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this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2025
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25th Amendment needs to start with the Vice President, so we know that's not going to happen:
Section 4
Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.
This seems like such a short-sighted design by our founding fathers and subsequent leaders when we look at it with today's lens. I know they likely would have assumed that people would riot with pitchforks and torches of anyone engaged in corruption during their era, including having the support of the VP. I know the 25th amendment was a more recent addition (1967), but I'm surprised there weren't more catching points for this written into the foundation.
I guess they hoped we would never allow things to get this shitty.
The 25th wasn't intended for illegal actions. It was for when the president has a stroke and goes comatose, or other forms of incapacitation.
Impeachment is the constitution's main way to get rid of a corrupt president.
Bear in mind that in the early years of the USA, the vice president was generally the person who was running against the sitting President for the seat. It was another built in check to power, though unfortunately not codified. The idea of just picking a VP candidate came much later.
The 25th Amendment was ratified long after the 12th Amendment which changed how the VP got into office.
Not that much later. Jefferson was the third president, he's the one who decided voters be damned he's picking the VP.
Having a VP in opposition was a design flaw and a source of instability. It made sense to change it.
Do you really want a system where, if a faction dislikes the president, all they have to do is assassinate him?
You can think it's better. But the fact is he decided to just ignore voters. Sound familiar?
Our whole system was hanging on the hope that We the People would identify and not elect a power-hungry egomaniac.
"We The People" only referred to white land owning men. Even with the expansions of reconstruction, women's suffrage, and civil rights (all won by working class organization and opposition) our entire representative democracy has been designed to the benefit of capital owners. Neoliberalism just shifted that into overdrive.
The franchise has vastly expanded since then. There are other reasons for the current dysfunction.
On the contrary, they assumed that grossly unfit morons would have mass appeal and that's why the constitution has so many provisions to make sure that popular will is not reflected at the ballot box.
They hoped that the rich would not elect a grossly unfit traitor, which all of history shows is a laughably stupid assumption.
The founders didn't consider it at all, the 25th wasn't added until 1967. Pre-Nixon even.
The 25th was put in to prevent the situation that occurred with Woodrow Wilson, who had a stroke and couldn't govern but who was not removed from office.
The remedies for grossly unfit traitors were meant to be impeachment, or revolution.
I mean, if the VP doesn't want to take over, it doesn't make sense to force the VP to take over, since if they weren't willing to go against the president and use the 25th, it means they'd be doing the same thing as the president, so its pointless.
The design seems to be to prevent a single person going rogue and doing whatever. Not designed for when someone has won elections and start damaging the country.
All the nonsense of "Republic is not a democracy because democracy is mob rule and not good for minorities" seems to no longer work.
Even if the VP started it the president can still override them unless unconscious/in a coma.
Why not? We all know Vance is pretending for the position. If he sees a real shot, he might take it.
Nobody likes Trump as a person. They're all just grifting.
The trick is getting enough to turn at once, and getting them all to know that there's enough. A dumb one might rat it out because of greed, but they should know that doesn't work. If they're in that position, there's no further loyalty rewards. The best they can hope for is avoiding retribution, and that's not even guaranteed.
The reason he picked Vance is because he knew there was no resistance there, he learned from Pence.
Vance is much less of a zombie than Pence. He's actively evil, fanatical and not stupid.
But he's an idiot, and if Vance sees a legit opening he might jump at it.
"I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn't be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he's America's Hitler," he wrote privately to an associate on Facebook in 2016.
In another 2016 interview about his book, Vance told a reporter that, although his background would have made him a natural Trump supporter, “the reason, ultimately, that I am not … is because I think that (Trump) is the most-raw expression of a massive finger pointed at other people.”