Michael Dukakis once was derided when he said while accepting the 1988 Democratic Party nomination for president that the election was “about competence.”
His foes shredded him for that suggestion and he lost the election huge to Vice President George H.W. Bush.
Three decades later, another president is facing crises of his own. They relate in some measure to his own competence. Or lack thereof. They also concern his fitness for the job and whether he actually is of sound mind.
A former Republican U.S. senator — a member of Donald Trump’s own party — is urging his former colleagues and members of his home state of New Hampshire’s congressional delegation to remove the president from office as soon as possible. Gordon Humphrey said that Trump is of a “sick mind.” He calls him “seriously sick” and “dangerous.” Sen. Humphrey’s concern stems from that reckless statement about “fire and fury” that Trump threatened to bring to North Korea over that country’s threats to the United States.
There’s a good chance we’re going to hear more of that kind of talk as Trump continues to exhibit an absolute disregard for anything approaching diplomatic protocol or decorum. He reportedly ad-libbed the “fire and fury” threat while on vacation in New Jersey — and it is continuing to reverberate around the world.
The curious aspect of all this anti-Trump fever/fervor is that it seems to have nothing to do with ideology. Why? It’s because, in my view, Trump lacks an ideology. He doesn’t have a guiding principle on which he seeks to govern. His interests lie solely in “winning” at all costs. It matters not one damn bit whether a policy fits into a neat ideological niche.
He shows his incompetence daily by refusing to reach across the aisle to Democrats, with whom he must govern in a cooperative manner. For that matter, he’s swatting away the hands of many leading Republicans, too, the guys on his team.
Then he inflames all of it with his utterly frightening threat to North Korea. “Donald Trump is impaired by a seriously sick psyche,” Humphrey wrote. “His sick mind and reckless conduct could consume the lives of millions.”
Will any of this result in some sort of removal strategy? I haven’t a clue. I am of the opinion that we are going to hear much more of this kind of talk coming from within the Republican Party, which might be awakening finally to the mistake that occurred when Donald Trump got elected president of the United States.