A Very Special Episode of America, the Trump Years

The Audacity of Hope

It is definitely not beyond the realm of possibility that this is a publicity stunt, and dismissing that possibility is reckless. Most conspiracy theories are obviously false because they require the cooperation of enormous numbers of people who all have to keep quiet. However, actual conspiracies do exist of course, and this one would require a total of about five people to carry out.

This is EXACTLY the kind of thing that would appeal to Trump: It would be pure kayfabe, for the ratings, plus it would give him a bunch of outs in terms of how he wants to play a busted hand. Furthermore, while he’s clearly delusional, he may not be delusional enough to fail to grasp that he’s in a desperate situation.

I want to emphasize that while I think it’s unlikely this is staged, it’s far from impossible. And this just illustrates how the worlds of authoritarianism, fascism, and totalitarianism destroy the public’s ability to trust anything or anyone. This, more than anything else, is why Trump himself and everyone who stands with him must be at a minimum so humiliated at the polls that his cult is deemed toxic by enough people to drive it back into the shadows, at least eventually.

The Moral Issue

From a utilitarian point of view Donald Trump’s life has strongly negative value, and from a retributivist one he deserves as much as any human can to suffer intensely for the rest of his miserable life. My only concern in regard to the course of his illness, assuming he actually has COVID, is that it plays out in whatever way will maximize his electoral destruction 32 days from now. Those are all my thoughts and prayers on that particular matter.

The 25th Amendment

Keep in mind that the vast majority of people with COVID, even the vast majority of people with lots of co-morbidities, do not become critically ill, let alone die from it.

However, if Trump ends up in an ICU the 25th amendment could come into play. The way this works is that the vice president gets a majority of the Cabinet to sign a letter stating that the president is unable to discharge the duties of his office. As soon as that letter is transmitted to Congress, the vice president becomes the Acting President, and assumes all the powers of the presidency. If and only if the president transmits a letter to Congress disputing his incapacity, Congress then has 21 days to resolve the dispute. If less than two-thirds of either House votes to retain the vice president as Acting President, the president resumes office.

And on the Third Day he Rose Again

Somehow it seems appropriate that a nation founded by religious fanatics and which continues to be largely dominated by them may be ending in some sort of cut-rate resurrectionist psycho-drama. Thanks Alanis.

The ACA

Let’s not forget that Amy Coney Barrett said in print three years ago that the ACA should be struck down, which means that she and everyone who supports her nomination to the Supreme Court think that tens of millions of people should have no health insurance if they can’t afford it, in a country that’s in the middle of a pandemic.