A Modest Proposal That Should Make Everyone Happy

There has been a great deal of talk about this article, warning that the US is effectively checkmated in its war with Iran and left with two unpalatable options -- accept defeat and allow Iran to open the Straits of Hormuz on its own terms, or resume fighting and expect Iran to retaliate against regional oil facilities, causing a drop in production that will take years to recover.  

What is remarkable is not that the author concludes that the war is not turning out so well.  That much is obvious.  It is that the author is Robert Kagan, a well-known neocon --, a national security conservative, an extreme foreign policy hawk, especially in the Middle East, and that his conclusion is that rather than hitting them harder, our best bet is to accept defeat as quickly as possible and move on:

Unless the U.S. is prepared to engage in a full-scale ground and naval war to remove the current Iranian regime, and then to occupy Iran until a new government can take hold; unless it is prepared to risk the loss of warships convoying tankers through a contested strait; unless it is prepared to accept the devastating long-term damage to the region’s productive capacities likely to result from Iranian retaliation—walking away now could seem like the least bad option. 

 The trouble is that Trump's vanity never allows him to admit defeat, witness the 2020 election.  By contrast, JD Vance, for all his failings, seems to be willing to admit defeat and move on.  

But how to remove Trump from power?  There are usually seen to be four options.

1.    Trump dies.  Not within our control

2.    Trump has a wholly incapacitating medical event, leading Vance to take power under the 25th Amendment.  Also not within our control.

3.    Trump wigs out so badly that the Cabinet has no choice but to invoke the 25h Amendment.  But the Cabinet seems too afraid of Trump's reaction to pursue this option.

4      Impeachment and removal.  Calls for a Democratic majority in the House and a 2/3 Democratic majority in the Senate.  This would have to happen after the midterms and the chances of such a majority are effectively zero.

Reflecting pool

So let me make my own Modest Proposal for how to handle this situation.  Remove Trump under the 25th Amendment and just don't tell him about it.  Vance can leave his family out of the spotlight at the Naval Observatory and move into the White House, hoping it is big enough that he can avoid being noticed. Or, better yet, convince Trump that living in the White House is slumming and he really should stay at Mar-a-Lago.  

It should be obvious by now that Trump has no interest whatever in governing.  He just wants to do his building projects.  He wants to install marble armrests at the Kennedy Center (don't ask) build a monster ballroom, paint the reflection pool at Lincoln Memorial, put up his monstrous Arc de Trump, and so forth.  So be it.  Somewhere on Earth 2.0, some normie (of either party) is serving as President and Trump is a major campaign donor and demanding to be rewarded with some cushy job.  Norm E. President is appalled at the thought of appointing Trump as an ambassador (the usual such reward) and instead puts him in charge of the Kennedy Center on the theory that (1) it seems more like something Trump would like doing than being an ambassador and (2) he can't cause too much harm no matter what he does. If Kennedy Center doesn't but it, President Norm can give him a general job redesigning landmarks.

Trump and his ballroom design

Granted, there can be some difficulties in keeping Trump in the dark about his removal.  He would probably want to hold Cabinet meetings now and then, but that shouldn't be too much of a problem.  Just have the Cabinet do their usual groveling praise and not bore him with any substantive policy discussions.  He will probably also want to do press conferences, but that shouldn't be too big a problem.  Just have reporters stick to fawning questions about Trump's latest building projects, which is all he really wants to talk about anyhow.

The next and obvious question is what about the public.  Well, there is strong evidence that Rupert Murdoch despises Trump and would be happy to keep Fox News and the rest of Murdochistan from taking about it.  Just pay non-Murdoch rightwing influencers not to mention that Trump has been removed.  Sure, the despised mainstream media will discuss the subject, but neither Trump nor any of his supporters ever follow mainstream media, so they will never know.  A more serious problem is that once Trump is no longer President, all his donor money for the projects will dry up.  But that should not be insurmountable problem.  Doners will surely find pretending to be willing to fund the projects and finding excuses and delays to be infinitely preferable to actually having to live in fear of Trump actually wielding power.

In short, if we can just get Trump to focus on his goddam building projects and quit trying to govern, we might finally begin to recover.