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Donald Trump: The big question

By Irene Fowler
30 August 2017   |   3:30 am
Hitherto the “elephant in the room” dared not be formally or informally mentioned, alluded to, agendised or otherwise addressed.

Donald Trump / AFP PHOTO / Odd ANDERSEN AND Jim WATSON

Hitherto the “elephant in the room” dared not be formally or informally mentioned, alluded to, agendised or otherwise addressed. Even though its specter has loomed menacingly in the background since the official announcement of Trump’s candidacy for the U.S. 2016 Presidential race, it was obfuscated and subsumed by the ensuing political carnival. However, the unfolding nature and effects of “Trumpism” have given rise to raging and contentious general and open debates amongst the U.S. political class and hierarchy. Many of these heated discussions echo desperation, helplessness, acute embarrassment or blanket denial. According to recent Gallup polls, Trump is setting new records for the lowest Presidential approval ratings. The elephant is no longer a phantom, silhouette or figment of the imagination that can be cavalierly or whimsically ignored, as it has taken on 3D properties and is energized with a crushing and devastating life force. The elephant in the White House is Trump’s instability and precarious state of mind, which call into question his fitness for the office of the President of the United States of America and leader of the free world. He is daily, if not hourly, demonstrating that he is a ticking time bomb and that he constitutes a potential danger to humanity and all other life forms. It is totally unnecessary and a waste of time to rehearse the reasons leading to this alarming widespread belief, as there is an avalanche of well documented supporting facts. It is now incumbent for as many observers around the world who have a voice to speak out.

We are all stakeholders as co-tenants and heirs of the planet, as are our unborn generations. The fact that majority of us live in nations that do not have a seat at the power table, at which the U.S. is “primus inter pares,” is inconsequential and anyone who says or thinks otherwise cannot claim to belong to the human family. Trump has remorselessly broadcast his nihilistic tendencies at every opportunity and seems to lack a modicum of self-control or discipline. He is a black hole, voraciously engulfing timeworn and universally pursued noble values and aspirations, whilst his incendiary rhetoric and actions create a wake of fear, confusion, chaos, division and hate. Amidst this manufactured toxicity is his dismal failure to capitalise on a Republican controlled Congress and Presidency in order to advance a legislative agenda. Instead he publicly feuds with and humiliates Party chieftains and routinely lambasts the Party he hijacked as a vehicle for his Presidential ambitions. So rapid and deleterious is the downward spiral of the U.S. Presidency that it is creating fissures and eliciting mixed reactions within their highest echelons.

These include a call for Trump to be shunned by Party stalwarts, veiled and open rebukes, acute embarrassment and a pointed public reminder to him of the very real existence of the Presidential Impeachment process. However, the leaders of the Republican Party have thus far shied away from raising the cudgel of the “25th Amendment” to this dangerously flailing Presidency. The U.S. Constitutional Amendment came into force following the assassination of John F. Kennedy and provides the procedures for replacing the President in the event of death, removal, resignation or incapacitation. It is incontrovertible that “incapacitation” includes factors stemming from physical, mental or psychological causes. It is also clear that the preponderance of evidence surrounding Trump’s short Presidency, may support the growing movement to truncate his Presidency by triggering the 25th Amendment. Indeed in seeking to pursue that course of action, Democrats are preparing a draft bill which would activate an investigation into whether Trump has been too far “incapacitated” to continue as President. In the event that Trump’s domestic and global belligerence and antipathy escalate so as to pose more of a threat to National and International security, the only hope the world will have is the successful execution of the 25th Amendment, which will result in the investiture of Mike Pence, the current Vice-President as the U.S. President and Commander-In –Chief. According to The Ploughshares Fund, a Global Security Foundation, there are currently more than 15,000 nuclear weapons around the world with the U.S. and Russia arsenals accounting for 93 percent of the stock pile. Add to this hellish proposition, the current unresolved crisis of a nuclear armed North Korea, whose volatile leader is now embroiled in a war of words and mounting threats with Trump. To compound this ghastly existential threat, Trump can launch nuclear weapons without U.S. Congressional approval, which means that the world now hangs from a cliff edge.

In poll after poll, global confidence in Trump’s leadership in world affairs continues to plummet. A recent Pew Research Centre poll indicates that nine out of ten countries posting the biggest drops in confidence were U.S. treaty allies. As a global citizen, who champions the causes of global peace, understanding, harmony and progress, I add my voice to the rising crescendo of concerned voices in the U.S. and around the world, to ask for the restoration of historic and traditional moorings and bearings, expected and due from the most powerful nation on earth.

•Fowler is an international lawyer.

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