Ambition will not counteract ambition
By 
I have no objection per se to invoking impeachment and the 25th Amendment in the context of Trump’s genocidal threats — telling the truth can be its own justification even without an immediate practical remedy, and the political context might change down the road. This Wall Street Journal story focusing on the handful of Republicans who think that Congress should exercise at least some fraction of its constitutional war power responsibilities, however, makes it clear why the mechanisms are so ineffectual in the context of ordinary party politics:
“Clock starts ticking after 60 days, you’re supposed to start exiting,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R., N.C.) said last month. “So they should be mindful of that, because I’m gonna read the plain letter of the war-power resolution, and if we get into that window we’ve got to think differently.”
Sen. Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) said in early March that there would come a point after 60 to 90 days—or if ground troops were deployed—when Trump would need to request authorization from Congress.
“The statute itself contemplates in 60 days the administration would have to come back to Congress,” Hawley said. “That is assuming that they would remain in compliance with all the parameters, which I think they are.… I think almost always, if we’re gonna put ground troops into a protracted conflict, I think you need congressional authorization.”
Spokespeople for Tillis and Hawley didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R., Alaska) told reporters late last month that she had spoken with colleagues about drafting a formal authorization for the use of military force in Iran, or an AUMF. She said it likely would impose some guardrails and reporting requirements on the administration.
“I think there is interest in finding out what it might look like,” Murkowski said. “Wouldn’t we all love to know that tomorrow it’s all over and things are going to be in a better place? But I’m just not thinking we’re going to be in that place.” A Murkowski spokesman said Monday that he had nothing to add.
Sen. Tim Kaine (D., Va.) on Monday called on Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.) to bring back the Senate early following social-media posts by Trump in which he threatened to destroy Iran’s energy infrastructure and bridges if the country didn’t reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump’s postings and threats over the weekend were “unhinged” and “show an increasing mental and moral instability that cannot be ignored,” Kaine said.
It says it all that the Senate cannot even be bothered to convene as the president is threatening civilizational destruction. But it’s clear that the best-case scenario is that Congress simply authorizes the Iran War with some feeble reporting requirements and immaterial “guardrails.” The other plausible scenario is that Congress does nothing. There is, as far as the 119th Congress is concerned, no third possibility. Most of the majority party in Congress affirmatively supports Trump, and even those more skeptical have their political fortunes tied to him.
Chris Geidner’s plea for the invocation of the 25th Amendment — which I take to be more aspirational and an assignment of moral responsibility than a practical guide, and again am not objecting to on its face — also allows us to see why the mechanisms can’t work:
President Donald Trump must be removed from office.
He is manifestly unfit for office, and his continued presence in office is an existential danger to the United States of America and the world.
His Tuesday morning threat that “[a] whole civilization will die tonight,” is not the first unacceptable statement from this man — but it must be his last as president.
Vice President J.D. Vance has a moral, ethical, and constitutional obligation to invoke Section 4 of the Twenty-fifth Amendment by securing the support from a majority of the cabinet to “immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.”
While it’s hard not to laugh to see morality or ethics associated in any way with JD Vance, the claim about his responsibilities isn’t wrong. But the problem here is evident — even if Vance is the most war-skeptical of Trump’s official inner circle, which is apparently the case unless Tucker counts, the chances that Vance would permanently immolate his political future to try to get Trump removed from office would be zero even if it had a chance of succeeding. And since the 25th Amendment requires the same supermajorities as impeachment, it couldn’t ultimately succeed either.
Outside of the very weak partisan coalitions that briefly created a context in which a Supreme Court justice would resign to had his seat to the other party over penny-ante corruption charges and a president would resign to preempt conviction, the system of checks and balances envisioned by the framers functions the opposite of the way it was intended. Ambition compels collaboration and the passing of responsibility rather than the jealous guarding of constitutional prerogatives. And this is why the the utter triviality of so much campaign coverage and the inability of it to communicate the stakes to voters remains one of my top hobbyhorses. In the American system as it currently functions, when the presidential election is over there are no do-overs.