Update: Time to implement Section 4 and rid ourselves of Trump, at least virtually

U.S. Constitution, Amendment 25:
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.

This provision for removing a president who is unable to function will never be employed by the Republicans, as they will be loyal to a f***ing moron, as former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson labeled Trump, no matter what, in order to maintain power.  Despite his daily demonstrations of mindless incompetence and puerile malice, the Republican party grovels obscenely before their chosen master.  They chose not to remove him after an impeachment process over his  attempt to withhold aid from Ukraine unless they aided him in maligning the Bidens.  They chose to ignore the constant stream of lies and misinformation that come out of his mouth.  As TV actor and producer Larry David says, "The man has not one redeeming quality."

For those who refuse to join or be intimidated by Trump and his collaborators, they can mentally and culturally remove Trump from office and refuse to accept him as president.  Some protest that such an attitude would fragment the nation, but it could not be more irreconcilably divided than it is.  Removing the incompetent, the malice driven, and corrupt from office is provided for in the Constitution.  The GOP may refuse the formal actions, but knowledgeable citizens can do it virtually and cite the Constitutional process as their reason for so doing.  It may have an effect on the election, but the moral and intellectual rejection of Trump as a violator  of all that is just and decent in the premise of America is a priority matter.  As Al Franken recently wrote:  

 "We are left to proceed despite our president and find the leadership we need elsewhere. From governors and mayors and other civil servants. From health care professionals and scientists and economists. From community leaders and each other." 

The current actions of Trump's removal of the people whose jobs are to guard the integrity of government needs crucial attention.  They are a threat to the rule of law and "the most acute threats yet to our democracy."  Here is a list of the officials related to the impeachment proceedings who Trump has fired or demoted for doing their jobs to protect the government from malevolent dishonesty and its consequent corruption:

• Michael Atkinson, inspector general of the intelligence community
• Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman, National Security advisor
• Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman, for being a brother to Alexander
• Ambassador Gordon D. Sondland
• Ambassador William B. Taylor Jr.
• John C. Rood,  under secretary of defense
• Joseph Maguire, acting director of national intelligence
• Elaine McCusker,  Defense Department official
• Jessie K. Liu, prosecutor of Trump's friend Roger Stone
• Mick Mulvaney, acting White House chief of staff
• **Glenn Fine (April 7:  President Trump has removed the chairman of the federal panel Congress created to oversee his administration's management of the $2 trillion stimulus package.

He endorsed the firing of Capt. Brett E. Crozier who saw the slow response of the Navy in dealing with infected crew members on his aircraft carrier as a serious threat to his crew of 5,000.  Trump's chosen Department of Defense  collaborators anticipated Trump's displeasure at being exposed and claimed they lost trust in Captain Crozier because he appeared to panic.  In their explanations there is not one word of concern about the infected and exposed personnel, which includes Capt. Crozier.  Trump and his collaborators are a menace to humanity and the respect for decency as serious as the Nazis were.  And in  Covid-19, they have found their equivalent to the gas ovens.

If America has a chance of surviving, it depends on an effective resistance to Trump.  And that means not investing hope in an election to get rid of the virulent malignancy that grips the nation.  There is a hope among many  that Trump's behavior has sparked a desire for decency in some of those who have supported him.  Such a hope is giving the  Trump collaborators credit for more intelligence and  benignity than can be justified.

During the 2016 election campaign, Trump's character was on display.  Even many of the contending GOP candidates at the time said that Trump was unfit  for the office.  The grab-'em-by-the-pussy tapes came out, the payments to hush up mistresses were revealed, his six bankruptcies and fraudulent business dealings were on the public record, and still 62,985,106 people voted for him.  (65,853,625 voted for Hillary Clinton.)  Those facts  say much about what has happened to the people of America.

The current voter registrations for South Dakota indicate what the political trend is for the upcoming election:

• Republican   47.47 %
• Democrat      28.18  %
• Independent   23.76 %

People who think our constitutional republic will eventually right itself are unaware of the doubts that our founders had.  Ben Franklin, who was well acquainted with vagaries within the political constituency  expressed the basis for those doubts:

"This [the U.S. Constitution] is likely to be administered for a course of years and then end in despotism... when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other."

With Trump chosen as president, we have reached that point of corruption.  It is wrong to think of the Trump voters and supporters as neighbors who  merely have a different political viewpoint.  They are collaborators who endorse the immoral, the fraudulent, the malicious, the vicious, the utterly depraved.  By the leader they endorse, you shall know them.

A virtual application by the people of Section 4 will mean a confrontation with Trump's collaborators.  It will mean an open expression of despising what they represent.  It may well mean an underground-like resistance to the despotism they are a part of and have imposed on the country.  But as Franklin also warned, "Make yourself sheep and the wolves will eat you."