It was only 10 days ago when I wrote a blog on Seven Days in January: This Time It Is Not a Movie. Little did I know what would happen just four days later on January 6 or what would happen afterwards. Now seven days later history will be made with the second impeachment of single President. Time moves very quickly now. What you write can be obsolete before you are done [Mitch McConnell believes impeaching Trump will help! Mitch McConnell: Howard Baker (Time to Go) vs Stay the Course (Go Down with the Ship) June 8, 2020]. Has hell frozen over? Has he seen the light?
There are issues to be considered which I didn’t address in my blog about political thrillers from the early 1960s and the world today.
PRESIDENTIAL SUCCESSION
There has been a lot of discussion about the 25th Amendment but very little about Presidential succession. The Vice President is necessary to activate the removal process. The Vice President also was a target of the insurrection. The phrase “Hang Mike Pence” was heard and a functioning gallows had been constructed as if its builders were prepared to use it. WHAT HAPPENS TO THE 25TH AMENDMENT IF THERE IS NO VICE PRESIDENT?
Next in line for Presidential succession is the Speaker of the House. However the Speaker is not next in line to fill a Vice President opening. There is a process of selection and confirmation involving the President and the Congress to fill that slot. Suppose the President doesn’t name anyone to fill the position in case the Trump insurrectionists had hanged Mike Pence? What then?
Assuming the Vice President had survived the attempted coup, which he did, then what? Let’s say what is left of the Cabinet had approved the initiative. That action then is to be transmitted to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives according to the Amendment. Suppose they are dead? What does the Vice President do?
Political thrillers are out of vogue now. Perhaps the recent events will cause a revival. It is easy to see now in an emergency situation how inadequate the 25th Amendment is. With all its checks and balances built into the text the process could drag on for weeks. That doesn’t cut it in during an insurrection.
True, it never occurred to the authors and ratifiers of the 25th Amendment that one day a President of the United States would foster an insurrection to remain in power. Now we know better. The Amendment needs to be amended.
LOSS OF CONTROL
In all the political thrillers, the instigator or brains behind the action is in charge. That person knows what is going on and is in command of the actors. On December 7 and 9/11, the chain of command was established and maintained. The people did what they were supposed to do according to the plan. That is what was expected.
In the Trump Insurrection, the instigator brought all his shortcomings and inadequacies to the event. That doomed it to failure. The person with no management, organization, or planning skills in his business career and in the coronavirus pandemic, demonstrated the same shortcomings on January 6….for which we should be grateful. The simple-minded immature child President lacks the mental necessities or cognitive skills to effectively organize an insurrection. All the weenie in-chief could do was light a match, pour oil on the fire, and then vanish to go watch it on TV. Next to taking away his Twitter account, imagine taking away his TV!
He had no idea what the insurrectionists would actually do. It was not a 12/7, 9/11, or political thriller situation. He had no control over the people acting in his name. If his defense lawyers are smart they should plead he has the brains of a child and should be tried in juvenile court.
MY PEOPLE
Who are the “people” the twice-impeached President always refers to? Remember in the Georgia telephone call how he talked about “people” who would be angry. Then there really were the “people” who supported the telephone call – it proved he was fighting for them and hadn’t given up. Now again we hear about the “people” who would be very angry if he was penalized for his actions on January 6. After all, didn’t he give a “perfect” speech, an appropriate speech, just like his “perfect” call on his failed extortion attempt that led to his first impeachment?
I first became aware of these “people” after the 2016 election. One of the stock phrases Hannity used to attack those who criticized the legitimacy of the election was along the lines of he had been “duly elected by 63 million people.” He never mentioned the 66 million who had voted for the Democratic candidate. Why not? It would seem because those “people” aren’t “real people” and part of We the People. The 63 million who voted for the correct candidate are the Real Americans, not those other people.
Remember, Real Americans don’t get the coronavirus and die from it; “those” people do.
The exact same sequence is being played out today. All you hear about on Foxhub is the 75 million (or more accurately 74 million) who voted for the Sore Loser. Look at the increase over the 2016 vote total of 63 million! Somehow the 81 million who voted for the Democratic candidate are ignored. The 3 million fraudulent votes in 2016 became 5 million fraudulent votes when he needed more to overcome his growing gap by at least one vote. In 2020, it became over 7 million rigged votes. Over 7 million, because he really won by a landslide. Just as the 66 million in 2016 and the 81 million in 2020 don’t exist on Foxhub, so they don’t exist in the mind of the twice-impeached President. When he refers to “people,” he means only his people, the Real Americans. Confederates are Real Americans and patriots in Trump’s universe.
Such thinking also applies to Trumpicans. They feel that they have been disenfranchised by people who are not Real Americans. What are they to do they asked at the insurrection?
ENDGAME
The Capitol is our goal. Everything else is a distraction. Every corrupt member of Congress locked in one room and surrounded by real Americans is an opportunity that will never present itself again.
Did that include Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, and all the other Trumpican traitors who voted to reverse the election? If the insurrectionists had confronted the Representatives and Senators would they simply have open fired on all of them?
At the end of the day, you mark my word, we will plant our flag on the desk of Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. And Donald J. Trump if it boils down to it.
What flag is that? The American flag or the Trump flag? Once the forces of rebellion were unleashed, they were beyond the control of the twice-impeached President gleefully watching the mayhem on TV. He was more upset about losing the PGA Championship than he was about risking the lives of 536 elected officials and their staff.
And suppose they had disrupted the vote, what would have changed? Nothing. No matter what happened on January 6, Joe Biden would still become President on January 20. Did they know that?
So now there are 50 additional targets besides the Capitol. The story is not yet over. It will not end with the departure of the twice-impeached President. At this point, the ending to this political thriller in the real world remains unknown. On seven-day period stretched from insurrection to impeachment. The week will take us to inauguration. Who knows what will happen then? How many people can the FBI round up before they are pardoned?
There is one thought expressed at the insurrection which deserves attention. It was a call by one of the participants for exactly that:
We are here. See us! Notice us! Pay attention!”
If Joe Biden wants to be a unity President that is exactly what he has to do. Painful as that might be, he can’t unify the country unless he does pay attention to the people who oppose him. After all, Trumpicans still are Americans.
