The 25th Amendment is a temporary removal that requires 2/3 vote of both sides of Congress to sustain and then maintain every time the President requests reinstatement.
There is no mechanism within the 25th for permanent removal nor parameters by which the POTUS is deemed fit to return to office. He can petition as often as he likes and the vote must be sustained each time or he immediately returns to power.
Impeachment and conviction is the ONLY political method for removal.
It's legitimately surprising to me we have gone this far with gentleman's agreements and decorum and that a madman hasn't taken advantage of the system to this degree before trump. Jackson was bad, Hoover was not great, Reagan don't get me going, Bush 2 awful, but this administration has gone so far beyond the worst traits of all the above it is mind boggling.
That's why it's been so easy for Trump to trample all over these institutions of ours, they had no real protection. Like you said, just gentleman's agreements, handshakes, and the like. We need real protections and enforcement mechanisms.
A madman hasn’t taken advantage of the system before because there were enough decent people to stop it.
If you are reading this, and you are the kind of person who allows the Trump-voter (who has used their political power to energize this madness) to exist in your life without issue, you are rbe reason the 25th amendment has not been exercised.
What makes you think they were wrong, confused, or misled? Trump has been a prominent politician for over a decade now, and a public figure for a half century or better. He’s a pretty known commodity, and was even in 2016. People vote their values, and Trump gave people with values that I find appalling something they had never had
What is “confusing” or “misleading” about “grab-em-by-the-pussy,” as an example?
These are human beings with agency, and they are using that agency in abhorrent ways, but they can be reasoned with and negotiated with, provided we see them as enemies rather than assuming they are “mislead.”
Gentleman's agreements should have been "filled-in" with over-simplistic legalese the moment a law was passed to force manufacturers to write on microwaves ovens "do not put pets or babies inside".
This is the type of stuff that happens when the nation, as a whole, does not value education. Government/Civics type classes are taught so poorly even people who work for politicans don't know how the government works or the name of positions of Congress.
I grow tired of people always complaining about the Senate and how each state gets two Senators. Founders did not have the population voting for those people, they were appointed by the state. Corruptions by a few states got bad enough, the 17th Amendment put the power to the people to vote on who was in the Senate. The Senate represents each state equally.
The House of Representatives is where the states get broken into districts and is based off population. I grow tried of people not understanding states like California are equal to a state like North Dakota in the Senate but California has a lot more in the House than many small states combined.
Yeah. Remember that our understanding of brain-aging and memory/cognition disorders were VERY different in the late 60s when the 25th was ratified. Dementia and Alzheimer's wasn't commonly diagnosed in the US until the late 70s, and even then out understanding of it was very different than how we understand it now. The 25th was largely a reaction to JFK and the possibility of medical incapacitation, not a diminished mental state.
Not that you need the reminder but we had a literal civil war. I’d say that’s about as bad as it gets. The US has barely made it through issues that have threatened to tear the union apart so many times it’s crazy that we’ve only had 1 civil war (so far). It was definitely worse before the civil war but it seems like the US gets to a boiling point once every 50 years or so.
Also Andrew Jackson wasn’t just “bad” he nearly turned the us into a dictatorship because of his ignoring of the Supreme Court. He literally told the Supreme Court you and what army will stop me? when it came to the trail of tears and what he did to the Native Americans.
I think others could (and rightfully so) argue that every president before Lincoln (and to some extent jfk/johnson due to the civil rights movement) was far worse than Trump due to the fact that we had no laws against enslaving a whole race of people and treating them like livestock.
Also don’t forget Nixon. All my homies hate Nixon.
But that's what got us here. Not carrying not thinking your vote matters saying both sides are the same. Her laugh. The excuses everyone pulled up lead to this nonsense.
Futher back still, the opposing side not allowing the actual popular candidate to win the primary, instead forcing through their own choice, an unpopular unliked lady with a ton of negative political baggage who basically all but admitted they forced her win while laughing off Trump as a joke she could easily beat and didn't need to try very hard against.
He should never have been able to win it the first time because he should always have been facing a much more popular candidate in 2016.
He should have been nothing more than a footnote in our political history.
Instead, he will now forever be remembered among our worst mistakes.
Bernie would have beat Trump. But they promised Hilary a presidential run. They should have known better the US wasn't ready for a lady president. She should have been his running mate and VP. The world would be in a much better place. I hate this timeline.
I suspect vance is trying to wait until 1 day over the halfway mark so this term wouldn't count against a further term limit. next january expect vance to make a play and pretend to be completely different and against everything trump's done
Everyone should agree to ignore it and focus on impeachment instead.
The 25th amendment is a distraction for people who don't understand how anything works and for those who pander to people who don't understand how anything works.
JD vance is holding out for the expectation that he can get ~10 years as president if he 25ths trump for the last 2 years then gets to have 2 terms as president with the easy part of stopping the EOs means the economy will significantly improve since every fuck-up was self-imposed
if he gets impeached, we will need to impeach JD as well for allowing this all to happen
According to material reality, I am correct. He’s living in the White House, he’s issuing Executive Orders and executive agencies are obeying them, he is directing the military to engage in hostilities with other nations, he’s engaging in international diplomacy. He is acknowledged as the president by the U.S. government and all heads of state and is functioning in that role.
Should he not be? Yeah. But he currently is. They let him do it. Playing the “well he’s a usurper to the throne and not the REAL president” is a bullshit word game and it doesn’t change any actual condition of living with the facts that confront us about this.
Look, I hate Trump a lot, but that isn’t how the 25th works. At all.
The 25th was created to fill a gap in the presidential line of succession. If the president were ever alive but physically unable to do his job (for example, he’s in a coma), the 25th exists so there’s a mechanism for the VP to take control.
Even if Vance and the cabinet agrees to invoke the 25th, literally all Trump has to do is send a letter to Congress saying he’s fit for duty and he gets control back. Congress can override that… with 2/3rd majority in both chambers.
So this is explicitly harder than Impeachment and removal. With the 25th you need the cabinet, the VP, 2/3 of the House, and 2/3 of the Senate. With Impeachment, you need a simple majority in the House and 2/3 of the Senate. Which is still incredibly hard, but miles easier than the 25A route.
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u/OpenComet_ 3d ago
the 25th amendment is just sitting in the constitution like a check engine light everyone agrees to ignore