Can the Constitution save us from Trump?

Donald Trump is a oneman basket of deplorables. He is a braggart and a liar. He is a bully and a demagogue. He is an ignoramus and a deadbeat, a chiseler and either a sincere racist or an insincere one. He is about to be President of the United States. A constitutional coup may be in the offing.

Since winning election, Trump has not moderated his behavior. He still behaves like a brat — his childish tweet zinging Arnold Schwarzenegger for failing to get Trumpian ratings on “The New Celebrity Apprentice” being the most amusing example. Many of the others were just plain lies, the most serious of them being his troubling statements regarding Russian efforts to affect the election. As always, Trump made this about himself — not, as it should be, about a foreign power meddling in our democracy.

Trump turns things on their head. To him, the hacking story was an example of fake news — not the incontestably false news that the Russians were spreading, but the news coming from our own intelligence community. Trump lives in a hall of mirrors — but not alone. Reince Priebus, the outgoing Republican National Committee chairman and now another of the moral eunuchs in Trump’s court, added on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” that the release of the intelligence community’s finding was “clearly politically motivated to discredit the victory of President-elect Trump.” Priebus, as my grandmother used to say, knows which side his bread is buttered on.

It is folly to think that aides like Priebus are going to be able to moderate Trump. They are enablers, emptying their consciences and stuffing their egos, and it is even sillier to think that Trump himself will change. He is 70, into the years of ossification, and his political triumph has only convinced him of his inerrant correctness. He thinks he is infallible, a kind of secular Pope, but possibly not celibate. Things will go from bad to worse.

One remote remedy is impeachment by the House and conviction by the Senate. It is, as it should be, a laborious process, and requires provable acts of treason, bribery or other “high crimes and misdemeanors” — very high bars indeed and difficult to define. In fact, no President has ever gone the whole way: Not Andrew Johnson and not Bill Clinton.

There is, however, another way. Under the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, the vice president, together with a “majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide,” can remove the President for being “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” No doubt the mere mention of incapacitation would summon a horde of lawyers to Washington to contest it or the meaning of every term.

But it is plain that the 25th Amendment does give a role to cabinet members that is not generally considered when they are up for confirmation. This time, however, they should all be asked if they are aware of the 25th Amendment, and, if need be, whether they would be willing to implement it. Some would say that they do not respond to hypotheticals, but a willingness to abide by the Constitution is not a hypothetical. It is, instead, a grave duty.

Is this going to happen? Probably not. We’ll just muddle through a Trump presidency, as we have some others. But the nature and malevolence of Donald Trump have to be borne in mind. He has shown little regard for the Constitution, as exemplified by statements saying that by definition anything a President does is legal, and he is prone to vulgar statements and tactics.

Recall that he was once the most prominent birther, evidence of either racism or a chilling willingness to pander to it. Recall also, as Meryl Streep did at the Golden Globes, that Trump mocked Serge Kovaleski, a physically disabled New York Times reporter, and then denied that he had done anything of the sort. Here was the bully in full repugnance. Here was the liar in full contempt for the truth.

Since his election, Donald Trump has done nothing to allay the concern that he is unfit for the presidency. In about a week, he'll assume the presidency with all its awesome power. Maybe the only thing that will constrain him is his own cabinet. Trump goofed. There are some good people in that room.