Robert Reich and the 25th Amendment

[babylonsister]

https://www.facebook.com/RBReich/

From Robert Reich:

My mind keeps going back to the 25th Amendment, which contemplates precisely what we have today – a president who is mentally unfit to hold the office, and therefore poses a danger to the nation. I remember being struck many months ago when Republican Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Trump “has not demonstrated he understands the character of this nation” and “has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability, nor some of the competence that he needs to demonstrate in order to be successful.” And then when former director of national intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. said: “I really question his ability to — his fitness to — be in this office, and I also am beginning to wonder about his motivation for it.”

I've also been reading whatever I can by specialists who study personality disorders. For example, Robert Jay Lifton, a psychiatrist and a psychoanalyst, and Judith L. Herman, a professor at Harvard Medical School who has done pioneering research on trauma, have written that Trump’s “repeated failure to distinguish between reality and fantasy, and his outbursts of rage when his fantasies are contradicted” suggest that when faced with crisis he “will lack the judgment to respond rationally.” Lifton and Herman have expanded on their diagnosis in introductory articles to a collection called “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President,” edited by Bandy X. Lee, a psychiatrist at the Yale School of Medicine. Other contributors find Trump to be a sociopath, malignant narcissist, hypomanic suffering from delusional disorder, and cognitively impaired.

All this leads me back to the 25th amendment. It has never been employed, but this seems to be the condition for it. And yet, as long as Republican control Congress, I wonder if it's relevant. Could there be a tipping point? I ask myself what behavior on the part of Trump might cause congressional Republicans to look to the 25th Amendment? What do you think?

[marylandblue]

1. Yes, there could be a tipping point

And I think it most likely will come after tax reform fails. If he can't do tax reform, then he is of no value to republicans and the would be better off trying with Pence than going into 2018 as having done nothing while Trump blames them.

Alternatively, the generals may stop him from attacking North Korea and ask Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment.

[Fiendish Thingy]

2. That's my guess- it would be invoked to prevent a war

Either with Iran or Korea.

But at this point, I'd still say odds are against even in that case.

[marylandblue]

3. I've given up trying to guess odds

Anything's possible with Trump. Tomorrow he could start WW III or be found drooling in the Oval Office playing with trains. Neither would surprise me.

[bearsfootball516]

4. Depends how far his approval drops in red states if/when tax reform fails

He's still fairly popular in deep red states in the south and midwest. Congresspeople and senators from those states are going to hitch their wagons to him as long as those voters stay loyal.

[Mr.Bill]

6. It doesn't matter.

The man is delusional. He thinks the polls are fake. He really believes he is the most popular president in history. He really believes he had more people at his inauguration than any president in history. He is completely insane. No logic can be applied here.

[Stonepounder]

5. If the generals stop him from launching nukes against North Korea,

it is called a 'coup'. There isn't any way, really, that the generals could 'ask' Pence to invoke the 25th, because I really don't think anyone could get more than half the Cabinet to go against Trump. So, once the generals stop in to prevent Armageddon, where do they go from there? There is absolutely nothing in the Constitution that allows for the military to intervene. Technically it would be a mutiny.

If there was a successful Military Coup, the Congress could pass a law to appoint a impartial group to examine the President and declare whether he was fit or unfit to perform his duty. Although the problem would be the same as impeachment. The GOP won't impeach, so they would not be eager to appoint a bunch of Doctors to declare Trump unfit.

We are stuck in a really, really, dangerous position with no reasonable way out.

[BigmanPigman]

7. That scenario (a coup) has been spinning around in my head

since I know the GOP Congress and Cabinet will put party over country as bomb are dropping on us. I am not sure about the military aspect of this though. Basically 45 has fucked us royally.

[smirkymonkey]

8. K&R