Impeachment vs the 25th Amendment
There has been a lot of talk the last few days about whether Trump should be impeached or removed using the provisions of the 25th amendment. To understand this, let's look at what the 25th amendment says:
"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 was clearly intended to provide for an orderly functioning of government when the President was incapacitated; i.e. prevented from carrying out his duties through no fault of his own. When Ronald Reagan was shot, for example, or if a President had to undergo emergency surgery, his inability to function would not reflect in any way on his general capacity to carry out his duty, or his moral fitness to be President.
This is not at all what happened here. President Trump is fully capable of carrying out his duty; he simply refuses to do it.
Enacting 25th amendment provisions carries with it the implication that it is not any way the President's fault that he is unable to function; i.e. it absolves him from all responsibility for his behavior, and turns him from a villain into a victim.
Impeachment, whether or not the corrupt Republicans in the Senate once again refuse to carry out their sworn Constitutional duty (it is overwhelmingly likely that they will) marks Trump as the anti-American criminal that he is, not a victim of unfortunate circumstances. Trump must be given no help in lying his way out of responsibility for what he has done. Whatever action is taken must make it crystal clear that his behavior was evil and directly attributable to his own decisions. Republicans must never be given ammunition to claim otherwise.
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