The Mercury News Weekend

Is President Trump the only adult in the room right now?

- By Victor Davis Hanson Victor Davis Hanson is a syndicated columnist.

Donald Trump is mercurial at times. He can be uncouth.

But then again, no president in modern memory has been on the receiving end of a three-year effort to abort his presidency, beginning the day after his election.

Do we remember the effort to subvert the Electoral College to prevent Trump from assuming office?

The first impeachmen­t try during his initial week in office?

Attempts to remove Trump using the ossified Logan Act or the emoluments clause of the Constituti­on?

The idea of declaring Trump unhinged, subject to removal by invoking the 25th Amendment?

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s 22-month, $35 million investigat­ion, which failed to find Trump guilty of collusion with Russia in the 2016 election and failed to find actionable obstructio­n of justice pertaining to the non-crime of collusion?

The constant endeavors to subpoena Trump’s tax returns and to investigat­e his family, lawyers and friends?

Now, frustrated Democrats plan to impeach Trump, even as they are scrambling to find the exact reasons why and how.

Most presidents might seem angry after three years of that. Yet in paradoxica­l fashion, Trump suddenly appears more composed than at any other time in his volatile presidency.

Ironically, Trump’s opponents and enemies are the ones who have become publicly unhinged.

Leading Democratic presidenti­al candidate Joe Biden recently had a complete meltdown while campaignin­g in Iowa. Biden called a questioner who asked about his son Hunter’s lucrative job with a Ukrainian energy company “a damn liar.” An animated Biden also challenged the 83-yearold ex-Marine and retired farmer to a push-up contest or footrace.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, fared little better. On the first day of his committee’s impeachmen­t inquiry, Nadler stacked the witness list by bringing in three left-wing law professors, as opposed to one Republican centrist witness — as if partisan academics might sway the nation. None of the three presented any new informatio­n or evidence. All three seemed angry, petulant and condescend­ing. At least one came into the proceeding­s with paper and video trails of anti-Trump animus.

The nadir came when one of the witnesses, Stanford law professor Pamela Karlan, was reduced to making fun of the president’s 13-year-old son.

At one point, Nadler appeared to fall asleep while chairing the hearing.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi held a press conference to announce plans to proceed with articles of impeachmen­t. But she wouldn’t say which charges would be brought against the president.

Then, Pelosi lost her cool and shook her finger at a reporter who simply asked her, “Do you hate the president?”

A furious Pelosi shouted back, “Don’t mess with me!”

She then lectured the questioner that as a good Catholic, she was simply too moral to be capable of hatred.

At a NATO summit in London, Trump was playing the unaccustom­ed role of NATO defender by challengin­g French President Emmanuel Macron’s curt dismissal of the alliance. Macron said NATO is experienci­ng “brain death.”

Meanwhile, in an unguarded moment, a few heads of NATO nations crowded around Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as he chattered and ridiculed Trump.

The common denominato­r of all this petulance is exasperati­on over the inability to derail Trump.

Trump’s many enemies fear he’ll be re-elected in 2020, given a booming economy and peace abroad. They know they cannot remove him from office. And yet they fear that the more they try to stain him with impeachmen­t, the more frustrated and unpopular they will become.

Yet, like end-stage addicts, they cannot stop the behavior consuming them.

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