Impeachment: Why Not? (Reason 1)

[edelsont]

Last time out, in the entry headed "Impeachment: Are We There Yet?," I presented a rough sketch of a claim that President Trump is impeachable right now.  I readily admitted that it wasn't complete: that I myself didn't really think I had proven my case.  Furthermore I said I would not, in the near future, attempt to make it complete.  I promised that I would, in the following entry (this one), give my reasons why I don't plan to do that.

Events have intervened, so that my plans have partly changed: I now intend to fulfill, in this entry, only part of that promise.  As recently as two days ago, my intention was to list as many as four reasons "why not."  But as it turns out, I will list only one of them, leaving the others for another time.

By the way, the one reason I will mention today is the one that I was planning to mention first.  So without further ado, here it is.

Reason One: The Nuclear Thing Takes Priority

By "the nuclear thing," I mean the position that I took, principally in http://edelsont.dreamwidth.org/2160.html, to the following effect: Congress needs to pass a law saying that, absent a declaration of war (or similar Congressional authorization), the president may not order the "first use" of nuclear weapons.  "First use" means attacking with nuclear weapons, other than in response to a prior nuclear attack by the enemy.

And what do I mean when I say of this "thing" that it "takes priority"?  I mean that Congress needs to attend to it first, because the need for it is greater, and more urgent.  Once they have protected us from nuclear war, then we can allow them to move on to the fun stuff, like impeaching Trump.

That's really all that needs to be said, under the heading of stating "reason one," and offering some justification for it.  One might ask, however: what made me change my mind?  Why did I decide to present only "reason one" today, when I had been intending to include three more reasons in the same journal entry?

The short answer to that: in my view, over the last few days, the "nuclear thing" has gotten even more urgent.  So I want to post something fast, and not to dilute the impression that it makes.

Okay then; what has happened to make me say that this issue has gotten [even] more urgent than it already was?  For one thing, North Korea has tested another ballistic missile.  And so it seems likely that the Trump administration is now engaged in deciding what, if anything, should be done in response.  Military responses (perhaps among others) are possibly being considered.

Notice that I am not taking a position as to whether a military response should seriously be considered at this time.  For all I know, if one had all the relevant intelligence information, a reasonable person might conclude that military action is now, regrettably, necessary.

To me, though, that makes it even more important that Congress act now to prevent the one deadliest kind of military action: the first use of nuclear weapons.  That is one option which should not even be on the table.

Besides the ballistic missile test, there is one other recent development which pushes my thoughts in the same direction.  (Well, maybe more than one; but one can stand in for the others.)  This one is different in that it has no obvious connection with the subject of nuclear weapons.

What might that be?  Why, the "Access Hollywood" tape, of course!  (I am kidding about the "of course" part, but only about that.)  More specifically, I am referring to the fact, which has only recently been published, that President Trump is now denying that the tape is real: denying that he even said those regrettable things, such as the bit about grabbing women by the feline parts.  (When the tape first came to light, he didn't deny saying it, and in fact he made a sincere-sounding apology for doing so.  He only denied actually doing the things that he boasted about on the tape.)

Here's a link to a one-day-old New York Times story about this: http://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/28/us/politics/trump-access-hollywood-tape.html.

You may be thinking: yes, Trump seems to be unmoored from the truth on that one.  But so what?  It's not like that's anything new.  How can I claim that this relatively trivial thing is important enough to affect such a weighty matter as a law on the first use of nuclear weapons?

A fair question.  I certainly do agree that there's nothing new or surprising about Donald Trump's saying something that isn't true.  However, this one feels different.  The difference isn't in the intrinsic importance of the subject matter; it's in what this particular untruth seems to say about the mental state of the man who uttered it.

Ironically, you see, what's so disturbing about this one is that it doesn't sound like a lie.  It sounds, instead, like a delusion, and I don't mean that metaphorically; I mean a full-blown, psychotic delusion.  (I am not a mental health professional, but I do have some experience with such phenomena.  By all means, let's get some shrinks to weigh in on this.)

Why does this particular departure from reality seem, to me, more like a delusion than like a lie?  My best guess: because it sounds like a man who is not even trying to check his notions against the facts.  And, perhaps an even stronger indication of this: he also doesn't sound like he's even pretending to try.  When he makes such a statement, having previously said the opposite, the impression I get is that the question "But is it true?" just never arises in his mind.  It's as if the very possibility of asking that question is outside his realm of awareness.

Which scares you more, a man who lies or a man with delusions?  I rather think that that depends on the context.  If you are negotiating a business deal or a tax bill, lying might prove the greater obstacle to a satisfactory result.  The motivating force behind a lie is what the liar wants someone else to believe.

What if, instead, the subject of concern is the president, and he is currently engaged in deciding whether to order a nuclear attack?  Then "what he wants someone else to believe" doesn't enter into it.  At least not under the present state of the law, where there is no constraint on his power to decide as he chooses ... including, in particular, no requirement that anyone else concur with his decision.

In that situation, what is, instead, relevant is what he himself believes -- at the moment.  Has he convinced himself that all the people in North Korea are engaged, right now, in a magical working which will, if not immediately stopped, throw the planet out of its orbit?  Then his decision will be based on that, exactly as if it were real.

And that's why Donald Trump's recent denials of the reality of the Access Hollywood tape scare the hell out of me.  And out of you too, I hope.  Let's get this man's finger off the nuclear trigger.