It’s Time to Invoke the 25th Amendment


I try not to talk politics, period. Like religion, politics is one of the most divisive subjects that can be discussed. It can turn brother against brother, mother against daughter, and civilized human beings into raving lunatics. I very rarely bring it up in face to face conversations with friends and family, and discuss politics even less on social media or my websites.

That said, it’s time to invoke the 25th amendment of the Constitution.

If it wasn’t already clear to the majority of my fellow citizens of the United States, Donald Trump from the moment he started his presidential campaign has repeatedly said exactly what the audience in front of him at the time has wanted to hear, unashamedly contradicting himself when it would bring cheers. He proved during the campaign that he had no grasp of the actual powers and limitations of the office and he continues to believe, or at least speak as if he believes, that the law serves the president and that said president is above the law, that the government serves the president and should do what he wants without question or debate (as if he were a king or emperor), and that whatever isn’t positive about him or he dislikes is fake, illegal, or a conspiracy. Anytime someone stands up to him or fails to perform as he expects, he screams of disloyalty and that they’re criminals and need to be turned over for prosecution, even when no law has actually been broken.

Mr Trump would much prefer that justice and the department of that name serve him and his needs. From the earliest days after he took office, his appointees have been investigated, indicted, convicted, and sentenced, and that’s without the probe into his campaign and it’s possible (and very likely) ties to Russia. Factor Putin into the picture, and Trump is actively working to prevent the justice department from doing its job which, given our due process system, puts the presumption of innocence on his side. He can’t take the chance that they’ll actually find enough evidence to act against him so he’s actively trying to stop the investigation. The only reason that makes sense is because there is indeed evidence that would bring him down.

With the number of his own appointees leaving (perhaps “fleeing” is a better word) the White House regularly, some of which brokering deals with the justice department or with publishers, the book by legendary journalist Bob Woodward, and one of Trump’s senior officials admitting [anonymously] that there’s a group actively working to keep him in line… Trump is clearly not fit to serve as President.

This goes beyond being a Democrat or Republican. We Democrats lost the election, big deal, we still want what’s best for the country. The Republicans in Congress have been trying to keep Mr Trump in check since the inauguration, trying to make him operate and appear like a normal president should and would, denouncing his behavior and comments only when absolutely necessary, but only putting in the bare minimum effort in pushing his agenda. We know that a Republican lead Congress with a Republican president can do a lot together; it happened with George W. Bush, but this Congress seems awfully reluctant to even try. The reason is simply that they’re trying to out last him.

We have reached a point where enough people on both sides of the political spectrum in this company agree on the issue of whether or not Trump should sit in the oval office, and I think the answer is clearly “no, he shouldn’t.” While impeachment has long been the dirty word most Democrats haven’t wanted to use, it is clear that it’s no longer necessary. Invoke the 25th amendment; the president is too mentally unstable and incapable to serve the office and the people of the United States.

Donald Trump’s Cult of Personality


Cult of Personality (Wikipedia):

cult of personality arises when an individual uses mass media, propaganda, or other methods to create an idealized, heroic, and at times worshipful image, often through unquestioning flattery and praise.

With less than 30 days to go in the United States’ 2016 presidential elections, it finally occurred to me what’s really going on. While one candidate is a legitimate but flawed politician, the other has seriously and continuously appeared to be a lunatic that needs mental help and yet has some how managed to make it to the final round of the greatest and most grave stage.
For months, I’ve attributed Trump’s successes to the fringe of society that blindly support their favorite celebrities. These are the people that made Paris Hilton and the entire Kardashian family famous and keep them stuck in the headlines. Most people, I’d wager, don’t give a damn about these celebrities that are famous for nothing, yet none of us can fully escape hearing about them on a regular basis without seeming like lunatics ourselves.

But then along comes Donald Trump, who was given a platform to reinvigorate his celebrity status with The Apprentice. Because he’s been a businessman — successful or not depends on the eye of the beholder — this same fringe celebrity worshipping group takes him seriously and ignores what a terrible human being he is.

That is the textbook definition of a cult of personality. This is why so many Republican politicians got eliminated from the 2016 campaign for president. It had absolutely nothing to do with their qualifications, their platform, or outlook but had everything to do with essentially mass hysteria and the strengthening of the Trump Reality Distortion Field as the numbers in the cult swelled.

And you know what? That’s not even the worst part. In some tiny, unloved dark part of my soul, I actually kind of feel bad for Trump. He doesn’t see that he’s surrounded himself with Yes Men that tell him everything and only that he wants to hear. A Yes Man, as you might guess, only gives positive answers to their employers, they’re enablers in the worst sense of the word. A Yes Man would willingly lie to their boss or champion despite overwhelming facts because it’s their job on the line. As an example, Trump’s senior campaign staff refused to tell him that he lost the first debate for days afterwards, kept feeding him unscientific poll results that told him he won overwhelmingly, and then slowly started informing him otherwise as the week went on. Similarly, one of Trump’s own sons tweeted an electoral count map from Five Thirty Eight today showing him leading Clinton nation wide, when the truth of the map was that it was with a specific set of male only voters. (The map with all voters represented showed that Trump was losing by more than 100 electoral votes.)

The bottom line is that because Trump has been the rich boss literally for decades, he doesn’t have a soul around him to tell him the truth. That’s how he can go out and make bold statements that are completely false, or outright lie… He has no one to set him straight and make it mean something to him. If he doesn’t like what he hears, he fires the person and moves on. There’s no one that can hold him accountable so he has lost the ability to distinguish between fact and fiction. He has lost the ability to be ethical and to make moral decisions.

That’s why that tiny bit of my soul feels sorry for Donald Trump.

While I am a Democrat, I’m not voting for Hilary because I think she’s the perfect candidate. (My candidate was Bernie.) I’m voting for her because I don’t want to see what a country lead by a delusional, detached madman would look like. Hilary was not the best candidate for president, in my opinion, but she’s the best of what’s left. She and her husband have actively helped the black community of which I’m a part, and appreciatively the city of Detroit, which gave birth to me. I respect her ability and determination to do what’s right, and more importantly, she knows what it’s like to work hard for something and to watch as it falls apart due to no fault of her own. Donald Trump, on the other hand, only looks for advantages for himself, and when he fails, his Yes Men make everything alright for him so he doesn’t have to deal with the outcome of his failure.

I wonder how he’ll deal with his failure to become president. How will those Yes Men clean this up?