I was working on a post on Democratic elitism (which you might see in a day or two), but I saw a video of Trump in Scotland, veering way, way off-topic and I realized—for the umpteenth time—that this man is simply not able to serve as president. Here is the clip:
You may be saying, “Hey, that’s not the worst he’s done. He didn’t go off on electric boats or sharks.” That’s actually the point. The man is president of the United States, and he’s incompetent. Not just in the sense of being unable to fulfill his responsibilities, which he is, but unable to think coherently. When you are the person with your finger on the nuclear button, that’s important. It’s very, very important.
This is old news, isn’t it? We have heard for years that if he was your father or grandfather, you’d take away the car keys. With time, his rants have become ever more unhinged, his use of language less and less fluent; his attention span is now evanescent. More and more frequently, he is actively unhinged. And the world treats that as normal.
It’s time to stop doing that. It’s long past time, but we cannot undo the past. So, even though yesterday’s rant was hardly the most extreme, we need to stand up now and say that things have got to change. To be specific, Donald Trump needs to leave the presidency, either through resignation or by operation of the 25th Amendment. Even though that would leave us with JV Dunce in the Oval Office.
(As early as 1973 I opined publicly that Nixon had to be impeached, even though Spiro Agnew was the Vice-President. My reasoning was that, “At least Agnew seems to be honest,” which reduced my credibility just a mite when it became known that he was being investigated for bribery, extortion and tax fraud, which led to his resignation.)
What will happen if we all stand up and yell at the top of our lungs that Trump needs to leave office? Nothing. Nothing at all. The world will just go on as it has been doing, unless Trump blows us all up by accident.
So, why should we spend some of our very limited store of time and energy on such a Sisyphean task? For one thing, because when you just read, “unless Trump blows us all up by accident,” you did not say to yourself, “Oh, that will never happen.”
We—and those who are on our side—can make this issue real. We can repeat over and over again that Trump must go, now. We can use each new example to make the case anew. We can tell our representatives and senators that we are looking for them to lead. If we are on Facebook or Twixter (I’m not), we can post in our groups that Trump cannot continue to play at being president. We can make comments on political websites and media such as NYT. We can write letters or even columns in local papers where they still exist.
If everyone reading this takes my suggestions, and recruits friends and family and anyone that they can reach, will we make a discernible difference? Not very likely. If we are lucky, and more people join us, we shall increasingly get a hearing, rather than just being laughed off. We might just convince some people to start thinking that maybe Trump should be removed. (One of those just might be JV Dunce.) It is just possible that, if Trump weakens more, mentally and physically, some folks in the Republican power center will start to calculate how the torch could be passed.
To be clear, I do not view Dunce as likely to be a “better” president than Trump. He is a very dangerous man. I do think that he will have far less influence on Trump’s constituency—MAGA and others—than the current incumbent. But the reason why we should want to get him into the Oval Office is not because he is preferable, but because he is more competent, in both senses of that word.
I have seen speculation on comment strings that the authors of Project 2025 have got what they want from Trump and are ready to toss him aside. Even if that were true—and it’s hardly likely—moving Trump out of the White House would still be the right thing to do now. Even if it means only that the struggle enters another phase. Even if getting rid of Trump turns out to be a diversion from the campaign for democracy and against fascism. Replacing Trump is the right thing to do now.
—86 47—
Good one Jon.
Jon, this is just his usual bull-schtick...the media and MAGA eat it up. I know folks claim he has dementia but, frankly, this shit disproves it. He's always done this - saw it when I was a young commercial real estate broker in NYC.
The bottom line: unfortunately, we need the bottom to drop out on the economy, interest rates to spike and people's wallets to be laid bare before non-voters and independent voters are motivated enough to overcome the Republican effort to manipulate the 2026 mid-term elections. And even if there is a blue wave, will there even be 67 votes in the Senate to remove Trump? Probably not - so the best we'll be able to do is reduce the ongoing destruction.