Trump must get out of the White House, now

This becomes necessary when the child in question has wrecked the family car, set fire to the tool shed, stole money from parents’ wallets and bank accounts, insulted all relatives who have come to visit, has thrown broken bottles into neighbors’ yards. , tried to poison his dogs and then misappropriated all members of the family’s personal property.

Furthermore, he has terrified his younger siblings during all those unexpected moments of wild insults to family and friends, and then there have been bouts of sheer rage that seem to have arisen, without warning, at the proverbial’s downfall. hat.

The United States has now reached that point. Like a nation. And as a people.

Yes, it is true that the country will have general elections in less than two months. And yes, if all the polls are accurate, the incumbent president is on his way to receiving a staggering defeat at the hands of the American electorate. This will almost certainly make up for popular vote totals (especially once all those mailed votes are finally tabulated). But it is increasingly likely to also come about through critically important total electoral votes, state by state, the proportional weights of state populations that actually determine who lives in the White House as of January 20, 2021.

But we shouldn’t have to wait even that long. It’s enough. It is more than enough.

The recent revelations in the audio recordings made by reporter Bob Woodward in conversations with the acting president for his next book clearly point to a man so callous, so disinterested in his real work and responsibilities to protect his fellow citizens, and in ultimately so inappropriate. To carry out your most fundamental duties, you deserve to be immediately freed from these heavy burdens.

The constitutionally prescribed oath to become president is a simple but forceful statement. It says, “I solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of the President of the United States and that, to the best of my ability, I will preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” And now, with the Woodward tapes and the book that builds them, it is clearly clear that the owner has repealed this oath. He has been captured, on tape, in his own voice, acknowledging that he knew that Covid-19 was a deadly disease, much worse than the usual influenza epidemics and that it was highly contagious. But crucially, because he said he didn’t want to foster fear and panic, he deliberately downplayed it publicly, including those infamous comments that it would all disappear in the spring like this, “traloo, tralay,” as if by magic. Or, as the incumbent president told Woodward, “Just breathe the air and that’s how it happens … This is deadly.” In response to this latest and astonishing comment, Democratic challenger Joe Biden has responded, “While a deadly disease swept through our nation, it did not do its job, on purpose. It was a life and death betrayal of the American people. “Yep.

At this infection rate, epidemiologists predict that this disease will have caused more than 400,000 deaths in the United States by the end of December. There will also be millions and millions of non-fatal cases (many of them serious) across the country, in addition to the economic dislocations and heartbreak that have occurred due to this ineptitude. Simply in the number of deaths, the figures are directed towards the number of deaths suffered by the US during the entirety of World War II.

The reasons for the owner’s desire to avoid panic were three. The first was the need to ensure maximum citizen satisfaction for his re-election bid, based on the positive economic figures that had been fueling his support. The second was even more insidious: it was to downplay the need for any coordinated federal action, thereby pushing the responsibility for virtually everything, including onerous closures and lockdowns, onto states and cities so that they could deal with all the challenges. problems. difficult circumstances. The third, of course, was that as the virulence of the disease became increasingly clear to even the most stubborn people, rather than leading the nation, there was a great shirking of responsibility to point the finger of blame China, the responsibility of the holder. favorite spanking boy.

And the bodies continue to pile up in the morgues and then in their graves.

The end result of this is now a completely panicked nation, increasingly distrustful, increasingly politically divided. Millions of people are wary of any progress toward vaccines, wary of efforts to meet even the most basic public health requirements – masks, social distancing, and track and trace systems – and the deeply in-depth politicization of the entire disaster as a government ploy. Political opponents of the incumbent to question his, sublime leadership.

And yet, bodies are piling up in morgues across the country relentlessly.

For once, let’s put aside everything else that has cheapened and tainted the last four years of his presidency. For the moment, ignore those bizarre efforts to turn the entire country’s military into a tasteless collection of rapacious and greedy warmongers, or “losers” and “fools,” or both. Forget the constant attacks on the nation’s economic and security partners around the world; the obsequious behavior towards the country’s main security antagonist and the concurrent resistance of Granite to acknowledge any Russian effort to interfere in the American elections. Let us put aside for the moment those sordid efforts to entangle Ukraine in undermining a potential political rival with false accusations and the ensuing revenge firings at various government agencies. This time around, even ignore the constant denigration of the country’s hard-won improvements in its ecological and environmental record, the misuse of immigration controls that have led to barbaric mistreatment of young children, and everything else has never happened. since 2017.

However, the latest revelations about gambling with human lives and the suffering of Covid-19 for personal political gain should be seen for what it is: a devastating perversion of the president’s duties under oath of office that simply cannot be ignored. . further away.

In international relations, the principle of “the responsibility to protect” is cited to justify armed intervention when foreign human populations are under imminent threat of serious harm from violent, malevolent and lawless regimes. This principle is based on the underlying premise that sovereignty (and the leaders who exercise it) comes with a responsibility to protect the entire population of a nation from being assaulted by massive atrocities and devastating human rights violations. In fact, it has been universally ratified by UN member countries, including the US, since 2005. Given the powerful capabilities and institutions of the US government, surely the time has come for “the responsibility to protect “To the citizens of the country themselves should replace political luck. of a politician.

While no one reasonably expects an international peacekeeping force in personal protective equipment and surgical masks to come to the rescue of U.S. citizens, its leaders must nonetheless invoke the mechanisms built into its Constitution to eliminate , extract the source of the political contagion. Even before the November 3 elections. Apart from the constitutionally provided impeachment mechanism (been there, tried that), there is the 25th amendment to the Constitution that requires the removal of the president from office, in case that officer cannot fulfill the functions of the position.

If the incumbent president is unwilling to resign and allow the vice president to finish the prescribed term in office, then the vice president and cabinet have the constitutional responsibility and duty to invoke that disability amendment immediately. At this point, there is simply no way that the president’s recorded comments to journalist Bob Woodward will fit the way the headline has carried out his duties in the face of this ongoing pandemic.

There is one more way, if the cabinet and the vice president do not have the spine or other vital organs of the body to fulfill a constitutional duty, for a president to leave office. In 1974, when it finally became clear to everyone that Richard Nixon had lost the trust of Republican senators (let alone the rest of the nation), and that a conviction for indictment was almost certain in a Senate trial, a delegation from senior senators visited him in private. They informed Nixon that his best course of action, rather than continuing the current national nightmare and facing some ignominy as the only condemned president in history, was to resign.

The three visiting senators, Barry Goldwater, Howard Baker and Robert Dole, had the seriousness and stature to insist that Nixon must resign, for the good and security of the nation, rather than allow this disaster to continue to unfold. But that was then, this is now.

People like those three men in 1974 understood that the national interest and well-being went far beyond ties of loyalty to the party. In the here and now, however, are there at least a handful of Republican senators who will put the health, welfare and security of the nation above loyalty to a man who continues to demonstrate a palpable inability to behave rationally?

If neither of these alternatives is possible, then the country must fight forward, it must resist, even as a thousand people a week or more continue to die from Covid-19, until the nation can overcome the petty and divisive behavior of a madman. reluctant to fulfill their responsibilities.

Yes, Joe Biden may be flawed, but he’s the right person for this time and this place. This is a time when belief in science and medicine must transcend charlatanism and hidden conspiracy theories of the deluded; when the most important task of a president should be to make the nation trust him to overcome these difficulties instead of dividing it further in the service of partisan politics. If such a transition is to be made through the polls on November 3, let’s at least hope that others will not choose to take advantage of these last few months of insanity for their own ends. DM