There’s no need to go into the backstory. Readers are likely very familiar with the Bob Woodward book, NY Times anonymous op-ed, Robert Mueller’s investigation, Michael Cohen’s charges, and a handful of other pieces of “evidence” Democrats are throwing out as reasons to invoke the 25th Amendment in an attempt to remove Donald Trump from office. Let’s cut straight to why it’s a very bad idea.
Before I get into the reasons I think so, let’s look at why some in both parties are opposed. Democrats who are against it believe it will fail. That failure could fuel President Trump and Republicans in upcoming elections beyond the midterms. Just as ending Obamacare helped Republicans take the House, then the Senate, then the White House, turning Trump into the victim of political chicanery could help him and the GOP retain power.
If at some point they feel they can get the votes to remove him, they will. Today, it would fail. Talking about it without acting is worse than not talking about it at all, so prudent Democrats are warning their colleagues to stand down.
Republicans are against it for obvious reasons, but there’s also a not-so-obvious reason they oppose it. What the anonymous NY Times article implied is what many GOP representatives and Senators already knew. There’s a quiet protective force in the White House, the resistance, that is keeping many of the President’s worst actions and decisions from seeing the light of day. Invoking the 25th Amendment would mean outing cabinet members who are working on behalf of the country (or at least their perspective of the nation’s best interests). If it fails, the buffer in the cabinet and among senior staff would be evaporated.
Here’s why I believe trying to take him down is a bad idea.
Some would go so far as to say attempts to remove Trump from office would result in civil war. I’m not quite as dramatic, but I know we would see the type of unrest that this country can’t afford right now. Remember, a good chunk of America’s gun owners are Trump supporters. It wouldn’t be war, but there would be damage as a combination of the “deep state” and leftist power brokers would become enemies and traitors in the eyes of many.
They won’t sit back and let their guy go down without a fight.
But that alone is not the reason I think it would be disastrous. Looking to the future, I believe it’s important for Trump’s presidency to play out to fruition. Derailing it prematurely will not give us the valuable lessons we need in American society today.
His presidency may end up being successful; so far the positives such as tax cuts and deregulation have outweighed the negatives. If we could ever get the GOP back in line with free trade, eliminate Obamacare, and fulfill a handful of other important promises, this could turn out to be a better term than anything we’ve seen since Reagan’s first.
It could turn out to be a complete debacle. That won’t necessarily come from policy decisions. Instead, it could simply come in the form of a presidential meltdown unlike anything we’ve ever seen.
Whether it ends well or badly, it has to be allowed to end in its own time. Trying to remove him from office prevents us from learning the lessons every American and group needs.
Democrats need to learn their contempt for America is untenable. If Trump remains in office and is successful, perhaps they’ll finally abandon socialism and other dead end principles that have been corrupting the party for a decade.
Republicans need to learn they cannot abandon their values for the sake of a good sales pitch. They had an opportunity to be discerning with a handful of good candidates mixed in with the rest of the huge field they put together in 2016. They chose a Democrat in GOP clothing who has failed at the vast majority of his endeavors, was proud of his immorality, and demonstrated abysmal judgment in life and business for five decades.
American needs to learn about their duty to get involved with their government. Trump wouldn’t have been able to win a decade ago and probably wouldn’t be able to win in a future America that will hopefully be more involved in the guidance of their own lives. He picked the perfect time to become the sideshow in a distracted America that craved the biggest distraction of them all. Now that he’s here, we have to let him finish.
This is the presidency many of us expected. While it might be tempting to try to end it prematurely, it’s important for us to let it go all the way through. How America reacts and what it learns will say a lot about what the future holds for our nation.