Downfall. The 25th Amendment Watch List, Twelfth Edition. He's insane, we all know it, and he's in power. This will get much, much, worse.

Richard Nixon and Donald Trump.  One man worried his cabinet who planned around a possible mental collapse that didn't come, the other is having a mental collapse and his cabinet is doing nothing.

We later learned that in 1973 as Nixon came under increased pressure due to Watergate, his aids feared he would do something rash.  Nixon was reacting badly under the stress.  He was lashing out.  He was drinking heavily.

Of course, in the end, he resigned.

Donald Trump, who like Hitler doesn't drink, is visibly collapsing before our eyes.  He's obviously been in a state of mental decline for a decade now, and its increasing.  He was heavily impaired when elected, making any rational person wonder why he was elected to the office, other than that people the weird insurrectionist feared that Joe Biden's dementia was too advanced to allow for him to hold office again, something that history should not forgive Biden for.  Even that doesn't really explain it, as Harris was the alternative in the end, for people who play along with the two party system nightmare that actually doesn't have to exist.

A major difference between late stage Nixon and late stage Trump, other than that Nixon was not insane (a major difference) is that Nixon was surrounded by sane, if not always admirable, advisors.  Trump is surrounded by sycophants.

That's a huge difference as we now know that Nixon's advisors consulted amongst themselves about his mental state. They were worried about it.  None of them were as deeply loyal to Nixon at all costs as Trump's sycophantic advisors are to him.

Many, including me, have wondered how it is that Trump's cabinet hasn't acted to replace him.  Heather Cox Richardson, in one of her video shorts, has provided the answer.  The people surrounding Trump have nowhere else to go.

In Trump's first administration his cabinet included sane people.  Trump didn't know how to take office and in fact his natural laziness kept him from really ever fully forming a government.  That natural laziness came into effect when he was elected a second time.  He was kept from acting like a king in his first term as his advisor wouldn't let him, and he didn't like that.  In his second term he wanted people who would slavishly do what he wanted without question, and he got them almost exclusively.

If you look at the current cabinet you can see that, with perhaps two or three exceptions, it's wholly made up of people for whom Trump is their only chance. Some may be rich, but wealth is credited much more than it should be as allowing for intellectual independence.  People lavish praise on Trump not because they believe it, but because they are his willing concubines and have prostituted themselves to him.  Some of these people are outright dim.  Some have just sold their souls and know that when Trump falls, they fall with him, as Richardson has noted.

Why these people are in this position is another matter.  Some got there as they believe in Trump.  Others were placed their by forces supporting Trump, knowing that he was too lazy to actually do the work to pick competent people.  The Heritage Society, for example, saw Trump as a hollow vessel they could pour their radicalization through.

Trump's cabinet, therefore, is much like Hitler's.  Where was Goebbels going to go?  And Trump's true followers are much like members of the German SS, who fought to the bitter end.  They didn't see a future, literally, in a post war Germany where they figured they'd be killed, if not by the Allies, then by the Germans.  MAGA still shows up like the Waffen Grenadier Brigade of the SS Charlemagne, the French SS unit that went down fighting in Berlin.  They thought the alternative to that was a bullet in the back of the head.  Real Trump loyalist show up as they fear that if Trump fails, or more likely when he does, they're era is over.  And like the SS in Berlin, they fanatically hope that Der Fuehrer will pull off a miracle, which he won't, or that they'll be saved by some mysterious outside force at the last hour.

That won't happen either.

Many people have wondered how the Germans were so cowed by a leader who was sending them into a disaster.  It can't be said that Americans are.  Only 30% of Americans actually support Trump.  Probably an equal if not larger number outright hate him at this point.  If the election was held today the Republicans would loose both houses, and in November when the election is held, they will.  

But here's the dangerous thing.  Between now and November the leadership of the US is in the bunker and Der Fuehrer is insane.

I've long held that Trump would be removed in 2026 by the 25th Amendment.  I hadn't considered, however, the points Richardson raises.  He still might be but as she notes if Trump goes down, they all go down with him. They're a bunch of cowardly sycophants and they do not appear to be willing to save their country any more than Goebbels was.

Still, even in Hitler's cabinet not everyone was unquestionably loyal towards the end.  Himmler actually serious considered trying to cut a separate deal with the Allies and effectively remove Hitler via a coup.  There was even one SS member in the July 20 plot.  It remains possible, but only barely so, that the cabinet will vote to save itself.

We know that at least a few people in the cabinet likely are willing to do that.  J. D. Vance is one.  Marco Rubio another.  Both of them hope to be President and neither benefits from going down with Trump.  I've long thought they were playing out this string until they could act.  But two men alone won't get it done.  There's likely a few more, but only few. None of the ass kissers in cabinet meetings are amongst them.

Which brings us to this.  Over the next few months things are going to be extremely bad.  Trump's mental state is declining so rapidly it's difficult to gauge.  He's going to pull out of the war he joined with Israel which will be a major defeat he can't disavow.  The economy will not rapidly recover and he can't blame that on Biden.  He's lost the Hispanic vote and he  won't be able to get it back.  The Arab American vote which dimly voted for him is lost as well.  The people who are left in his cabinets who openly support him increasingly look like outright kooks.  The financial flood to his family is not being ignored and is very likely to result in post Trump criminal prosecutions, maybe of Trump himself.

And yesterday, a judge made clear that his obscene bordello on the Potomac addiction to the White House will never happen.

He's a desperate, and demented, man.

Trump, from now to November, will try to steal the November election.  He's already trying.  And he'll do every odd thing imaginable or never imagined to try to deflect attention form his failure.  There will be no limit to what he will try.  Invasions of Cuba and Greenland are possible, with Cuba almost a certainty.  Deals with Russia, or China, or whomever.  Attempts to cancel the election, or seize the polls are probable.  Ignoring the courts a near certainty.

The 25th Amendment should save us from this but might not.  Impeachment of Trump should occur, but will not, unless there's a massive post November shift in Congress.

Instead, expect things to get worse and worse.  And expect the few members of the administration who aren't willing to go down in the bunker to start resigning.  Vance can't, Trump being removed or dying in office is his only hope of being President. Rubio can, and he will, likely before November.

Last edition:

The Madness of King Donald. The 25th Amendment Watch List, Eleventh Edition. He's insane, and we all know it. Somebody close to him is watching it.

Labels: 25th Amendment Watch List, Conspiracy Theories, Donald Trump, Mental Health, Saudi Arabia, The Madness of King Donald, United States and Israel v. Iran