Trump being elected should have invoked the 2nd amendment, but as we all know the American citizens are the most spineless bags of hot air since the hot air balloon.
Jesus Christ that comes across as even worse than Putin deciding he needed to annex Ukraine. How is it that in a world of too many bad guys, we’re turning into the worse guy?
"We" are not turning into anything. The government has been taken over by fascists and what "we" should be turning into is a unified, organized resistance.
Don't underestimate Vance's capacity for evil, or Trump follower's willingness to brainlessly follow any goose-stepping shitstain who the rightwing media glorifies.
In his deal with Putin, Trump is closing the investigations into child trafficking and kidnapping of Ukrainian children, and closing down war crimes committed by Russian military.
I agree, Trump advocating for invading Canada and Greenland is enough for the 25th Amendment and on moral grounds I hold him accountable for absolving Putin and Russia of war crimes.
That's not what the 25th amendment is for. The correct process for such criminality is impeachment, which isn't a much higher bar than the 25th. It won't happen, the system is already too corrupt.
A lot of things in Trumps last term too. And a few things in Bidens term. The 25th doesnt really function.
We used to talk about "constituional crisis" too, and Trump is now just ignoring judges and asking what anyone will do about it. That should also trigger the 25th, if congress lived up to their oaths, but their oaths are vastly secondary to party politics, self interest, and money making, on both sides.
It does seem like all the hoohah about how great the US Constitution is, or the genuis of the US founders may well have just been some good marketing mixed with a reliable dash of American Exceptionalism.
The problem with any constitution is that it's not self-enforcing. Any system can be subverted and corrupted. It's the corruption that's the problem, not that the Constitution (like any set of laws) is not perfect.
A crazy, washed-up former reality TV host running for a new term as president while in exile on the moon sounds like the plot of a fun sci-fi political thriller, but not a reality I want to live in.
That's the problem, the republican party captured the levers of power and now get to police themselves. This is what happens when you get a Republican clean sweep.
25th Amendment needs to start with the Vice President, so we know that's not going to happen:
Section 4
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.
This seems like such a short-sighted design by our founding fathers and subsequent leaders when we look at it with today's lens. I know they likely would have assumed that people would riot with pitchforks and torches of anyone engaged in corruption during their era, including having the support of the VP. I know the 25th amendment was a more recent addition (1967), but I'm surprised there weren't more catching points for this written into the foundation.
I guess they hoped we would never allow things to get this shitty.
Bear in mind that in the early years of the USA, the vice president was generally the person who was running against the sitting President for the seat. It was another built in check to power, though unfortunately not codified. The idea of just picking a VP candidate came much later.
I mean, if the VP doesn't want to take over, it doesn't make sense to force the VP to take over, since if they weren't willing to go against the president and use the 25th, it means they'd be doing the same thing as the president, so its pointless.
The design seems to be to prevent a single person going rogue and doing whatever. Not designed for when someone has won elections and start damaging the country.
All the nonsense of "Republic is not a democracy because democracy is mob rule and not good for minorities" seems to no longer work.
Why not? We all know Vance is pretending for the position. If he sees a real shot, he might take it.
Nobody likes Trump as a person. They're all just grifting.
The trick is getting enough to turn at once, and getting them all to know that there's enough. A dumb one might rat it out because of greed, but they should know that doesn't work. If they're in that position, there's no further loyalty rewards. The best they can hope for is avoiding retribution, and that's not even guaranteed.
Trump’s Call to Annex Canada as a State Should Have Invoked the 25th Amendment
The president was clearly irrational. Instead, there was Secretary of Commerce
Howard Lutnick seconding the motion.
By Charles P. PiercePublished: Mar 17, 2025 5:29 PM EDT
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president trump signs executive orders in the oval office
Chip Somodevilla//Getty Images
What has become plain this week is that the entire administration has committed
itself to the president’s pipe dream of annexing Canada as the 51st state. It
wasn’t just the president’s bizarre appearance with Mark Rutte, the NATO
secretary general, in which the president took a short stroll around the
Izonkosphere.
“Canada only works as a state. … This would be the most incredible country
visually. If you look at a map, they drew an artificial line right through
it, between Canada and the U.S., just a straight artificial line. Somebody
did it a long time ago, many, many decades ago, and makes no sense.”
It is necessary at this point to mention that the so-called “artificial line”
is usually referred to as a “border.” The president seems to grasp the concept
when referring to the “artificial line” separating the United States and
Mexico. Strange, that. The president went on.
“It’s so perfect as a great and cherished state. I love [O, Canada]. I
think it’s great. Keep it, but it will be for the state, one of our
greatest states, maybe our greatest state.”
Wonderful. He’s going to let them keep their national anthem, one of the
world’s most stirring, but only as a state song, like “On the Banks of the
Wabash,” “Georgia on My Mind,” or “On, Wisconsin.” I suppose he’ll let them
keep their hockey teams, too.
The whole episode should have brought about an instantaneous Cabinet meeting at
which the 25th Amendment was invoked. The president was clearly irrational.
Instead, there was Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick seconding the motion.
From the Hill:
“The best way, the president has said it, the best way to actually merge
the economies of Canada and the United States is for Canada to become our
51st state. If they want to merge it, that’s how you make it the 51st
state,” Lutnick said on Fox Business Network’s Varney & Co.
It really is a cult, you know.
On the Bluesky app, journalist and author Garrett Epps shrewdly pointed out
that in Fletcher Knebel’s Night of Camp David, one of the first manifestations
of President Mark Hollenbach’s mental illness was his secret desire to merge
the United States and Canada—as well as all of Scandanavia—into a single entity
called “Aspen.” In fact, the book was reissued during the first Trump
administration, and it was referenced on TV by both Rachel Maddow and Bob
Woodward. Now, though, with the president’s grand design seeming to parallel
the grandiose foreign-policy proposal of the fictional President Hollenbach,
the book has taken on an even greater salience.
(By the way, the hero of the book is a young, ambitious first-term senator
named James McVeagh with whom the crazy president shares his notions in the
aforementioned night at Camp David. Maybe you can see J. Divan Vance in that
role, but I can’t.)
In the novel, the crazy president sounds almost rational in explaining the
irrational.
“Canada is the wealthiest nation on earth.” Hollenbach’s words raced after
each other. …“The mineral riches under her soil are incredible in their
immensity. Even with modern demands, they are well-nigh inexhaustible.
Believe me, Jim, Canada will be the seat of power in the next century and,
properly exploited and conserved, her riches can go for a thousand years.
...
.. But the merger of know-how, power, and character, the United States,
Canada, and Scandinavia, the new nation under one parliament and one
president could keep the peace for centuries. The president of the union
should be the man who dreamed the dreams of giants. ...
… “I only exclude Europe at the start,” said Hollenbach, and his face
quickly lighted again. “Right now, Europe has nothing to give us. But once
we have built the fortress of Aspen, I predict the nations of Europe will
pound at the door to get in. And, if they don’t, we’ll have the power to
force them into the new nation. … There are other kinds of pressure, trade
duties and barriers, financial measures, economic sanctions, if you will.
But, never fear, Jim. England, France, Germany, and the Low Countries, too,
can be brought to heel.
When Knebel wrote his classic Seven Days in May, about an attempted military
junta in Washington, he was drawing on inside knowledge about the turmoil in
the Kennedy administration between the president, the Joint Chiefs, and the
intelligence community—turmoil that would do a lot to feed suspicions after the
president’s murder in 1963. JFK was a big fan of the book, so much that he
allowed director John Frankenheimer to photograph the White House so he could
make the sets for his film adaptation.
In the case of Night of Camp David, Knebel was able to draw on American
attempts to absorb Canada that dated back to the founding of the nation. In
fact, Article XI of the original Articles of Confederation read as follows:
Canada acceding to this confederation, and joining in the measures of the
United States, shall be admitted into, and entitled to all the advantages
of this Union.
The American Revolution helped the new country break off those parts of British
North America in and around the Great Lakes. We tried to seize the entire
country in the War of 1812, but we failed, and we got Washington burned in the
bargain. Through the years up to the American Civil War, there were annexation
groups on both sides of the border.
In 1860, Secretary of State William Seward came close to annexing the territory
from Washington state all the way up to Alaska, which at the time was owned by
Russia. For a while, it looked like Great Britain might actually swing for the
deal. But,when Seward bought Alaska in 1868, the people in the region began to
feel uncomfortable with the U.S. closing in from both the north and south, so
popular opinion shifted. Then, of course, there were the Fenians.
The Fenian Brotherhood was a product of one of the periodic risings in Ireland
against British rule. It was the American wing of what was called in Ireland
the Irish Republican Brotherhood. The American Fenians were a substantial
force. They had money—upwards of $500,000—and weapons and an army made up of
veterans of the American Civil War. (They were led by John O’Mahony, who’d
fought with the 69th New York, part of the famed Irish Brigade.) After the war,
the Fenians launched a series of raids into Canada. They came in two bursts—one
in 1866 and another in 1870–71. They occurred all over Canada, from Manitoba to
the Maritimes. None of them succeeded, and one of them, a raid around the
Minnesota–Manitoba border, never even made it into Canada. The only real result
was to strengthen Canadian nationalism; the raids were pivotal in the eventual
development of the Canadian confederation in 1867, an arrangement that the
current U.S. president believes would make a helluva 51st state. In the debate
over forming the confederation, Sir John MacDonald said:
If we do not take advantage of the time, if we show ourselves unequal to
the occasion, it may never return, and we shall hereafter bitterly and
unavailingly regret having failed to embrace the happy opportunity now
offered of founding a great nation under the fostering care of Great
Britain, and our Sovereign Lady, Queen Victoria.
One of MacDonald’s primary concerns while forming the confederation was
American meddling, especially in the rebellious western parts of Canada. He
wrote to his minister of finance:
I cannot understand the desire of the Colonial Office, or of the Company,
to saddle the responsibility of the government on Canada just now. It would
so completely throw the game into the hands of the insurgents and the
Yankee wirepullers, who are to some extent influencing and directing the
movement from St. Paul that we cannot foresee the consequences.
You always have to watch out for those Yankee wirepullers. Can’t trust them
worth a damn.
No country will put themselves in a strategically loosing situation willfully. The UK is militarily very intertwined with the US : An abrupt divorce with the US isn’t possible. Just like Ukraine’s European allies are still buying Russian gaz, many NATO allies will try to play both side and the smaller Canada essentially being abandoned to itself. Easier to organize a blockade with the Atlantic Ocean as a boarder after Canada is attacked and mostly lost. I say this painfully as a Canadian. Hopefully we have time to make it too expensive to attack us.
That’s BS. You could have said the same thing during WWII. Countries stood up against fascism then, going against what was “better” for them. Countries will do it again if they have to. Canada sent troops over the ocean to fight on the front lines in WWII as cannon fodder before members of other armies - but we were tough as shit and savage. If we ever need to call in a favour - we will.
i'm going to take a counter argument here. the united states should annex canada and buy greenland.
why?
because the population of canada is more than california.
because there are 48 democratic senators.
because canada and denmark are both more left leaning than california is.
see where i'm going here? canada and greenland gives dems enough people to force through their agenda through the house and senate. and with enough backlash there's probably going to be a lot of gop senators who aren't going to be senators in 2026, probably enough to hit 69 which would be the minimum to remove trump from office. probably enough to impeach that little lickspittle vance too. and then enough votes for a democratic president (since the house would be run by democrats, 3rd in succession is the speaker of the house) to sign bills giving canada it's "independance" and return greenland to denmark.
if trump wants it that badly, then lets give it to him.
Chances are that if the lonnie and donnie show annex Canada that the idea of free and fair elections would be over. Or, if they were to somehow come out of such a scenario with free and fair elections, they do something to rig Canada so any progressive majority would be blunted (just like it is already) by the Electoral College.