I don’t know who Sophie A. Nelson is, but I’m with her all the way:
This merry Presidential Easter missive is so unhinged that Tim Miller over at the Bulwark felt it necessary to post something assuring the incredulous among us that yes, this really was a Trumpian bleat over Truth Social, and not, as many quite reasonably speculated, a hoax, or something out of The Onion.
There’s a school of thought, which I suppose is meant to be soothing, that Trump couldn’t have composed this himself, because – get this – Donald wouldn’t have the grammatical acumen to put an apostrophe on the end of “fuckin'”. As evidence, Trump-watchers cite an earlier bleat, equally bellicose, but also measureably more illiterate, as one would expect from the biggest moron ever to hold office:
See: all hell will reign down on them. That’s our Donny! Thus, the reasoning goes, today’s atrocity must be the handiwork of somebody like Stephen Miller, who’s likewise been implicated in assorted prior social media abominations (like the one that celebrated Rob Reiner’s murder, and decried so-called Trump Derangement Syndrome while using about six times as many adjectives as are available within Donald’s 4th grade vocabulary). O.K., maybe, but it doesn’t matter. Unless some of the wild internet rumours are true, and we’re into Weekend at Bernie’s territory with Miller now the de facto President, nobody would send out something this incendiary without the boss’s approval. That means that the President of the United States is happy to have himself portrayed as barking crazily at the whole world, emphasizing his naked threat to commit war crimes with the use of gutter obscenities.
Now the speculation has turned to whether Trump really means it, or it’s just another of his phoney threats, like many he’s already made during this ugly, breathtakingly ill-conceived conflict, none of which have come to anything. Donny always TACOs, right?
Again, O.K., maybe, but so what? That also doesn’t matter. Any President who’d allow anything this abhorrent to be sent out in his name has crossed a psychiatric rubicon into the sort of Cloud Cuckooland inhabited only by those fit for the straitjacket. That means this is it. He has to be dealt with, before he has another one of his spells and actually decides to follow through on these or other monstrous threats he’s sure to make soon enough. It’s time – high time, well past time – to invoke the 25th Amendment and get him the Hell out of the Oval and as far away from the guy carrying the Football as possible. Now. Tonight.
Time was I would have taken some solace, in a situation like this, that at least the professionals of the U.S. Armed forces could be counted upon, push comes to shove, to refuse to carry out unlawful orders requiring the commission of unambiguous war crimes. Not anymore. After watching the U.S. Navy repeatedly commit outright murder on the high seas off Venezuela a few months back, my happy delusions on this score were shattered forever, and after all, this whole war, conducted without Congressional authorization of any kind in overt contravention of the Constitution, is already unlawful. No, there’ll be no help from the military. No pangs of conscience. No adherence to solemn oaths. No pushback. Just yessir, ready aye ready sir, will do pronto sir, no matter what Trump tells them to do. It’s disgraceful, and heartbreakingly disappointing, but there you have it.
Moreover, we’ve all long since reached the point at which it doesn’t even cross our minds that Congress might do something useful. So God help us, the only remaining way to go now is to remove the maniac under the 25th.
Sure. Is that at all likely? Well, have a look at the text:
Only the Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet can invoke the Amendment, after which they have to stand by their decision in the face of a challenge, and let’s face it, we can all laugh ourselves stupid, laugh until we cry, straining to imagine J.D. Vance and the assorted rabble of Donald’s hand-picked Cabinet toadies doing any such thing. Even if they did, we still wind up looking for 2/3 majorities in Congress to finally settle the matter. Fat frigging chance.
The 25th Amendment, sadly, is just another constitutional dead letter, just like impeachment, and for that matter the entirety of Article I and all those supposed checks and balances. Nobody’s going to save us from this imbecilic lunatic. He’s going to continue his downward spiral, growing increasingly irrational and uninhibited, until nature intervenes to finally free us, whenever that may be. Meanwhile, almost anything could happen, as Donald’s belligerent bloviating teeters on the cusp of turning into something real. One day soon it may really be Power Plant and Bridge Day, and maybe something a whole lot worse, keeping in mind the ultimate arsenal at the Mad King’s disposal. Maybe – let’s hope – there’s still a limit beyond which the military can’t be counted upon to simply follow orders. Maybe, as happened during the waning days of Nixon’s tenure 50 years ago, somebody with the necessary authority and confidence of the Generals has issued orders that anything involving nuclear codes is to be disregarded.
I’d like to believe that. I’m just not sure that I do.
the needlefish 