A Lame Duck President Threatens Nuclear War for the Donbas

If we can avoid thermonuclear catastrophe between now and January 20, the nation needs to amend the twentieth amendment and the twenty-fifth amendments.

atomic bomb test

We have a serious problem with presidential succession in the United States that is becoming more severe with each passing day.

The good news is that Donald Trump was elected president on November 5, and most Democrats, even lunatics on the far left seem resigned to that fact. Fortunately, there have been no riots or upheavals in response. It seems that most of those opposed to Mr. Trump’s election have resigned themselves to his elevation to the office of president on January 20 next, in accordance with the twentieth amendment which specifies that date for the inauguration of new presidents and vice-presidents. It has been that way since 1937, some eighty-eight years ago. Prior to that, new presidents were inaugurated on March 4 of the year after their election. Originally, new presidents were given five months to wrap up their affairs back home, move their families and belongings to Washington, and travel to the capital to accept the presidency.

In part this lengthy period was necessary when everybody travelled on horseback or by carriage across muddy roads in the dead of winter to reach the seat of government. But by 1860, if not well before, the existence of even primitive railroads made this arrangement obsolete. But it wasn’t until the election of Abraham Lincoln that it made much difference when presidents took office. That Martin Van Buren, or Millard Fillmore couldn’t take office for five months didn’t make much difference because there was little urgency about it. There were no serious crises that couldn’t wait for the attention of a new president. But all that changed when Lincoln’s election triggered the secession crisis that precipitated the Civil War.

Between his election in November 1860 and his inauguration on March 4, 1861, while James Buchanan fretted that he had no Constitutional power to intervene and “coerce” states to remain in the Union, seven slave states seceded from the Union, formed a government, and selected Jefferson Davis of Mississippi as president of the Confederate States of America. Meanwhile, the newly elected president was powerless to intervene in the process. One observer at the time described the interregnum as “an agony of waiting” for Mr. Lincoln to assume office. A great deal of damage was done to the nation during the five month delay imposed by the Constitution. Suppose Lincoln had taken office in early December, a month after the election. He would have been in a position deploy the army and call up the militia [what we now call the National Guard] before Christmas when South Carolina became the first state to secede. Might this have forestalled the formation of the Confederacy and the onset of the Civil War? We will never know. But seven hundred thousand corpses later, Lincoln himself was murdered, and still no successful effort was made to enable new presidents to take office earlier than had been the case in the days of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

In the ensuing years there seemed to be no great urgency to make a change. So it remained until 1932 and the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt who, like all his predecessors had to wait until March 4 to take control of the Federal government. By then the Great Depression had been underway for almost four full years, and it was clear that the progressive Republican Herbert Hoover was as powerless as James Buchanan believed himself to be in 1860. Once again, another president, elected during a crisis, had no choice but to sit idly by as the crisis played itself out under the auspices of his failed predecessor. The people could hardly wait.

In response, the nation adopted the twentieth amendment which reduced the interregnum from five months to roughly two and a half months. By this time, not only had railroads conquered the distances presidents had to travel—as they had even in Lincoln’s day—but aircraft had reduced distances to mere hours as they are today.

So, although the good news is that President Trump will take office soon, the bad news is that the American people will still have to wait seventy-five days from election day until he is sworn in as the forty-seventh president. Meanwhile, Joe Biden, much like James Buchanan—who most historians rank as the worst president ever—remains in office, commander-in-chief of the armed forces during yet another pressing crisis. Mr. Trump can only look on as Joe Biden who will surely replace the lamentable James Buchanan as the worst ever, does even more damage.

No. There have been no riots. But Joe Biden has authorized Volodymyr Zelensky and the Ukrainians to fire American made, nuclear capable, intermediate range missiles at targets in Russia, crossing a so-called “red line” spelled out by Vladimir Putin, who has in response modified Russia’s defense doctrine, lowering the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons. His government has announced that it regards Biden’s action as triggering war between Russia and NATO.

Subsequently the Ukrainians have fired several of these missiles at targets within Russia, triggering a Russian response with a hypersonic missile employing MIRV [multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicle] technology capable delivering several nuclear warheads simultaneously to targets of their choosing. Fortunately, it was armed with conventional warheads, but the message was clear. They could have been nuclear. Meanwhile, both the British and the French have authorized the Ukrainians to fire their own versions of the American missiles that prompted Putin’s response. Simultaneously, both the British and the French governments have publicly discussed the possibility of sending ground troops to Ukraine to fight the Russians, apparently to thwart any cease fire that President Trump may negotiate.

Back in the United States it appears that there have been discussions of within the Biden administration of supplying Ukraine with nuclear weapons! Could anything be more provocative? This is enough, indeed, more than enough to make one think that President Biden is trying to goad Mr. Putin into triggering a nuclear war! Perhaps the administration thinks that Putin is bluffing about using nuclear weapons in response to the Ukrainian use of nuclear capable American and Anglo-French missiles in Russia proper. But what if he is not? Will the nation even survive long enough for Mr. Trump to take office?

In short, while the new president, who was elected on a promise to end the war on “day one,” can do nothing but watch while his lame duck predecessor escalates the conflict to the brink of world war. During the Cold War, such “brinkmanship” would have been unthinkable—especially after the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. But our senile president seems to have forgotten that nuclear arms have the capacity to destroy civilization. So, once again, like Lincoln and FDR before him, a president-elect can do nothing but wait and pray that the incumbent doesn’t make conditions infinitely worse.

Speaking of senility, does it make any kind of sense at all that a mentally impaired president such as Joe Biden, a man with the capacity to destroy humanity with a nod of his head, should be allowed to remain in office? A responsible vice-president and cabinet should have removed him long ago. Had that been done in accordance with the twenty-fifth amendment, Kamala Harris would have been the 47th president, and the first woman to occupy that office. Perhaps Donald Trump would have become the 48th president. Unfortunately, the twenty-fifth amendment process for the removal of a president is very cumbersome. Regardless of that, and regardless of Mrs. Harris’s evident vapidity, the world would probably have been far safer with her in office during the interregnum than with the rapidly deteriorating madman currently in the White House.

Surely, should the nation survive the final days of this reckless administration, it is time to amend both the twentieth amendment so that a new president can take office within days of his election, and the twenty-fifth amendment so that a manifestly incompetent chief executive can be safely and efficiently removed with a minimum of partisanship. In an emergency, such as we are living through now, we can afford nothing less.