The Framers of our foundational documents tried to cover most everything they could think of — that was relavent to them — when they created those documents. Some things they covered but ‘insufficiently’ (see ‘Slavery’).
And, while the gents who penned the Constitution COULD envision foreign attempts to ‘persuade’ an American president (see ‘Emoluments Clause’), they didn’t imagine — couldn’t imagine, really (who the fuck COULD?) — an American President flat out CONSPIRING with a foreign power to UNDERMINE America’s well-being. And they sure as fuck couldn’t have imagined that American President doing it just because MONEY (that will be Donald Trump’s motivating factor — greed, greed and more fucking greed). The guys who founded the joint surely did not have anything like TREASON in their minds (so long Benedict Arnold wasn’t involved). And, so — what to do about a TREASONOUS PRESIDENT is kinda ‘outside’ the Constituion’s ‘prescriptions’ for what to do ‘in the case of it’.
There doesn’t seem to be any glass to break — or a little hammer underneath it.
That goes, too, for WHAT TO DO — prescription-wise — when ONE OF AMERICA’S TWO POLITICAL PARTIES also CONSPIRES with that SAME FOREIGN POWER so as to hold on to power (into the future — as in UNDEMOCRATICALLY). Then again, the guys who wrote our founding documents didn’t imagine we’d have political parties in the first place. But they did create a system based on binary choices so — it really shouldn’t have been a surprise that two political parties emerged not long after their work was done.
Still — even if they HAD foreseen POLITICAL PARTIES, the men who founded OUR COUNTRY did not and could not imagine that one of those two parties would commit TREASON. Treason we’re talking here.
And because they COULDN’T imagine it, they didn’t address it and because they didn’t address it, it’s not there — in the Constitution: What The Fuck To Do If The President & The Republican Party Commit Treason To Win An Election?
That, ladies n germs, is the question facing us. I’d say ‘in a nutshell’ but — that’s bigger than any goddamned nutshell I’ve ever seen…
Like I said — in a way, the problem exists ‘outside’ the Constitution. We’re going to have to ‘go outside’ the document to fix it…
Why… I think I feel a metaphor coming on…
We’re going to have to venture out — in space suits, if you like, into atmosphere that could be toxic if our suits get punctured. But we have no choice. The damage to our ship is profound. Potentially catastrophic to the point of terminal. It’s that bad. Which means the repair to our ship has got to get made soon.
But — to extend the metaphor — no tool exists to make the repair.
We’re going to have to ‘invent’ one using parts we already have on hand. Gerry-rigging it’s called. It’s a close cousin of Gerry-mandering. Except gerry-rigging (most of the time) is trying to make a thing work while gerry-mandering is Circumventing the Will of The People. Not quite the same thing.
We WILL have to look beyond the boundaries of what is written in the Constitution — while doing everything in our power to stay within the SPIRIT of what is written — to equitably solve the EXTRA-CONSTITUTIONAL problem that’s been created for us by Donald Trump and the Republican Party — people all guilty of TREASON.