Our president's crazy
Did you hear what he said?

-- The Talking Heads
"Making Flippy Floppy"

It seems like the time has now come to at least begin the discussions about invoking the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to remove a president who has, quite obviously, lost all touch with reality.

Some people, when they reach an advanced age, enter into a period some mental health experts call a "second childhood." This is where they lose all adult sense of what is right, wrong, and allowable, and start behaving like a cranky toddler once again. However, it's not accurate to say that Donald Trump is entering into a period of second childhood himself -- but only for the reason that he never seems to have left this cranky toddler phase behind at any point during his entire life. With him, there's nothing "second" about it, in other words.

Most of us learn, somewhere around the age of two or three years old, that sometimes the world says "No," and we have to accept that -- even though we really, really want the answer to be "Yes." When toddlers demand: "Gimme, gimme, gimme!" sometimes adults have to smack their hands down and tell them that no, they can't have that (whatever it is). This is typical human learning and socialization -- a child having to accept the reality that yes, there is a whole rest of the world outside of them; and no, it is not set up to grant your every wish on an immediate basis. Trump never learned this lesson (again, quite obviously).

His current dangerous "Gimme, gimme, gimme!" obsession is with the island of Greenland. And did you hear what he just said? Here is the entire text of a note he sent yesterday to the leader of Norway, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere:

Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. Denmark cannot protect that land [Greenland] from Russia or China, and why do they have a "right of ownership" anyway? There are no written documents, it's only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also. I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland. Thank you! President DJT

Trump is essentially admitting that the reason for his resurgent (and childishly petulant) monomania over Greenland is the fact that the Nobel Committee (which is not actually a part of the Norwegian government in any way) snubbed him for last year's Nobel Peace Prize. After he was denied the prize, Trump used bullyboy tactics to strongarm the actual winner of the prize into giving it to him, which is an indication of how deeply this snub hit Trump (and how childishly he reacts to losing). Now he wants to take over Greenland, to make him feel better. No matter that Greenland is part of Denmark -- which has absolutely nothing to do with Nobel prizes -- Trump wants what Trump wants. Gimme, gimme, gimme!

The entire rest of the world has been gingerly following Trump down this insane rabbit hole of obsession for the past few weeks, because Trump is now the living personification of Richard Nixon's "madman theory" (of waging war, or in Trump's case, of governing in general). Nobody knows what he's going to do, and he is obviously unconstrained by any guardrails. So the prospect of U.S. Marines descending on Greenland and occupying it by force is not some insane fantasy to be dismissed out of hand for its ridiculousness, but a real possibility.

Trump could send in the Marines to take Greenland. Which of us would be truly all that surprised to wake up one morning in the very near future and read the headlines telling the world that that is exactly what Trump has done?

It's hard to even count the reasons why taking Greenland by force would be the height of insanity. Trump's fig leaf of a reason for why he's so obsessed with possessing the island is that America needs to own Greenland so that the Russians or Chinese don't militarily take it over themselves. According to him, Denmark doesn't do enough to protect the island from such invasions, which are (according to him) imminent, so it's up to us to do so (and the only way we can do so is to own the place outright). This is flat-out crazy as a bedbug.

In the first place, contrary to what the president keeps saying, there simply are no Russian or Chinese warships circling the island in preparation for an invasion. Zero. None. Nada. They don't exist in reality, just in the fever swamp of Trump's deluded mind.

In the second place, the U.S. already has the ability to move as many troops into Greenland as we feel like. We used to have more than a dozen military bases there during the worst part of the Cold War, and the agreement we struck with Denmark to move those forces in (which is 75 years old) is still in force. So we could reopen all those bases without even having to ask permission.

Trump isn't interested in doing so, because he doesn't really care about the fig leaf of an excuse he is using. He just wants Greenland, period. Gimme, gimme, gimme.

Denmark and some of their European allies even tried a rather masterful move in response, which was to move some of their soldiers into Greenland. Their thinking was ostensibly: "Trump is complaining there isn't sufficient military force there, so we'll move some in!" But this geopolitical move goes deeper than that -- which is also insane. The United States keeps military forces stationed all over the world for various reasons, but one of them is to act as a "tripwire." If North Korea unleashes its military might on South Korea (to give the easiest example of this), then some of the American soldiers stationed there are probably going to be killed. Which would mean the U.S. would immediately enter the war in a very big way (that is the theory, at any rate). Those soldiers stationed in South Korea are a warning to North Korea -- attack them, and we will consider it a military attack on America itself. European soldiers from places like Germany and France stationed in Greenland now have to be seen as a European tripwire -- a warning to the United States not to attack.

Trump realized this right away and started fulminating about the provocation of European troops in Greenland -- even though he had previously been complaining that there weren't enough of them there. Which is (not to put too fine a point on it) completely insane.

If America were to militarily invade Greenland, it would be the end of NATO. Which is also insane, because NATO has been the most successful military alliance in all of human history. Trump, however, does not care. He has never liked NATO, because being a member requires him to treat European countries as equals -- when he clearly believes they should all be vassal states to America, or treated as enemies. That's been insane all along, but it has been consistent (he hated NATO even in his first term, in other words).

Trump's Greenland tantrum continues unabated. This weekend, he slapped more tariffs on all the European countries who sent troops to Greenland. This new 10 percent tax (on American consumers) will rise to 25 percent in a few months, if Europe doesn't capitulate.

At this point, nobody should be surprised if Trump sends out a social media message just flat-out admitting: "WAAAHHHH!!! I want that! It's mine! Gimme, gimme, GIMME!!!" Because that is how he sees the situation -- the same way an spoiled toddler would.

The American public is overwhelmingly against attacking Greenland, by a 3-to-1 margin or more. But public opinion doesn't matter to our Toddler-In-Chief, and never has.

Congress is on one of their frequent week-long vacations this week, so they're not going to act any time soon. There are various proposals being floated in the Senate to rein in Trump's tantrum, from the merely suggestive to halting funding for any military attack to flat-out banning Trump from using the military in Greenland at all. A bipartisan delegation from Congress just visited Denmark, in an effort to show them some solidarity -- and that not every American politician is as crazy as our president. The Danish politicians reportedly told them not to bring up any resolution in Congress to rein Trump in, unless they knew it would pass with overwhelming support. Because they know that only a veto-proof majority passing a bill would mean anything to them -- anything less would be merely performative and wouldn't stop Trump at all.

Absent such a vote, there is only one way Trump could be stopped from just seizing Greenland by force. And that would be if his cabinet got together and decided that he was mentally unfit to be president any more. They would invoke the 25th Amendment, which would not immediately solve the problem but would indeed get the world's attention.

I say invoking the 25th Amendment would not immediately solve the problem, because it is not as simple as some people think. I wrote about this in detail way back in 2017, a mere five days after Donald Trump had taken office for the first time. Because Section 4 of Amendment XXV is about as clear as mud, in terms of what would immediately happen. And immediacy would be important, if the U.S. Marines were occupying Greenland. Here is the full text of this section of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution:

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.

As you can see, it's not just a matter of JD Vance and a majority of the cabinet writing a letter to the heads of both houses of Congress stating: "The president is crazy," it instead starts a process that could drag on for weeks. And what would Trump be doing in the meantime? That is anyone's guess. As I said, I delved into the whole unprecedented scenario way back at the start of the Trump era, and came to the conclusion that impeachment would actually be an easier (and clearer) route to removing an insane president.

Even so, invoking the 25th Amendment would certainly get Trump's attention, in a way that nothing else has during his second term. If the Marines did move into Greenland on Trump's order, would there be a revolt within the Republican Party large enough to chuck him out of office? That is doubtful, since they've accepted all kinds of crazy behavior from him already without batting an eye.

The whole thing might hinge on how eager Vance is to become president ("acting" or otherwise). It would be the biggest political betrayal since Brutus stabbed Julius Caesar (or, at least, that's how Trump might put it, since he is prone to such superlative language). It would definitely split the MAGA crowd into two factions. And in the end, it might not even succeed.

Nevertheless, Donald Trump has shown that nothing short of such an open revolt from within his own party's ranks will stop him from doing anything he feels like doing, period. And right now, he feels like owning Greenland. It matters not to him that the entire rest of the world hears his: "Gimme, gimme, gimme!" and responds with a stern: "No! That is not yours!" Trump wants Greenland, and he simply does not care what anybody else thinks. As far as the Toddler-In-Chief is concerned, all those Scandahoovian weenies were mean to him and didn't give him the shiny gold medal he wanted, so he's going to grab a huge island instead, because that will show them!

For the moment, the only sane reaction to this presidential tantrum at this point is what we began with: "Our president's crazy, did you hear what he said?"

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant