Month: January 2017

Politics and Reality Radio: How Fragile Is Democracy?, Life Under Authoritarian Gov Can Be Dull & Tolerable


with Joshua Holland

To kick off this week’s show, Joshua Holland lays out an entirely plausible scenario in which Trump — and unified GOP control of government — results in only manageable damage to the republic. It’s not a prediction, which would be pollyannish, but it could work out this way if decent people stand up against what’s coming.

Then we’ll speak with Yascha Mounk, a lecturer at Harvard, who argues that it’s easier than most people believe for even established democracies to slide into authoritarianism.

Picking up on that theme, Cornell’s Tom Pepinsky relays some lessons from Malaysia. He says that today’s authoritarian governments bear little resemblance to the totalitarian dystopias of our collective imagination — and argues that the popular image of authoritarian rule is problematic in the age of Trump.

Finally, Heather Hurlburt from New America offers a sober view of Barack Obama’s foreign policy legacy.

Playlist:
Moby: “Run On”
Grandmaster Flash: “It’s a Shame”
Gnarls Barkley: “A Little Bit Better”
The Band: “We Can Talk”

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What do you do when a president is unhinged? (There is a constitutional remedy)

by digby

I wrote about the possibility of pulling he trigger on the 25th Amendment for Salon today:

Donald Trump is in over his head. This comes as no surprise to the millions of people who could see that he was unprepared and unfit for the job of president of the United States and voted against him. He’s basically a celebrity heir to a fortune who was so entitled that he believed his privileged existence proved he was competent to run the most powerful nation on earth. That’s the attitude of an aristocrat who ascended to the throne without having any idea what it actually takes to rule. History’s full of such men. It doesn’t often work out well.

Trump managed to convince enough voters in just the right places that his “business success,” born mostly of hype and relentless public relations over many years, qualified him for the Oval Office. Since the Protestant work ethic and the philosophy of virtuous capitalism still permeate American culture, it’s not uncommon for people to equate financial success with superior intelligence and character. Many among the public undoubtedly assumed that Trump’s persona at the rallies was something of a salesman’s act, that he was playing the role of demagogue to rile up the crowd. They assumed that behind closed doors he was a smart and able businessman, making tough decisions on the fly, handling many issues at once.

Those voters didn’t see what millions of others felt instinctively, and which explains the shocked reaction and immediate resistance to his election: Trump’s incessant bragging, his lack of empathy or remorse, his pathological lying and even his bizarre appearance were signs of an unstable personality. It was obvious to many of us that something was not right.

The presidential transition was a dumpster fire with endless resignations, rumors and public humiliations. Trump’s refusal to deal responsibly with the intelligence community’s investigations into Russian interference in the campaign was worrying. Picking a fight with them over it was downright alarming. Still, one couldn’t help but think that the weight of the job might inspire the staff and the people close to him to instill some discipline into the system and keep the new president focused once he took the wheel. That hasn’t happened. The first days of the new administration have been a disaster.

From last Saturday through Tuesday night, it’s been one surreal event after another, starting with Trump’s visit to the CIA where he stood in front of the Memorial Wall — marked with 117 stars honoring agents who have died in the line of duty — and acted like he was at a rally in a high school gym in Indiana. He didn’t seem to have a clue that he was being inappropriate. He compounded the bad impression by sending out his press secretary Sean Spicer to insist that his inauguration crowd was bigger than any in history. When Kellyanne Conway defended Spicer by saying he had simply offered “alternative facts,” the media was stunned. It’s not that they assume officials always tell the truth. But they were clearly shocked that the White House would chastise them for reporting something that was obviously and provably correct.

When the president was reported to have told congressional leaders on Monday that he still believed 3 million to 5 million illegal votes had been cast in the election, causing him to lose the popular vote to Hillary Clinton, it was clear that Trump’s erratic behavior was not stopping. Leaks have been pouring out from inside the nascent administration, giving a picture of an insecure, irrational man who is obsessed with his image and little else.

According to this article in the Washington Post, Trump’s inner circle is overwhelmed with power struggles and internecine battles while the president fulminates over every criticism. The New York Times reports that his staff is concerned about his “simmering resentment” at what he thinks is unfair press coverage. Politico reports that aides are trying to minimize his incessant TV viewing, and according to this report by Axios, Trump is running his administration almost entirely in reaction to what he sees in the media. He sounds as if he is unable to handle the stress and is using avoidance mechanisms.

So what happens if President Trump cannot pull himself together and continues to psychologically unravel? There is a remedy other than impeachment. Even conservatives like David Frum have been talking about it for a while:

The 25th Amendment was added to the Constitution after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and provides for the replacement of the vice president if the office becomes vacant. (So it led indirectly to the presidency of Gerald Ford, the only American president who was never elected to any national office.) But Article 4 is about something else entirely:

Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Article 4. We’re all going to be talking a lot more about it in the months ahead.

— David Frum (@davidfrum) November 16, 2016

Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

This provision has been exercised three times since it was enacted in the wake of the Kennedy assassination, once when Ronald Reagan had cancer surgery and twice when George W. Bush underwent colonoscopies. Most people have thought of it as a way to deal with a president who had a heart attack or a stroke and becomes incapacitated, as Woodrow Wilson did, with his wife effectively assuming the duties of the presidency for the remainder of his term.

But the language of the amendment clearly encompasses other scenarios besides physical incapacitation. This topic was a subject of discussion toward the end of the Reagan administration, when it became obvious that the president was suffering a loss of cognitive ability. It wasn’t evoked then but as we now know, Reagan was indeed suffering from the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Had it become more acute or more obvious while he was in office, Congress might well have had to take action as laid out in the amendment.

It’s obvious that Trump has a narcissistic personality, which in itself is not disqualifying. He’s not the first president to have one, nor will he be the last. But his issues seem to run deeper than that. Some observers have suggested that he shows the characteristics of classic psychopathy. And there are plenty who see his behavior as blatantly self-destructive.

Pro tip: when meeting w the people who have the power to remove you under the 25th amendment, try not to say anything glaringly insane https://t.co/64hUBFAK38

— David Frum (@davidfrum) January 24, 2017

Of course it’s an extreme long shot that Trump’s Cabinet or the Republican leadership in Congress would ever take such a drastic step. (Although it’s not at all hard to imagine that in their hearts many of them would prefer President Mike Pence.) This would only happen if Trump really started to behave in a unhinged fashion. After all the bizarre behavior he has exhibited over the past 18 months, one cannot help but wonder: What could possibly count as going too far? It’s almost too terrifying to imagine.

From sunup to crackdown to crackup
by Tom Sullivan

People who did not vote for Donald trump knew he was deeply flawed and paralyzingly unprepared for the job he just assumed. But an electorate unsatisfied with politics as usual and threatened by, well, life, handed him the job anyway. He was brash. He was in-your-face. He was going to shake things up. Just what they wanted. Jamelle Bouie writes at Slate:

At the same time, he was still Donald Trump: still impatient, impulsive, dishonest, and deeply narcissistic. And now Trump is an actual president with real responsibilities. He has to stand on his own against a largely unified opposition, a critical press, and an unforgiving public. If the first few days of his presidency are any indication, that’s just too much. Faced with a lackluster inauguration and mass protests, President Trump had a bona fide meltdown and drove his staff to make serious errors, immediately undermining his administration. This isn’t just cause for schadenfreude; it is an important revelation: constant, high-profile criticism works. Protest works.

It works because Trump the Unqualified knows jack about the job he just started. He’s more interested in issuing decrees he can pose with before the cameras. It works because he views the world by how the media portrays him and he can’t put it away and focus on much else. And television. He loves seeing himself on television.

Matthew Rozsa at Salon wonders if addiction is too strong a word to describe Trump’s media habits. But Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei writing at Axios call it just that. Trumps starts early each day with a heavy dose of “Morning Joe” and “Fox & Friends”:

Trump has been hooked on coverage, especially of himself, since the glory days of the New York tabloids, when he would happily leak details about his affairs and business deals. He can’t quit it. So the notion he will surrender the remote, or Twitter, or his grievances with reporters is pure fantasy. Aides talk of giving him “better choices” or jamming his schedule with meetings to keep him away from reading about or watching himself on TV. But this is an addiction he will never kick.

The frightening thing for the world is Trump already seems bent upon holding meetings before appearances after decrees to keep the world’s eyes focused on him. Protests work, Bouie believes, and “the larger the gathering, the greater the odds that Trump will respond with crippling anger and outrage.” The more protests take focus off Himself, the more flailing and dangerous those moves will be. A short survey of headlines this morning show how determined he is to yank back the spotlight he lost on Saturday.

Trump threatens to “send in the Feds” if Chicago doesn’t crack down on violence there.

If Chicago doesn’t fix the horrible “carnage” going on, 228 shootings in 2017 with 42 killings (up 24% from 2016), I will send in the Feds!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 25, 2017

He plans more executive orders (photo ops) today allowing construction of his “big, beautiful” wall on the Mexican border and cracking down on “sanctuary cities.”

These were campaign promises, of course, and these are his first days in office. But the larger question is what the reality show star will feel compelled to do day after day over the next four years once he starts running out of material. The American audience has a short attention span. As the Trump show begins to stale and his ratings tank, what does an attention junkie do to goose his Nielsens when his show premiered by jumping the shark?

As treacherous as it may seem, the rest of us may have no better choice than to push him there sooner rather than later to minimize the long-term damage.

The global gag rule is now ten times worse than it was under Bush

by digby

And the hits just keep on coming. From Mark Leon Goldberg at UN Dispatch:

President Trump yesterday signed a presidential memorandum re-instating the Global Gag Rule. For most of the day yesterday the actual text of the memorandum was not released so much of the media coverage — including our own — was based on the understanding that Donald Trump simply re-instated the same policy that existed during the George W. Bush-era administration. In fact, he did not. Rather, after the text became public last night it became clear that Trump dramatically expanded the scope of the Global Gag Rule to include all global health assistance provided by the US government.

Previously, the restrictions embedded in the Global Gag Rule were limited exclusively to NGOs that receive US government assistance for family planning and reproductive health, like contraception. These restrictions include prohibiting that NGO from counseling women that abortion is an option or lobbying foreign governments to liberalize their abortion laws. Even if the funding sources for abortion counseling come from another source, that NGO must cease that counseling or either relinquish its US funding for, say, condom distribution or obstetric surgeries.  That’s how it worked in the Bush administration–to disasterous effect.

But the Trump memo takes this a huge step further. Rather than applying the Global Gag Rule exclusively to US assistance for family planning in the developing world, which amounts to about $575 million per year, the Trump memo applies it to “global health assistance furnished by all department or agencies.” In other words, NGOs that distribute bed nets for malaria, provide childhood vaccines, support early childhood nutrition and brain development, run HIV programs, fight ebola or Zika, and much more, must now certify their compliance with the Global Gag Rule or risk losing US funds. According to analysis from PAI, a global health NGO, this impacts over $9 billion of US funds, or about 15 times more than the previous iteration of the Global Gag Rule which only impacted reproductive health assistance.

We already know from research that the Bush-era Global Gag Rule resulted in a sharp decline in the availability of contraceptives in some of the poorest places on earth, which in turn hindered the fight against maternal death and increased abortion raters. Now, this one change may profoundly undermine not only progress on maternal health worldwide but also the US government’s ability to fight HIV/AIDS, big childhood killers like malaria, and prevent infectious diseases like Zika and ebola from reaching US shores.

This is a profound expansion of what was already a harmful policy.

Yes, they’re coming for Social Security and Medicare

by digby

Why anyone ever thought Trump really gave a damn about protecting Social Security and Medicare is beyond me. He said it because it polls well and because he’s so ignorant that he doesn’t know that when Republicans say they will “save” Social Security and Medicare they are lying and will actually destroy it. Not that he cares, which he doesn’t.

Here’s the evidence, via Daily Kos:

Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-SC), nominated to head the Office of Management and Budget by popular vote loser Donald Trump, told senators at his confirmation hearing Tuesday that Trump’s promises to leave Social Security and Medicare are going to be broken.

Mulvaney, R-S.C., developed a reputation in Congress as an eager supporter of deep spending cuts, and in confirmation hearings as President Donald Trump‘s proposed chief of the Office of Management and Budget, differed with Trump on entitlement spending.

“I believe, as a matter of principle, that the debt is a problem that must be addressed sooner, rather than later. I also know that fundamental changes are necessary in the way Washington spends and taxes if we truly want a healthy economy. This must include changing our government’s long-term fiscal path, which is unsustainable,” Mulvaney said in his opening remarks Tuesday before the Senate Budget Committee.

Here’s Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN), essentially implying Trump didn’t know what he was talking about in the campaign in making his “totally unrealistic” promises that “make no sense whatsoever,” and asking Mulvaney if he’s been able to explain all that to him and that cuts to Social Security and Medicare will have to be made. Mulvaney says “he knew what he was getting when he asked me to fill this role. […] I like to think that’s why he hired me.”

He has no clue about anything and he hired him because he looks right and somebody vouched for him. I’m sure he considers him a low level bean counter who will do as he’s told. It looks more like Mulvaney will be the one fudging the numbers on behalf of the Republican Party.

Again, Trump won’t care. He’ll be busy fulminating over his press coverage and taking calls from wily CEOs stroking his ego. This is an area that the Pence/Conway faction will run.

Groups like Social Security Works which have remained in place since the last assault are geared up for a fight on this. And that’s good because it looks like there’s going to be one.

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Illegal voter in chief

by digby

So the big controversy of the day about Trump believing that he had the biggest crowds in history and that he only lost the popular vote because “three to five million people voted illegally,” it’s worth recalling that Trump himself tried to vote illegally, on camera:

It’s HARD to vote illegally. Trump himself was turned away from 3 polling places in 2004 b/c he wasn’t on the rolls. https://t.co/tAW366jr7F

— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) January 24, 2017

Now, I will grant that your average Mexican undocumented worker is a lot smarter and more resourceful than Donald Trump. But still, for three million votes to be illegal, this sort of thing would be pretty hard to hide.

Also, there have been numerous studies over many, many years and there is no systematic voter fraud. Period. This is an “alternate fact.”

Not that his followers haven’t gobbled it up whole:

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1600 Pennsylvania Ave: gossip central

by digby

There is a ton of this sort of thing all over the media. This is from Axios:

This West Wing is a tough neighborhood. Even after Sean Spicer’s successful get-back-on-the-horse presser yesterday, we were told that a top White House official was discussing his possible replacement. On Day 4! With 1,457 to go in this term.

A senior aide texted at bedtime: “Back on track. Upper hand. Offense and action.” The team was feeling better after the reboot briefing by Spicer, plus a better-focused performance by POTUS. And the staff saw it as a home run when AFL-CIO boss Richard Trumka praised Trump’s move to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, with a statement headlined: “TPP Withdrawal Good First Step Toward Building Trade Policies that Benefit Working People.”

But inside, the finger-pointing and blame-casting continued. Unfortunately for Spicer, Trump is obsessed with his press secretary’s performance art. We hear that Trump hasn’t been impressed with how Spicer dresses, once asking an aide:

Doesn’t the guy own a dark suit?

Spicer looked a lot sharper yesterday than he did on Saturday — in a dark, bankerly suit.

NYT reporter Maggie Haberman tweeted that at Spicer’s Saturday presser, Trump “wanted him to be in command/project strength. He did neither. … [H]e wanted Spicer to be a derivative of himself — Trump almost always takes q’s & slices it with humor.”

I’d guess he wants everyone who deals with the press to be a reflection of himself. But honestly, this guy giving fashion advice to anyone is … rich.

The whole team should probably start wearing ties that inexplicably hang below the crotch. As Colbert pointed out, JFK not wearing a hat for his inauguration changed the fashion forever.

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QOTD: A spook

by digby

An NPR segment about the latest lunacy with Trump and the CIA:

KELLY: … the latest twist is The Wall Street Journal reporting this morning that Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Flynn, is under a counter intelligence investigation because of suspected ties to Russia. The Senate Intelligence Committee is also investigating that very question.

So here – here is the question that another CIA veteran put to me after watching Trump’s speech this weekend. This is Steve Hall. He was CIA chief of Russia operations. And he asked, what happens when the CIA collects a stellar piece of intelligence that maybe puts Vladimir Putin in a bad light? Steve Hall said, what happens when the CIA briefs Trump, and he wants to know the source? And Hall’s quote directly to me was, how can you say, no, we don’t trust you with the sourcing of that information? That is a live question today at Langley.

Wow. That’s like something out of a movie. A bad movie. With Sylvester Stallone as the president and Nicolas Cage as Michael Flynn.

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Once and for all, Donald Trump is not an isolationist

by digby

I expanded on my earlier post about this fatuous notion that Trump is not an isolationist for Salon this morning.

He’s the opposite. He’s an imperialist:

Donald Trump’s inaugural address produced yet another torrent of commentary about his “populist, isolationist” ideology and what it means for the future of the republic and the world. Unfortunately, he is all about neither of those things.

It’s true that he deployed the voice of a demagogue to rant about elites and powerful politicians and repeatedly evoked “the people.” But considering that his hires include six Goldman Sachs alums, three billionaires and several more vastly wealthy multimillionaires for his Cabinet, his alleged populism seems a bit strained. After all, to the extent the hellscape he described in that speech exists, it was created by the very people he is now empowering.

Calling Trump an isolationist rests mostly on his use of the archaic term “America First,” which was associated with attempts to keep America out of World War II (and also came with strong undercurrents of anti-Semitism.) But there is no evidence that Trump had a clue about that association when he started using the phrase.

Recall that when journalist Michael Wolff interviewed him in June, just before the big vote in the U.K., Trump clearly hadn’t heard of Brexit. Granted, he subsequently become fast friends with Brexit architect and right-wing provocateur Nigel Farage. But his idea of “isolationism” in this case is a simplistic belief that any nation “run by smart guys” can “make better deals” without having other countries represented at the table.

As far as security is concerned, Trump’s threats to withdraw from NATO and other alliances aren’t really about wanting to pull America to remain within its borders. He never says that. In fact, he wants a huge military and wants to show it off so everyone in the world will be in awe of American power. He just wants NATO and other alliances to pay protection money to the U.S. for whatever price he sets.

Trump has repeatedly made the fatuous claim that he’s going to make the military so massive that “no one will ever want to mess with us” but never has actually suggested that he would have any reluctance to use it. Indeed, he’s made it clear that he intends to do just that, telling his rowdy crowds during the campaign:

ISIS is making a tremendous amount of money because of the oil that they took away, they have some in Syria, they have some in Iraq, I would bomb the shit out of them. 

I would just bomb those suckers, and that’s right, I’d blow up the pipes. I’d blow up the refineries. I’d blow up ever single inch. There would be nothing left. 

And you know what, you’ll get Exxon to come in there, and in two months — you ever see these guys? How good they are, the great oil companies. They’ll rebuild it brand new. . . . And I’ll take the oil.

This has been his promise from Day One. Yesterday, press secretary Sean Spicer, reacting to Russian reports that the U.S. military was already engaged with Russia’s forces in bombing Syria, offered up this startling answer:

Spicer: I know it’s still developing and I would refer you back to the Department of Defense. I know that they’re — they’re currently monitoring this and I would refer you back to them on that. And I think . . .
Question: Generally open? 

Spicer: I think, the president has been very clearly. [sic] He’s gonna work with any country that shares our interest in defeating ISIS. Not just on the national security front, but on the economic front. If we can work with someone to create greater market access and spur economic growth and allow U.S. small businesses and companies to . . . 

Question: [inaudible] to doing joint military actions with Russia in Syria? 

Spicer: I — I think if there’s a way that we can combat ISIS with any country, whether it’s Russia or anyone else, and we have a shared national interest in that, sure we’ll take it.

The Pentagon adamantly denied that the U.S. military was currently helping Russia in Syria, where the Russian military has been accused by the U.N. of committing war crimes by using bunker-busting and incendiary bombs on civilian populations. Spicer didn’t mention any of that, but Trump is undoubtedly unconcerned since his strategy is the same: “Bomb the shit out of them.”

As for “taking the oil,” which is a suggestion Trump has repeated for months (including as recently as Saturday when he told the CIA officials they “might get another chance at it”) even conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer was taken aback, correctly noting that “seizing the oil is a war crime.”

If you have listened to Trump talk about China over the past 18 months, it is clear that he is not simply talking about a potential trade war but is prepared to confront the world’s largest nation militarily. In his confirmation hearings, secretary of state-designate Rex Tillerson made it clear that he agreed with Trump that the U.S. would not allow China to build military bases on islands in the South China Sea, and Spicer made that official yesterday:

I think the U.S. is going to make sure that we protect our interests there. If those islands are in fact in international waters and not part of China proper, then yes, we’re going to make sure that we defend international territories from being taken over by one country.

Does that sound like any definition of “isolationism” you’ve ever heard?

When Donald Trump says “America First,” he really means “We’re No. 1.” He talks incessantly about “winning,” so much we’ll be begging him to stop. He openly declares that he believes in the old saying “to the victors belong the spoils,” either suggesting that he has no clue about the West’s colonial past and how that sounds to people around the world or simply doesn’t care. He’s not talking about isolationism but the exact opposite — American global dominance without all those messy institutions and international agreements standing in the way of taking what we want.

No, Trump is not an isolationist. He’s not a “realist.” Neither is he a liberal interventionist or a neoconservative idealist. He’s an old-fashioned imperialist. He wants to Make America great again by making it the world’s dominant superpower, capable of bullying other countries into submission and behaving however we like. He doesn’t seem to understand that the world won’t put up with that.

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This is crazy. Literally.

by digby

This is not normal, people. But you knew that. And it hasn’t even been a week. Check out this article in the Washington Post, obviously leaked by warring insiders, about what’s happening within the new administration. Warring factions, Trump obsessed with his unpopularity and lashing out. It’s a mess.

This is a very, very, very stressful job. He went into it with very serious issues. We don’t know the state of his physical health, not really, and he’s 70 years old. And his mental health is quite obviously not good.

Imagine how bad this is going to get.  It may come to the 25th Amendment.

From History News Network

America is about to inaugurate a person who not only lost 54 percent of the popular vote, but also has gloated over his “landslide” victory. Donald Trump is demonstrating by his tweets and by his constant narcissistic behavior – his refusal to accept the truth that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is manipulating him by the use of flattery, his indifference to the national security information provided by 17 intelligence agencies, among other examples – that he is a dire threat to America and its future. Clearly, Donald Trump is displaying evidence that he is mentally unbalanced and unhinged. Many psychologists have said he fits the textbook definition of a psychopath.

This means that America is faced with its greatest constitutional crisis since Richard Nixon and Watergate. In many ways Donald Trump, with his pure ignorance, adolescent behavior and lack of experience, is a greater threat to America than Richard Nixon ever was. This crisis will escalate once Trump is inaugurated as he sets out to destroy the foundations of American foreign policy and lets loose an attack on basic domestic policy norms in areas including civil liberties, civil rights, the environment, labor rights, women’s rights, health care, and education, not to mention racial, religious and ethnic tolerance. Additionally, he is showing a total inability to use diplomacy and tact in his dealings with others. Instead, he employs insults and name calling, which is a danger to domestic harmony and foreign stability. He seems, clearly, to be living in a parallel universe, out of touch with reality, and obsessed with his own vanity.

Fortunately, there is a constitutional remedy: The 25th Amendment to the Constitution, Section 4.

The 25th Amendment was approved after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. People were concerned that the new President, Lyndon B. Johnson, who had suffered a severe heart attack in 1955, might die in office, leaving the succession to the presidency in the hands of the 73 year old Speaker of the House, John W. McCormack of Massachusetts, or possibly 86 year old Senate President Pro Tempore, Carl Hayden of Arizona. The recent revelation by a Secret Service agent that Johnson was endangered by a possible shooting outside the Vice Presidential home by a nervous Secret Service agent on the night of November 22, 1963, only added to the crisis atmosphere at the time of the Kennedy assassination.

So in 1965, Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana and New York Congressman Emanuel Celler cosponsored what came to be the 25th Amendment, something that should have been passed decades earlier, after Woodrow Wilson suffered a severe stroke in the fall of 1919, and was heavily incapacitated for the remaining one and a half years of his Presidency, with Vice President Thomas Marshall not kept in the loop during those crucial 18 months. But nothing was done until the Kennedy death finally spurred action a half century later.

The 25th Amendment allowed for the replacement of the Vice President if that office fell vacant, and under this amendment, we have had two appointed Vice Presidents—Gerald Ford and Nelson Rockefeller—approved by both houses of Congress in 1973 and 1974 respectively, both occurring due to the Watergate Scandal and the resignations of Vice President Spiro Agnew and President Richard Nixon.

The provision in the 25th Amendment for an “Acting President” has been invoked under President Ronald Reagan in 1985, and under President George W. Bush twice in 2002 and 2007. In the case of Reagan, it was for cancer surgery after a colonoscopy, and in the case of Bush for twice undergoing colonoscopies. Therefore, power was handed over to Vice President George H. W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, respectively, giving each of them temporary Presidential authority for a period of hours. However when Ronald Reagan was shot by John Hinckley on March 30, 1981, the 25th Amendment was NOT invoked. It clearly should have been.

In 1987, due to concern that Reagan might have lost his mental acuity, a group of Reagan staffers, led by Chief of Staff Howard Baker, arranged a meeting with Reagan, to settle questions that some had raised about his mental acuity. They came away convinced that Reagan was in fine mental shape. This was the only time a president’s ability to perform the tasks of his office was reviewed since the passage of the 25th Amendment, which provides a remedy.

Under Section 4 of the 25th Amendment the Vice President and the cabinet can take action if they believe the President is incapable of fulfilling his duties. There would be consultation with Congressional leaders in case of such an event, with the Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, being the highest ranking constitutional officer in the line of Presidential succession, after Vice President Mike Pence. The question is whether Pence, wanting to remain loyal to the President, and so far defending everything Donald Trump has said and done, at least in public, could be persuaded that the nation was in danger, and that action needed to be taken to make Pence “Acting President.” He would remain Acting President unless the House decided to impeach Trump and the Senate convicted him. Ryan is clearly more uncomfortable with Trump than Pence, though he has evidently tried very hard to remain optimistic and loyal.

This seems in many ways to form the basis of a thriller political novel, but it is clearly a very worrisome situation in the minds of many foreign policy and intelligence experts. It would take a lot of political courage and conviction for Pence and Ryan and the cabinet officers to agree that Donald Trump is unfit to be President, and for them to be convinced that Trump is so dangerous he shouldn’t have access to the nuclear codes or continue as Commander in Chief. This is a situation that must be monitored and evaluated on an ongoing basis. The fate of the nation depends on our political leaders exercising good judgment.

It won’t solve out problems, of course. Pence is a menace and the GOP congress is almost as nuts as Trump. They are already showing they are prepared to destroy everything that ever made this country a decent place to live.

But … Pence is unlikely to start WWIII by accident.

That’s where we are now. It’s all we’ve got.

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