Speaker Pelosi’s 25th Amendment Push Is a Politically Desperate Distraction
This is a politically desperate distraction which hints that the Democrats aren’t as confident about former Vice President Joe Biden’s supposedly impending victory as their media surrogates are trying to convince everyone is bound to happen in a few weeks’ time.
US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi recently said that she’ll seek to promulgate a bill mandating the formation of a Congressional commission tasked with deciding whether the 25th amendment should be applied to US President Donald Trump. That amendment creates a mechanism for removing the President from office if they’re unable to continue their duty. It’s been previously discussed before considering Trump’s erratic behavior, but this time Pelosi says that it’s relevant in regards to his supposed lack of recovery from COVID-19.
This is a politically desperate distraction which hints that the Democrats aren’t as confident about former Vice President Joe Biden’s supposedly impending victory as their media surrogates are trying to convince everyone is bound to happen in a few weeks’ time. Instead of focusing on the issues that matter to most Americans, chiefly socio-economic ones, the most powerful elected Democrat in the country right now decided that it’s better to once again speculate about whether Trump is mentally fit to continue serving as President.
There are several reasons why she decided to go this route. Firstly, the series of scandals that the Democrats tried to trap Trump in have thus far failed to remove him from office. These are “Russiagate”, “Ukrainegate” (for which he was officially impeached by the House of Representatives), and what can be described as the first variation of “COVIDgate”, which pertains to his administration’s alleged cover-up of when it learned just how dangerous this virus is and the government’s seemingly irresponsible response to it afterwards.
This second variation of “COVIDgate” is less credible than the first since it can be interpreted as little more than a personal attack against Trump. Not only that, but it also risks stigmatizing other COVID-19 victims and survivors. As it stands, the international medical community doesn’t know much about the long-term consequences of COVID-19. There isn’t any consensus concerning Pelosi’s innuendo that certain treatments make patients mentally unfit to continue their professional activities.
Her malicious speculation might also be motivated by the party’s desire to cover up for their presidential and vice presidential candidates’ less than stellar performances at the recent debates. Although reviews of these events are mixed, it can objectively be said that Trump and Vice President Mike Pence had impressive showings and made some pretty valid points against their opponents. Pelosi seems desperate to distract from any further discussion about those debates, hence another reason why she’s now pushing the 25th amendment bill.
There’s a near-universal expectation among experts that her efforts are bound to fail. It’s unrealistic to expect the bill to pass, let alone a majority of Cabinet members and the Vice President to agree that Trump is unable to remain in office. She’s therefore doing this for purely political purposes, which makes a mockery out of that amendment, risks stigmatizing COVID-19 patients and survivors all across the world, and raises uncomfortable questions about just how confident the Democrats really are about Biden’s possible victory.
Americans have long had enough of political theater over the past four years since the 2016 presidential campaign catalyzed the descent of domestic politics into madness. They deserve better from both parties considering what’s at stake in this election. The Democrats cannot convincingly claim that Trump’s tweets are a tactic to distract from domestic issues when Pelosi is pushing her 25th amendment bill for that exact same purpose. Both the Republicans and Democrats are guilty of emotionally manipulating the American people.
Many argue that this election is the Democrats’ to lose after taking into account Trump’s low approval ratings and the multitude of scandals that have accompanied his time in office. That’s a provocative, yet nevertheless largely accurate, assessment, which makes it all the more disappointing (though not necessarily surprising) to see Pelosi resort to her latest scheme. The Democrats have the chance to show Americans that they’re everything that Trump isn’t, yet here they are applying similar tactics in order to distract voters, which is a pity.
