The Coming Debate

 

-- For four years, we have been witnessing, and some of us have been trying in our various ways to bear witness, to a sordid, incompetent, and malicious presidential administration. Now that a new administration is about to be installed, perhaps our daily experience of living in America will change, and I hope our own habits of attention will change, too. Instead of bearing witness to crime and incompetence, we will witness an emerging debate in the majority party about the extent and nature of reform. No doubt the debate in the Democratic party that is going to be newly central to our political drama will in some places be referred to as a battle, or as disunity. But the coming debate is normal, natural, and the special gift of self-government. I look forward to it, though I know that there are bound to be decisions made that seem to me insufficiently progressive, or misdirected. Even so, we're all in this together. Now, let's get on with the common deliberation.

The Pardoner

 

". . . none were more crass than the sellers of pardons.

"Supposed to be commissioned by the Church, the pardoners would sell absolution for any sin from gluttony to homicide, cancel any vow of chastity or fasting, remit any penance for money, most of which they pocketed. . . . What they were peddling was salvation, taking advantage of the people's need and credulity to sell its counterfeit. The only really detestable character in Chaucer's company of Canterbury pilgrims is the Pardoner with his stringy locks, his eunuch's hairless skin, his glaring eyes like a hare's, and his brazen acknowledgment of the tricks and deceits of his trade."

Barbara Tuchman, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century (New York: Random House, 1978), 32.

Invoking the 25th Amendment

 In my view, Vice President Pence should immediately convene the cabinet, which should invoke the 25th Amendment and remove the president. Here is a suggested draft of the speech he might then make to the American people.

Draft of a hypothetical VP Pence speech/declaration:

My fellow Citizens,

The past several days have witnessed events unprecedented in American history. It is my duty to announce on behalf of the cabinet that as of this hour, the vice president and the cabinet have agreed that it is necessary to invoke the 25^th Amendment of the Constitution to remove Donald Trump from the Office of President, with immediate effect.

President Trump has been under enormous strain, dealing with a world-wide pandemic, which affected him personally and with unknown long-term effects; a faltering economy; a divided country; and a wearying political campaign. For his enormous service to the country, he takes with him the thanks of a grateful nation.

In the days ahead, I will, as the Constitution provides, assume the duties of President. I ask that the cabinet and senior staff remain in place. Our primary task, as always, is to provide for the security and well being of the American people. We shall be preparing for an orderly transfer of this office with the inauguration in a few days of President Elect Joe Biden. In the meantime we will hold steady to the course of this democratic republic. We call on our friends to be patient, and we caution our adversaries, foreign and domestic, not to suppose that this is an opportunity for mischief.

I ask the American people for their patience and prayers.

God Bless the United States of America.