It's Not Exactly the Cuban Missile Crisis, But...

 

Donald Trump is clearly in mental freefall, what the shrinks call "decompensation." If you were incapable of distinguishing belief from reality you might be in the same condition. 

For the past five, six years we've been treated to a non-stop spectacle of a grasping man fueled by his delusions. He has convinced himself of his superiority, his invincibility and woe betide anyone who dares say that the emperor has no clothes. Look at all the principal aides Trump has gone through over his term in office. Maybe you remember what a Roll-a-Dex looked like. One by one they became unable to meet Trump's maniacal urges and so they were culled, often learning about it from reporters.

Of all the Trump books I've read, the one I found most helpful was Bob Woodward's latest, "Rage." It revealed a White House that ran on dysfunction under a president unhinged. No wonder his first secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, called him "a f#@king moron." At first the A-list talent huddled together, trying to protect Trump from himself. It never worked. One by one they were shed. Each time they were replaced by someone a little more compliant, a little less competent. The survivors were far and few between - Kelly Anne Conway, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Stephen Miller, Steve Mnuchin, Wilbur Ross, Peter Navarro, Ben Carson (remember him?), Betsy DeVos, and Mike Pence, a pack of perfect ass-kissers. 

Then consider the revolving door agencies and departments where the leadership was "here today, gone tomorrow." The National Security Agency, Homeland Security, the State Department, the Department of Justice, the FBI, the Pentagon - the critical agencies where the leadership had to sometimes say "no" to ingrained stupidity and rash impulses. Yet it is these same agencies and departments that will be of most concern until Joe Biden's new mattresses are installed.

Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, seems to have had a falling out with Trump. He might be sidelined.  CIA director, Gina Haspel, has likewise fallen out of favour. Chad Wolf remains acting director of Homeland Security although one court has ruled that his appointment is invalid and his orders therefore  lack the force of law. The DoJ is being run by acting Attorney General, Jeffrey Rosen. FBI director, Christopher Wray, was on his way out, deemed disloyal by Trump, until the president was talked out of it by his advisors who warned it could backfire. 

Which leads us to the Department of Defense that, since November, has been run by acting secretary, Christopher Miller. Miller succeeded former director Mark Esper who was fired by Trump for insubordination when he ruled out the idea of deploying active-duty military personnel onto American streets.

Miller is a counter-terrorism guy, a former special forces operator. No one knows if he would obey an order to implement martial law in the swing states. Those who have known him for years say they don't think he would allow the military to be used for partisan political adventures but "don't think so" and "he would never" are different things. Of course very few saw the Night of the Long Knives coming either.

Miller just rescinded his order recalling the USS Nimitz from the Persian Gulf. Some see this as a harbinger of a possible attack on Iran, a Trump housewarming gift for Joe Biden. 

Is it time to worry that an irrational Donald Trump might burn down the house? I know who is worried - a number of former Secretaries of Defence including Leon Panetta, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, William Cohen, James Mattis, Robert Gates, Chuck Hagel, Ash Carter and the recently dismissed Mark Esper. They're worried enough that they issued a joint statement warning, among other things, that the military has no role in American electoral politics. That's all 10 living former secretaries of defense. Every one of them. They expressly warned that any military involvement would be unconstitutional, perhaps a reminder to the Joint Chiefs that they have sworn their loyalty to the Constitution, not some president.

If there was ever a time for invoking the 25th Amendment to remove an unstable, unfit president from power, this must be it. Yet Trump is so deeply blanketed by sycophants and lackeys that the idea is beyond unlikely. Mike Pence still has political aspirations. He may see himself with a shot at the presidency in another four or eight years. The last thing he would do is rile up Trump's base, especially when the prize is a two-week presidency. 

In some ways the Gullibillies may be driving much of the current madness including the Republican representatives and senators planning to make a futile attempt to object to Biden's ascendancy to the presidency. Apropos of that there has been a lot more talk recently of a permanent fracture in the Republican party, somewhat along the lines of the rightwing exodus from the Progressive Conservatives to Preston Manning's Reform Party.