I’m a millennial, just about. That means that, so far, I’ve lived through the threat of nuclear annihilation, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the genocides of the 1990s, the horror of 9/11, the financial crisis of 2008 and, of course, the coronavirus pandemic. To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, “stuff happened,” and while objectively the world is in a far better place now than in the early 1980s, I think this has likely contributed to my fatalistic view of life.
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The reason I raise this isn’t to solicit an outbreak of correspondence therapy. It’s in response to an email from Newsweek member Raymond Waller, who also identifies as an “elder millennial” and reacted to our report about the suspected case of pneumonic plague in Russia. “At least it’s just the plague,” he wrote.
He explained that it was necessary to establish whether it was untreatable or some novel variant before calibrating a response. Quite right (and I mean that sincerely). Let’s not overreact to murky indications of a potential pestilential apocalypse when the president is too unstable to remain in office. Yes, that brings us to the other Donald, again.
Following Trump’s endorsement of an Iranian attack on Los Angeles and San Diego, California Governor Gavin Newsom and other Democrats demanded that his Cabinet invoke the 25th Amendment. That report triggered a verdict on our Fairness Meter, and 31 percent of readers rated the article right-leaning. Our report about the Russian plague case, meanwhile, was rated left-leaning by 13 percent of readers, with not a single vote for right-wing bias.
I’m not sure what to make of this. Democrats want the president removed, and even reporting this as a partisan demand with a White House response is seen to favor Republicans, but, at the same time, the Black Death has apparently joined the Democratic Party. There is a virus spreading through America, but it’s not the Russian plague, Yersinia pestis. It’s Partisanus hystericus: Highly contagious, particularly in Washington, and resistant to reason.
The 25th Amendment is an interesting mechanism for removing a president. It was designed to address inability, not provide an ejector seat whenever the opposition finds a president’s remarks objectionable. That hasn’t stopped Democrats demanding its use against Trump. Nor did it stop Republicans demanding the same remedy against Joe Biden, particularly after his disastrous 2024 debate performance.
Republican Representative Chip Roy introduced a resolution urging Vice President Kamala Harris to invoke the amendment, and House Speaker Mike Johnson said the Cabinet should discuss it. When Biden abandoned his reelection campaign the following month, Missouri Senator Eric Schmitt wrote to Cabinet secretaries demanding his removal. His reasoning was that a man incapable of running for president was incapable of being president. Presumably that disqualifies the vast majority of Americans.
Now the parties have swapped places, but the constitutional diagnosis remains the same.
If everything a president does or says is treated as a five-alarm fire, we can’t calibrate a response. Let’s take Raymond Waller’s advice: slow down, assess and let nature (or elections) take their course before reaching for that ejector seat.