None Dare Call It Treason

 

     Before Trump was inexplicably shoehorned into the White House in 2017, most Americans didn't even know what the 25th amendment consisted of. Now, it''s probably the most popular amendment 

among Americans and Trump has given us countless reasons to pray for its inaugural usage.

     And the problem isn't finding the trigger to pull but deciding which trigger to pull.

     Let's start with Trump's always problematic ties to Russia, which seem not so much statesmanship as an ongoing blackmail situation. It seems that everything Trump does in some way benefits Russia. He's incapable of going to a G7 summit without demanding that Russia and Putin be allowed back in and making it the G8 again.

     He's slandered NATO, Putin's biggest enemy, and undermined it every way he knows how. Of course, if the US were to pull out of NATO, it would essentially be the end of that bulwark that stands between Russia and all of Europe. He further assisted Russia in threatening to withhold Congressionally-allocated funds to Ukraine unless he announced an investigation into Joe Biden. The "I need you to do us a favor, though" phone call formed the grounds for his first impeachment.

     Yet, for all his kowtowing to Russia and Putin, they respond with ridicule and worse. Trump has zero respect in the Kremlin and is obviously looked at as, as the Soviets coined the phrase, "a useful idiot". In Helsinki, he took Putin's side over that of his own intelligence agencies regarding Russia paying the Taliban to kill American soldiers.

     He held a sham of a negotiation for peace between Ukraine and Russia that completely excluded Ukraine, talks in which the Russians made their demands and refused to make a single concession. He and JD Vance ganged up on Zelenskyy like a couple of emotionally-disturbed schoolyard bullies in the Oval Office.

     Russian state media meanwhile posted nude pictures of Melania, called Trump "our boy" and one host had even unveiled a plan for how Russia would nuke America.

     Trump recently eased sanctions on Russian oil. How did Russia show its gratitude?

      By sharing with Iran satellite imagery of our bases in Saudi Arabia, according to Zelenskyy. Just days ago, Iran had struck Prince Sultan Air Base, wounding 13 US service members. Sharing the satellite imagery with Iran had a specific purpose in mind: Undermining US air superiority over Iran.

     It ought to be mentioned that, even though Zelenskyy said he'd acquired this intelligence in his presidential daily briefing, he offered no evidence that the satellite images were real, didn't show the images themselves or revealed how Ukraine had acquired them. But I have no reason to doubt Zelenskyy.

     After Prince Sultan Air Base was bombed and those 13 service members were injured, Trump's response was, typically, filled with compassion and concern:

     "I think he might be helping them a bit, yeah. I guess, and he probably thinks we’re helping Ukraine, right? Yeah, we’re helping them also, and he says that, and China would say the same thing, you know. It’s like, ‘Hey, they do it, and we do it, in all fairness.' They do it, and we do it.”

      In short, "Hey, no problem if one of our bases gets bombed and over a dozen of our people almost get killed. If Russia brought all this about, it's all good."

     And if that doesn't cry out for the invocation of the 25th amendment, nothing does. And yet, that will never happen. Why?

     I keep thinking of that wonderful epigram by the Elizabethan courtier, Sir John Harington: 

     "Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason?
     For if it prosper, none dare call it treason."