So where do we go from here?

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BACKGROUND

1)Aaron Blake, “The many big things Trump ‘didn’t know’ about; Repeatedly in his second term, Trump has pleaded ignorance about major events and suggested he’s not involved in major decision,” Washington Post, March 10, 2025 (6:00 a.m. EDT).

We know what kind of character Donald Trump has. We know he appears to be the most corrupt president in U.S. history.

We know his apparent goals are to dismantle the departments and agencies and programs of the American government, with zero regard for the impact of his actions on people, whether they be Medicaid recipients in in the U.S. or children in places like Gaza and Sudan who will starve to death because of his cuts to USAID programs.

We know that it appears that any money saved by these cuts will be passed on through tax cuts to the richest of the rich.

We know that Trump seems to not give a damn about anyone but himself and his super -rich friends.

We know that available evidence overwhelmingly suggests that Trump is a Russian asset who has acted consistently to further Putin’s goals and objectives.

We know that Trump has filled the higher ranks of his administration with apparently unqualified and incompetent people. His foreign policy team seems too be a total disaster.

So too, of course, was Joe Biden’s foreign policy team—with several important differences. First, its members were highly accomplished and competent people. The misguided policies came from the top, from Joe Biden himself. But that is a conversation for another day.

Second, Biden’s foreign policy failures were on big issues, like the catastrophic decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, or the multiple failures to provide Ukraine with the weapons it needed when it needed them, out of fear in the face of Putin’s nuclear threats.

Nonetheless, the brutal fact is that today U.S. foreign policy is largely led by inexperienced and incompetent people.

Above all, we know that Donald Trump does not believe in or respect the Rule of Law or the Constitution. Many of his executive decrees are blatantly unconstitutional.

Trump fires anyone he views as insufficiently loyal. Even if those views are based on the recommendations of Laura Loomer. Too few of those fired challenge their firings in court. The legal basis for many of these firings is dubious at best.

It is sad to see such fine public servants summarily dismissed, as if by the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.

So, knowing what we already know about Trump, we await with breathless anticipation daily news of Trump’s latest outrage. And then we comment on it with our friends, and even laugh as we point out how stupid his policies and actions are.

Instead of debating the great issues of the day, we are distracted and waste our energies talking about the invasion of Greenland or Panama, or making Canada the 51st state.

Amid this circus spectacle, few people seem to be inclined to act in an immediately consequential way.

Speaking to a very old friend a couple of days ago I was struck by his strong resistance to the very idea of opening an impeachment investigation in the House and working toward the goal of formally impeaching Trump, and then removing him from office following a trial in the Senate.

My friend was of the firm belief that that would never happen.

And it won’t happen, as long as people like him and the Democrats believe it is impossible and do nothing to make it happen.

Moreover, my views on the urgency of removing Trump from the presidency were views, he said, that put me on the fringe. By implication these fringe views weren’t even worthy of serious consideration.

To be sure, my friend had no alternative course of action to propose. In essence, his belief was that the people would get fed up with Trump and demonstrate and eventually Trump would somehow be removed.

It is precisely here that I find my friend’s reasoning, and that of many opponents of Trump, to be most deficient.

How exactly is Trump to be removed from office?

I suggest that this is the most important political question facing the country today. And Democrats ignore this central question just as they ignored the question of impeachment of Trump on broad grounds during his first term (as opposed to the narrow grounds relating to Ukraine), and then for almost two years ignored the urgent question of prosecuting him after he snd his co-conspirators sought to overthrow the election and the Constitution on January 6, 2021.

So, this is where we are.

Where do we go from here?

If impeachment—to educate the people, both through the House impeachment investigation and the Senate trial—is not the obvious answer to the question of how to stop Trump’s deprivations, what actions do critics like my friend propose instead?

Are they fully taking into account the risks to our democracy and the rule of law a “wait and see” approach entails? How has “wait and see” worked so far, e.g., in the case of prosecuting Trump?

I repeat my suggestion that opponents of Trump focus on the details of how Trump can be stopped and removed from office.

Demonstrations help, by influencing public opinion and Senators and Congressmen. Aggressively challenging Trump’s unconstitutional and illegal actions in court is critically important, both because it influences public opinion and Congressmen and Senators, and because it is the only effective brake on Trump’s actions so long as Trump remains in the presidency and Congress fails to act.

The most critical questions remain:

What are the details regarding how Trump might be removed from the presidency?

Specifically, what is the best strategy for achieving this goal?

What are the details of how this strategy might be implemented?