How Donald Trump needs to exit the White House
President Trump  makes  his  way toward Air Force One before departing from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. (AFP/Getty Images)
Speculation about how long  Donald Trump  will last as president has been rampant since the spring. By summer it was quite clear that: a)  Trump  was not going to grow up in office; and b) the best staffing in the world would not be able to make  him  even a mediocre president. Yes  constitutional checks and balances are still working  but that is cold comfort when so many officials and analysts are talking so casually about war with North Korea.
So it is no surprise that some hope the Mueller investigation will bring  Trump  down  or that the president will eat himself into a coronary. It is certainly possible that these things will happen. As someone who has vehemently opposed  Trump  for years  however  I hope they do not.
Washington Post opinion writer Jennifer Rubin explains the probability of impeachment or enacting the 25th amendment in the  Trump  era. (Adriana Usero Kate Woodsome Danielle Kunitz/The Washington Post)
To be clear  it is not that I believe the Mueller investigation to be a fruitless endeavor. In a little over six months  the special counsel has managed to indict  Trump ’s former campaign manager and reach a plea deal with Trump’s first national security adviser. The more malfeasance Mueller and his team exposes  the better. He has done a far better job of draining the swamp than the president of the United States.
Still  if  Trump  is forced out by constitutional-but-unprecedented means  I fear the repercussions. Consider the 25th Amendment. As Ezra Klein observes — in a Vox article making the case for impeachment  no less — removing  Trump  this way would lead to all kinds of blowback:
Imagine that Vice President Mike Pence and the Cabinet did compel  Trump  to undergo psychiatric evaluation. And imagine the psychiatrist did return a diagnosis of some kind  be it early-stage dementia or narcissistic personality disorder (plenty of psychiatrists stand ready to diagnose  Trump  with all manner of mental ailments  so this is not far-fetched). The vote is taken  and  Trump  is removed from office. To many of  Trump ’s supporters — and perhaps many of  his  opponents — this would look like nothing less than a coup; the swamp swallowing the man who sought to drain it. Imagine the Breitbart headlines  the Fox News chyrons. And would they truly be wrong?
Of course  this also undercuts Klein’s argument for a lower threshold for impeachment. If  Trump  was removed from office that way  the political blowback would probably be the same. Regardless  in contrast to the 25th Amendment  impeaching and removing  Trump  from office remains a true hypothetical. In this polarized age  the only way  Trump  would be removed from office is if Democrats win 67 seats in the Senate. That is not going to happen anytime soon.
For  Trump  to lose properly   it  has to be at the ballot box.  Trump  has to run for reelection and be repudiated by American voters.  He  has to lose the popular vote again  get trounced in the electoral college  and see  his  party pay the consequences of backing the most ignorant  illiberal president in modern American history.
The absolute best way for  Trump  and Trumpism to be repudiated is through democratic and not merely legal means. If Doug Jones defeats Roy Moore in Alabama despite a presidential endorsement  that represents a blow to  Trump  in the same way he was humiliated by the Virginia state elections last month. If the GOP loses badly in the midterms despite a healthy economy  that is an even bigger repudiation of the head of the Republican Party. And if  Trump  loses bigly in  his  quest for reelection in 2020  such a resounding defeat might shock the GOP into repudiating white identity politics.
Electing  Trump  once was a fluke involving a fractured GOP  an unpopular Democrat nominee  and the Democrats having won the previous two terms. Electing  Trump  twice would be national suicide. If the United States has any chance at regaining its bearings as the greatest constitutional democracy in the world  the populist in chief must be revealed as genuinely unpopular. And it has to happen at the ballot box.
President Trump  makes  his  way toward Air Force One before departing from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. (AFP/Getty Images)
Speculation about how long  [TGT]  will last as president has been rampant since the spring. By summer it was quite clear that: a)  Trump  was not going to grow up in office; and b) the best staffing in the world would not be able to make  him  even a mediocre president. Yes  constitutional checks and balances are still working  but that is cold comfort when so many officials and analysts are talking so casually about war with North Korea.
So it is no surprise that some hope the Mueller investigation will bring  Trump  down  or that the president will eat himself into a coronary. It is certainly possible that these things will happen. As someone who has vehemently opposed  Trump  for years  however  I hope they do not.
Washington Post opinion writer Jennifer Rubin explains the probability of impeachment or enacting the 25th amendment in the  Trump  era. (Adriana Usero Kate Woodsome Danielle Kunitz/The Washington Post)
To be clear  it is not that I believe the Mueller investigation to be a fruitless endeavor. In a little over six months  the special counsel has managed to indict  Trump ’s former campaign manager and reach a plea deal with Trump’s first national security adviser. The more malfeasance Mueller and his team exposes  the better. He has done a far better job of draining the swamp than the president of the United States.
Still  if  Trump  is forced out by constitutional-but-unprecedented means  I fear the repercussions. Consider the 25th Amendment. As Ezra Klein observes — in a Vox article making the case for impeachment  no less — removing  Trump  this way would lead to all kinds of blowback:
Imagine that Vice President Mike Pence and the Cabinet did compel  Trump  to undergo psychiatric evaluation. And imagine the psychiatrist did return a diagnosis of some kind  be it early-stage dementia or narcissistic personality disorder (plenty of psychiatrists stand ready to diagnose  Trump  with all manner of mental ailments  so this is not far-fetched). The vote is taken  and  Trump  is removed from office. To many of  Trump ’s supporters — and perhaps many of  his  opponents — this would look like nothing less than a coup; the swamp swallowing the man who sought to drain it. Imagine the Breitbart headlines  the Fox News chyrons. And would they truly be wrong?
Of course  this also undercuts Klein’s argument for a lower threshold for impeachment. If  Trump  was removed from office that way  the political blowback would probably be the same. Regardless  in contrast to the 25th Amendment  impeaching and removing  Trump  from office remains a true hypothetical. In this polarized age  the only way  Trump  would be removed from office is if Democrats win 67 seats in the Senate. That is not going to happen anytime soon.
For  Trump  to lose properly   it  has to be at the ballot box.  Trump  has to run for reelection and be repudiated by American voters.  He  has to lose the popular vote again  get trounced in the electoral college  and see  his  party pay the consequences of backing the most ignorant  illiberal president in modern American history.
The absolute best way for  Trump  and Trumpism to be repudiated is through democratic and not merely legal means. If Doug Jones defeats Roy Moore in Alabama despite a presidential endorsement  that represents a blow to  Trump  in the same way he was humiliated by the Virginia state elections last month. If the GOP loses badly in the midterms despite a healthy economy  that is an even bigger repudiation of the head of the Republican Party. And if  Trump  loses bigly in  his  quest for reelection in 2020  such a resounding defeat might shock the GOP into repudiating white identity politics.
Electing  Trump  once was a fluke involving a fractured GOP  an unpopular Democrat nominee  and the Democrats having won the previous two terms. Electing  Trump  twice would be national suicide. If the United States has any chance at regaining its bearings as the greatest constitutional democracy in the world  the populist in chief must be revealed as genuinely unpopular. And it has to happen at the ballot box.