A Random Set of Tweets

I was treated with Dexamethasone following brain surgery. It is (as my team told me) a drug that seriously messes with your mind. It is a bad drug. I could not wait to get off it. Unfortunately you have to wean off which takes time. Trump is incapacitated.

— Michele Dauber (@mldauber) October 4, 2020

I couldn't be President of my cat when I was on Dexamethasone. He should not be exercising the powers of the Office of President on that drug. We are lucky if he doesn't start a war. He's incapacitated.

— Michele Dauber (@mldauber) October 4, 2020

True? False? Impossible?  Frankly, no way of knowing.

This seems like a good time to point out that dexamethasone can cause agitation, paranoia, mania and even psychosis. For real. https://t.co/TvxkMmfmw9

— David Juurlink (@DavidJuurlink) October 4, 2020

Another random tweet; but I have heard this before, and from several sources now. This is not a drug given for mild symptoms of covid-19, and it does have severe potential side effects. I've also read the personal accounts of many who've lived through this disease:  they all report months long recovery, even after the disease has run its course.  Nobody who lives through this disease goes back to work the day after they leave the hospital, because they are incapacitated for the workd they do.  Which leads to the relevant question: "When is the President incapacitated?"

Given the current discussions it may be useful to re-post this op-ed @SteveXen and I wrote from the @BostonGlobe Section 4 of the 25th amendment has never been implemented and is unlikely to absent extreme medical illness @jflier @gtconway3d @therickwilson https://t.co/F42FeGREME

— Paul Summergrad (@paulsummergrad) October 4, 2020

Sadly, that argument is behind a paywall, but here's the text of section 4, the longest section of Amendment 25:

Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.

So to declare the President "unable to discharge the duties of his office" requires action by the Vice President and the "principal officers of the executive departments."  I'm not going to worry about what that means, because the whole thing grinds to a halt with Mike Pence, who is a houseplant and asks nothing more than he be watered twice a day and turned toward the light as necessary.  Usurp the powers of the Presidency because Trump is agitated, paranoid, exhibiting mania, and even psychosis?  I'm not joking a bit:  how you would tell the difference from the last four years?  And does anybody think it gets to the point where Pence (and his backers, the "principal officers") have a stare-down with Trump that goes to the Congress in October?  Even November?  Well, November is a more viable possibility than October.  But you might as well hope the Senate can't get enough Senators on the floor to vote for Barrett (I know Tom Cotton thinks they can be wheeled in on stretchers, but that's ignoring the problem of contagion (which few elderly Senators are going to ignore, but Cotton is much younger) and amounts to Cotton telling the infected Senators "You're gonna die anyway!  Take one for the team!," which is always easier to urge when you don't have any skin in the game.  Still, I don't think the vote there gets thrown into November, or if it does that the post-election situation will make much difference.  And I still think it more likely Trump wins again (or water runs uphill) than Pence turns on him because Trump has gone nuts.

Again, and I'm dead serious:  what would his argument be for what has changed?

The 25th Amendment is the appendix of the Constitution:  useless for most purposes, prone to make the body politic rancid with false hopes, and if it were removed no one would notice the difference.  And we have created a world where a drug-addled, or pain-addled or disease ridden, man, who wouldn't be allowed to run a hot dog stand, can remain in unquestioned power over the United  States of America.  And the only person who could begin to challenge his fitness either depends on the POTUS for another four years in office himself, or depends on good relations with POTUS in order to be his successor.

We aren't going to get rid of these problems when we get rid of Trump.  He is, in fact, the inevitable result of so many problems we have ignored for so long.