time for the president to further damage U.S. credibility and influence at home and abroad. The mainstream media doesn’t appear to recognize the desperate times that we are facing as a nation, but the public seems to have recognize it. The public was ahead of the media in protesting the Vietnam War 60 years ago.
That our president and our secretary of defense claim that the war they have started is God’s war, should be setting off sirens blaring that “attention must be paid.”
